Company mission statements and financial performance

Abstract

Is there a value-relevance associated with the disclosure of a corporate mission? In this study the mission orientation of 143 UK listed companies are analysed according to their orientation towards shareholders, stakeholders, customers and markets. Performance is then analysed by means of multiple regressions, allowing for beta, gearing, size and tax, as control variables, and taking account of mission orientation by means of a dummy variable in separate regressions. As to the accounting return on equity, dummy variables were not significant in the service sector. In the non-service sector the shareholder-orientated dummy was relevant to the accounting return on equity over three years, but the overall model was not very significant. However, three-year stock returns in the service sector are strongly influenced by whether company mission is shareholder orientated or not. In the non-service sector, six-year stock returns, and also excess returns, are influenced by whether a company is stakeholder orientated or not. Mission, according to customer orientation, did not affect performance. The overall conclusion is that there may be some value-relevance attached to mission orientation, although in this sample it was invariant to customer-orientation.