The Relationship Between Stakeholder Communication in MissionStatements and Shareholder Value

Abstract

Which stakeholders are addressed in mission statements, and what is conveyed to them? Is stakeholder communication related to shareholder value? These questions were explored in a computer-aided textual analysis of 352 Fortune 500 firm mission statements. The missions were classified according to their attentiveness to five primary stakeholders, and attentiveness was compared to shareholder value as operationalized by market value-added (MVA). MVA was associated with employee and shareholder attentiveness across the sample, and with societal and customer stakeholders in two of ten industry sectors, suggesting that stakeholder communication may be related to competitive advantage and shareholder value through stakeholder trust.