Mission Statements and the Sustainability Communication

Abstract

Mission statements are crucial corporate communicating tools and have been considered an instrument for the strategic management process. A mission statement has become an important element for managing the organization-stakeholder relationship: such instrument enables companies to more effectively communicate the relevance of each stakeholder in their strategic orientation. The present paper is aimed at investigating the relationship between mission statements and corporate social responsibility. In particular, on the basis on an in-depth study on 193 European firms, we have analyzed if there is really a link between the content of a mission statement related to stakeholders and the CSR and environmental performance of a firm.