Rhetoric of Federal Mission Statements: Power, Values, and Audience

Mission statements are an important part of the strategic planning process. In the
federal government they are required for cabinet departments. Research about publicsector
mission statements has been limited, compared to research on private-sector
mission statements. Mission statements are important as artifacts of organizational
culture. They introduce and reinforce important organizational values and can be part of
a system of control. Within organizational culture and as part of a system of control,
mission statements may play a role in creating and maintaining certain power
relationships.
In this research I examine manifestations of organizational culture and power in
cabinet-level federal agencies as expressed in the content and rhetoric of their mission
statements. The research presented here examines the mission statements of federal departments and their affiliated agencies and offices. It seeks to identify the importance
of mission statements outside of their role in the strategic planning process. The
methodology used is Ethnographic Content Analysis (ECA). ECA allows for numerical
and descriptive data. Numerically, the researcher creates and counts occurrences of
relevant categories of analysis and then uses examples as descriptors.
This dissertation describes the content of mission statements and compares it to
features other researchers have identified as important for mission statements. In general,
the federal mission statements studied here do not include many of the elements that
previous research has identified as important for mission statements.
Second, the research examines the presence in mission statements of values in
general and, in particular, two specific groups of values: New Public Management and
Democratic Constitutional values. Both types of values are found in federal mission
statements, and the research shows that authors of mission statements are making a
choice between the New Public and Democratic Constitutional sets of values.
Next, this research looks for evidence of statements of power that are included
within the mission statements. Borrowing French and Raven's five bases of interpersonal
power for its rubric, this research finds evidence of all five bases of power in these
organizational mission statements.
Finally, this research looks for the intended audiences of the mission statements
and finds that it is often unclear.