Mission Statements in the Leisure Industry: Are they Strategic?

Abstract

Organizations summarize their goals and objectives in mission statements and it is widely believed that mission statements significantly impact on strategy and organizational performance. Therefore crafting an effective and attractive mission statement is significant due to these strategic benefits. This study intends to extract the mission statements of twenty companies in the leisure industry in Sri Lanka and analyze the components using the Nine Points Scale approach of Fred R. David to determine how strategic they are. Thus this study is significant, to look at the appropriateness of the mission statement as a strategic tool in serving its intended duty. Therefore the findings would be useful to rethink, if they find their mission statements are poorly crafted. The companies possibly refine their competitive landscape by reformulating this strategic tool in the process of competitive positioning. The contents of mission statements of twenty companies were reviewed and ranked using David’s (1987) model that employs nine components in assessing a mission statement. The study found that the companies operating in leisure industry in Sri Lanka have crafted their mission statements including some of important components specified by Fred R. David. It mainly reflects that they are moderately strategic in formation of mission statements for their companies.