? Mission Statements ?

Mission statements: a thematic analysis of rhetoric across institutional type
Journal of Higher Education, May-June, 2006 by Christopher C. Morphew, Matthew Hartley
..They're Everywhere! They're Everywhere!
I have been roped into a council that now says it needs us to have a mission statement
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb172/is_3_77/ai_n29264175/

Gazette readers write
Mission statements are ubiquitous in higher education. Accreditation agencies demand them, strategic planning is predicated on their formulation, and virtually every college and university has one available for review. Moreover, higher education institutions are constantly revisiting and revising their mission statements: as recently as the mid-1990s, the Association of American Colleges (1994), found that fully 80% of all colleges and universities were making major revisions in their mission statements, goals, curricula, and general education courses. It would seem that not having a mission statement begs the very legitimacy of a college or university. Of course, the crafting (and re-crafting) of such documents consumes considerable institutional resources, particularly that most precious resource: time. So, why bother? Some would argue that articulating a shared purpose is a requisite first step on the road to organizational success. Others are far less sanguine about such efforts and view them as rhetorical pyrotechnics--pretty to look at perhaps, but of little structural consequence. The purpose of this study is to begin an exploration of these hypotheses by first attempting to understand what institutions actually say in their missions and by exploring the relationship between these rhetorical elements and institutional type.

Mission Statements: Half-Full or Half-Empty?

A furor over mission statements swept over corporate America nearly three decades ago (Drucker, 1973; Peters and Waterman, 1982). As is the case with other management trends, such ideas inevitably--and belatedly--found their way into the academy (Birnbaum, 2000). Keller (1983), for example, in his seminal book on strategic planning, argues that mission statements are a necessary part of an institution's strategic planning process. Others point to the value of mission statements in expressing a "vision" for the institution's future (Lenning & Micek, 1976; Schwerin, 1980; Carruthers & Lott, 1981; Martin, 1985; Nanus, 1992). Much of the early research on the utility of mission statements is limited because, as Davies (1986) notes, it fails to recognize "the unexamined presuppositions upon which they are grounded" (p. 85). In short, the researchers take as gospel the notion that such statements are, to quote Martha Stewart, "a good thing" and that their assertions are clothed with threadbare anecdotal evidence.

More recent research on postsecondary mission statements has produced a more nuanced understanding of the role that ideology and purpose play in organizational life. This literature suggests that the process of articulating an institution's mission has two potential benefits. First, it is instructional. A clear mission helps organizational members distinguish between activities that conform to institutional imperatives and those that do not. Second, a shared sense of purpose has the capacity to inspire and motivate those within an institution and to communicate its characteristics, values, and history to key external constituents (Drucker, 1973; Keller, 1983; Parekh, 1977; Smith, 1979; Hartley, 2002). Researchers have also described the experiences of (typically small) institutions whose discussions about institutional priorities and future direction, codified in mission statements, have guided decision making around key issues such as program creation or termination. The mission statement therefore is rightly understood as an artifact of a broader institutional discussion about its purpose.

Of course, other practitioners and scholars see the mission statement glass as half-empty. They view mission statements as a collection of stock phrases that are either excessively vague or unrealistically aspirational or both. From this perspective, mission statements ultimately fail to follow through on or convey any noteworthy sense of an institution's current identity (Davies, 1986; Chait, 1979; Delucchi, 1997). A majority of those who have conducted what little empirical analysis exists of college and university mission statements reside squarely in this camp. They argue that mission statements, rather than providing focus to colleges and universities, offer precisely the opposite. Instead of direction and constraint, college and university mission statements provide a means to an uncertain end. More specifically, the language in mission statements is intended to evoke an all-purpose purpose. Or, as Gordon Davies (1986) puts it, mission statements tend to demonstrate "The importance of being general." In other words, rather than surfacing values that might guide everyday decision making, colleges and universities fashion mission statements that maximize institutional flexibility. They communicate that nothing is beyond the reach of the organization in question. In doing so, they ignore institutional limitations and sidestep any effort at prioritizing current activities or future initiatives.

Even so, sociologists that use institutional theory to explain organizational behavior (e.g., Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Meyer, Deal and Scott, 1981) would argue that an "all-purpose" mission statement nevertheless fulfills an important function for a college or university. From this point of view, the utility and general nature of mission statements go hand in hand. Mission statements are normative--they exist because they are expected to exist, much the same way that students expect colleges and universities to award credit in the form of hours and persons inside and outside higher education expect college campuses to include "quads," well-landscaped gardens, and football stadiums. Institutional theorists point to organizational artifacts like mission statements and knowingly describe them as ritualistic or mythological. From this point of view, mission statements are certainly important but not for the direction they provide. Rather, they serve a legitimating function. Mission statements are valuable because they--and the elements within them--show that the organization in question understands the "rules of the game." And, one of the rules of the higher education game is that you have to have a mission statement if you want to be considered a legitimate college or university by, among others, accrediting agencies and board members.

there is 10 more pages of this
more interesting commentary
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2006/11/parish-mission-statements/