Lost in Translation

Abstract

Research on organizational mission and vision has primarily centered on the leader’s role in developing and implementing these while neglecting employee worldviews on mission and vision. Guided by the communicative constitution of organizations (CCO) perspective, this exploratory study acknowledges that employees, as well as leaders, contribute to the shared knowledge about what their organization stands for and where it is heading. Toward this end, we explored the extent to which employee constructions and official mission/vision statements were congruent and how they differed. Analysis revealed substantial lack of congruence between employees and their organizations. In general, employee and official versions shared less than half of the same themes. With respect to substance, official statements tended to be far more broad and complex than employee versions. These differences suggest problems with the inclusion of employee worldviews into higher level organizational texts.