Place Building and Mission Statements: A Match or Misfit?

The purpose of this study was to investigate possible relationships between organizational Mission Statements (MS) and Pace Building (PB). The basic question addressed in the study was do corporate MS statements contain a linkage to their possible place building strategies. Do the linkages suggest a match, a misfit, or is the linkage missing? Place building focuses on how an organization values the dimensions of place: nature, social relationships, material environment, ethics, and economic relationships in relation to the places in which they are located. We examined the MS from 41 businesses selected among a group of fortune 500 firms to determine if place building attributes were evident. Qualitative document analysis was employed to investigate the possible linkage between mission statements and the concepts of the place building model. The findings of the study suggest that corporate mission statements most often fail to address the strategies associated with organizational place building. These findings raise important questions for discussion regarding the future of organizations and their relationship to place building in the community: how is corporate space used in the community, what is the condition of the space, and what is the impact of organizational place on the community resources. The study concludes that the strategy of addressing place/community relations within corporate mission statements can provide a useful way forward in addressing the foregoing questions.