Assessing the internalization of the mission

Аннотация

Purpose – Many companies have a mission statement that they disseminate through corporate communication to stakeholders and particularly to employees. However, the communication action alone does not ensure that employees take true “ownership” of the mission. Having a mission and internalizing that mission are quite different. The purpose of this paper is to provide a scale to assess the internalization of the mission (IM). Additionally, the authors explore the relationship between IM and organizational alignment. Design/methodology/approach – Based on previous research on mission internalization, the authors test the conditions necessary for reaching true mission internalization. A first sample of 132 managers from two companies was used for an exploratory analysis: thereafter, a second universal sample of 400 people was used to confirm the scale. Structural Equation Modeling was used to analyze the dimensions deployed in the latent IM construct. This construct has been examined as a second-order factor. A multi-group analysis across these two companies provides nomological validation of the IM scale