Mission Statements, Official Goal Statements and Organizational Legitimacy - Coursework Example

Mission statements, official goal statements and organizational legitimacy [Name] [Professor Name] [Course] [Date] Abstracts: This paper is particularly interested in showing how mission statements and official goal statements are used to strategically and systematically distort organizational communication to provide organizations with genuine legitimacy. The central argument is that mission statements and official goal statements provide organizations with genuine legitimacy. In order to support the thesis statement, this paper discusses the corporate conceptions of mission statement using different theories such as the Theory of Communicative Action. Key Concepts: mission statement, organizational legitimacy, genuine legitimacy, official goal statements Discuss whether you think mission statements and official goal statements provide organizations with genuine legitimacy? Introduction Mission statements are communicative tools that provide organizations with strategic focus and managerial direction. In addition, the organizational goals and direction or sense of purpose that are expressed by mission statements and official goal statements give organizations identity. This sense of identity can be termed as having a sense of legitimacy. On the other hand, legitimacy can be defined as the quality of being genuine or valid. Ashford and Gibbs (1990, p.177) provide a more detailed description of legitimacy as a social judgment as a “social judgment that is accorded to an organization” by the public or its employees. Corporate mission statements and official goal statements are two terms largely used in strategic management as critical tools of managerial practice. This is because a mission statement helps an organization on issues of immediate concern hence showing the focus of an organization to the public. According to Vizeu & Matitz (2012), a mission statement is a critical management tool because it gives an organization and its activities a sense of direction. A body of literature has illustrated that mission statement can effectively build and communicate a desirable image of an organization. Additionally, it can help motivate employees and improve their performance. Given the current demand for organizations to adopt an image that is desirable to the public, the building a corporate image using corporate mission statement and official goal statements can be argued as giving the organizations a moral purpose that convinces the society that the organization has the quality of being genuine and operating for a genuine purpose (Daft 2009, p.6). Indeed, from this perspective, it is evident that mission statements and official goal statements provide organizations with genuine legitimacy. Although mission statements draw attention to varying and often conflicting aspects on the use of the concept, a body of theorists has found a consensus on the need to define the concept of mission statement (William 2008, p.98). Towards this end, since mission statement is closely associated with the role of providing direction and focus to an organization, it can be strongly argued that is an influencing tool and as a source of inspiration. Mission statement and goal statements are hence powerful communicative tools used by an organization for the purpose of manipulating social perceptions on its legitimacy (Duane & Hitt 2002, p.34). Using the Theory of Communicative Action as proposed by Habermas (1985, p.101), the process of manipulating the meanings can be clarified. In the same breath, the theory can help outline the genuine legitimacy of mission statements and official goal statements. According to the theory, an organization can deliberately utilize three ontological dimensions of legitimacy claims during the communicative interactions. The three include; the truth claim, which postulates that communicative statements such as the mission statement informs of an organization’s sensible reality or objective. Next is the legitimacy claim, which hypothesizes that the communicative statement is inherently aligned to values that are socially accepted. Forth, the sincerity claim presupposes that the communicative statement indicates the organization’s intention in a manner that reflects its interior state (Vizeu & Matitz 2012). Hence in the context of communicating its goals, objectives and ulterior motives to the public, mission statement as a communicative tool can induce a genuine idea through the statement. In some instances, organizations can relay a false image to the public. Forrester (1983, p.238) argues that organizations can in this way generate communicative distortions by manipulating the public through omission of some information or by confusing the public through the use of ambiguous statements. From the above illustration, it can be argued that mission statements and official goal statements provide organizations with some degree of genuine legitimacy. Conversely, mission statements are a form of communicative distortion that organizations can use to manipulate the trust of the public by incorporating false symbolic decisions, false promises to build a false image to the public (Duane & Hitt 2002, p.34). Through the false claim, they appeal to the public since they are portrayed as capable of producing the claimed results to the benefit of the public while hiding their ulterior private interests. Towards this end, the organizations are short of being genuine or providing genuine legitimacy. This argument is supported by the Critical Theory of Habermas (1983, p.89-102; Bolton 2005, p.5), which suggests that organizational communication tools such as the mission statements and goal statements should be understood as structured processes designed to manipulate meanings. Organizations have intentionally used rhetoric to justify their genuine legitimacy. To justify their actions, interests or results, Vizeu and Matitz (2012) point out that an organization can strategically use mission statements to convey their systematically distorted messages as a persuasive mechanism. Within this line of argument, rhetoric noted in organization’s mission statement or official goal statement can be termed as an instrument of communicative distortion used deliberately with the purpose of persuading the public. Conversely, the rhetoric is a practice of is a means of building legitimacy as it is culturally supported by culturally legitimate or valid rules or values and which are simultaneously manipulated. Within this context, by considering the significance of rhetoric in building organizational legitimacy, it can be suggested that the systematically distorted mission statements and official goal statements are directed towards providing the organization with genuine legitimacy (Suddaby & Greenwood 2005, p.35-37). Organizational identity is generally viewed as a factor that provides an organization with distinctiveness. Conversely, it provides the stakeholders with a sense of identification with the organization. Mission statements support these two identities since they effectively disclose the difference or uniqueness of a business organization from the competitors (Vizeu & Matitz 2013). On the other hand, a mission statement may also reconcile the organization with its stakeholders. Towards this end, the organizational sense of purpose or uniqueness communicated through the mission statement can help the organization to construct multiple relationships with its external and internal stakeholders. For that reason, mission statements as communicative tools express the self-image constructed by the management (HRM) to influence the level in which different stakeholders are engaged with the organization. Based on this argument, it is discernible that mission statements and official goal statements can indeed provide the organization with a level of genuine legitimacy. Managing legitimacy ensures that an organization benefits from persistent inflow of customers, labour or capital. With regard to defining genuine legitimacy, it is critical to examine the three different types of legitimacy. The three include moral, pragmatic and cognitive legitimacy. For the purpose of this paper, pragmatic legitimacy is used since it relates to the process of exchanging interdependencies or benefits between the organization and the society, people or stakeholders. Several researchers have viewed legitimacy as a generalized assumption or perception that make the actions of an organization desirable, appropriate or proper (Suchman 1995, p. 574). Tilling (2004, p.5) explains legitimacy as the status that an organization gets by underpinning processes. Management theorists on the other hand view legitimacy as an operationally elusive resource that managers can manipulate through language, signs and symbols incorporated in the mission statements or official goal statements (Tilling 2004, p.5). The language, signs and symbols manipulated by organizations are generally communicated through mission statements and official goal statements. Theorists such as Bolton (1991, p.8-12) however view legitimacy as a resource that organizations need to operate and where external influences contribute to building and maintaining cultural beliefs that show how an organization should be run, evaluated or understood. These resources are basically the mission statements and the official goal statements. Both views can however be incorporated in supporting the argument that mission statements and official goal statements provide organizations with a level of genuine legitimacy. Legitimacy is therefore “supported by legitimizing the justification” process by the corporation to the public, the society of stakeholders (Vizeu & Matitz 2012). The use of mission statement as an organizational tool provides organizations with an appropriate message depending on the organization’s socially decodable meaning (Smith n.d.). The significance of this meaning is its capacity to create compelling sense of purpose that is integrated by different stakeholders (such as the employees or the public) to whom the statement is addressed. Due to this, corporate mission statement can serve as a tool that provides an organization with some level of legitimacy. At minimum, mission statement describes the uniqueness of an organization and its aspiration. The information provides the stakeholders with valuable insight about the organization. Consequently, mission statement suitably reflects general indicators of an organization’s existing, expected outcomes or intended actions (Vizeu & Matitz 2013). It can further be argued that mission statements and official goal statements provide organizations with considerable level of legitimacy. This is because they enable organizations to communicate their diverse operations, objectives, actions and aspirations. Vizeu and Matitz (2012) however argue that there is a knowledge gap concerning the type of legitimacy related to good diversity policies. Concerning diversity, previous research literature has postulated that legitimacy is a motivation for revealing information by human resource management to the public or stakeholders through annual reports (Adams, Coutts and Harte 1995, p.88). Singh and Point (2009, p.23-14) further suggest that organizations that have good diversity statements are likely to promote legitimacy and corporate image. There is a growing assumption by several theorists that by having such policies, legitimacy of the organizations are attracted without detailing what type or how (Vizeu & Matitz, 2012). Within this context, if organizations are unaware of the types of legitimacies attracted by their diversity statements, then the messages they communicate may be viewed as being descriptive instead of communicating the desired meaning. On a different perspective, when organizations set out codes of ethics and communicate them internally to provide legitimacy, they make known the information about the justification for their actions both to the external and internal stakeholders. A great extent of this information is passed through language and specifically through texts which the organization can use as a strategic resource. As mentioned earlier, this resource is basically in terms of mission statements and official goal statements (Hardy, C, Palmer, I & Phillips, N 2000, p.1231). Based on this argument, it can indeed be conclude that mission statements and official goal statements provide organizations with genuine legitimacy. Conclusion This paper takes a critical stance towards the role of mission statements and official goal statements in providing organizations with genuine legitimacy. The paper concludes that mission statement is a communicative tool with communicative implications since they provide organizations with strategic focus and managerial direction. To support the thesis statement, several theories such as the Theory of Communicative Action are used to show how organizations can use mission statements to show their true nature or manipulate social perceptions and hide their ulterior motives or damaging actions. This paper further argues that the strategic focus, sense of direction or sense of purpose expressed by corporate mission statements and official goal statements give organizations a sense of identity. Ultimately, this sense of identity provides organizations with a sense of being genuine, real or a sense of legitimacy. Since legitimacy is a social judgment that is accorded to an organization by the public or its employees, managing legitimacy provides an organization with persistent inflow of customers, labour or capital. 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Vizeu, F & Matitz, Q 2013, 'Organizational sacralization and discursive use of corporate mission statements,' Brazil Administrative Review, Vol. 10 No. 2, viewed 27 July 2013, http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1807-76922013000200005&script=sci_arttext Read More