Bridging Strategic Management Tools and Employee Motivation : A qualitative study of how an organization's mission & vision influence the motivation of its employees

Abstract: The mission and vision of companies have been gaining a lot of attention both within the scholarly and business context. A lot of time and money is being invested to develop and implement mission and vision statements and business students all over the world are taught these concepts. However, literature on how mission and vision actually influence employees is limited and inconsistent. Therefore, this thesis explores how mission and vision influence employees’ work motivation. The study follows an inductive approach and has a qualitative nature. In order to build a basis for the research, various literatures on mission and vision and motivational theories are reviewed. Data was collected by the conduction of twelve interviews with employees in different job positions. The semi structured character of the interviews implied the use of templates to analyze the data. Thereby, categories and codes were developed and relationships between the individual motivation and the influence of mission and vision were identified. The results show that the influence of mission and vision cannot be generalized but is highly dependent on individual aspects. Intrinsically motivated employees are positively influenced by their company’s mission and vision. Hence, mission and vision can push intrinsic motivation. On the other hand, the motivating influence of a mission and vision is rather low on extrinsically motivated employees. Interestingly, the findings also show that mission and vision play a greater role for people in higher positions (top & middle managers). Front line employees are rather extrinsically motivated and less dedicated to their company’s mission and vision. The results contribute to existing literature by encouraging a more differentiated approach for dealing with the topic in taking the individual component into consideration. Furthermore, the findings bear potential for employers to apply and communicate their mission and vision more purposefully to motivate employees.