n this Milestone Activity, you will practice writing mission and vision statements for a company to demonstrate CLO1. The statements drafted here will be integrated into the portfolio within the Final Assessment Project, and it is recommended that they are revised based on instructor feedback and student learning throughout the course before submission of the Final Assessment Project.
What do I want you to do?
Choose a company to analyze. It is usually easiest to work with a major corporation because their information is more likely publicly available and to choose one that is so interesting to you that you would want to continue analyzing it throughout the semester.
Locate and critique the company’s mission and vision statements.
Write a narrative about the company’s current operations and a proposed, idealized future as a draft.
Condense those narratives into simple mission and vision statements for the company you chose.
Why do I want you to do it?
Businesses use these documents as the foundation for a strategic plan and business model. So, strategic management often begins with these guides. Gaining experience working with and creating these documents will help you to gain understanding when you are managing strategy or evaluating business performance in the future.
How do I want you to do it?
What format(s) should the assessment be in? The company’s current statements, critiques you may have, and narratives you create are only used for drafting. You can submit your mission and vision statements as a single Word document with each portion clearly labeled, no longer than a page.
What tools or resources might be needed/useful?To find a company’s mission and vision statements is not always easy. There are several methods to try:Find the company’s corporate website. This page houses the details of company information and is sometimes different than the web page that customers use to shop. In the simplest cases, it is usually labeled the “About Us” page, “Corporate Information,” or “Investor Relations.” These types of pages might have the mission, vision, values, purpose, company history, corporate ethics, and other company documents, such as annual reports.
Another method is to try to contact the company. If you explain that you are a student studying the company, they may be willing to share their statements. You can try visiting a local store, calling, or emailing a corporate contact.
You can try to explore the company’s annual tax filings. The SEC EDGAR database houses documents that publicly traded companies must file every year by law. Sometimes, those documents list the mission statement.
It is not recommended that you use a simple web search to locate these documents because this method can produce wrong documents, outdated documents, and even cheat websites that could get you in academic trouble. Some common websites that result include comparably.com, panmore.com, mission-statement.com, bstrategyhub.com, and others. These websites are often created to look reasonable, but their information is not reliable. Some are merely personal blogs that have not been properly peer-reviewed. Some of them also are a front for an essay writing service (pay them to write your assignment for you), which would be an academic violation (e.g., Fern Fort University, Study Moose, etc.). While it is best to avoid these websites, if they are a last resort, you might return to contacting someone at the company and asking if the statements posted on these websites are correct and still in use. At least then, you receive verification and can cite the company rather than these noncredible websites to stay out of trouble.
You might also consider researching competitor’s missions and visions or statements from companies that you admire. They might give you further inspiration about elements to include in yours.
Review Kennedy et al. (2020) Section 2.2: Vision, Mission, and Goals.
Review the course document “Tips for Writing Mission and Vision Statements.”
What to include in your submission
Your assignment submission should include:
The mission statement you write
The vision statement you write
A brief narrative and rationale for the proposed mission and vision statements you write
APA 7 citations for any sources from which you have copied information.