Defining and Communicating an Organization's Mission: Strategies and Methods - Essay Sample

Introduction

In the last decades, many companies have carried out an exercise of definition and communication of a mission. The mission is presented and defended by numerous management authors as a fundamental tool for the development and proper functioning of any organization (Bastons & Benguria, 2018). It is difficult to find a text about strategic planning that does not refer to the need to have a mission statement. To efficiently implement a mission, abundant existing literature and numerous methodologies have been proposed by various authors. Companies also develop strategies and resources meant to make their missions succeed (Bastons & Benguria, 2018). An organisation's mission statement is the expression which gives identity. It becomes the definition of the company and its operation. The business mission is the only part of an entire business strategy, which is visible to all members of the business ecosystem: customers, employees, suppliers, government, competition, among others. Generally, this is expressed in a fully readable and understandable paragraph whose main objective is to make known the aspiration of the company in the short term. According to the founder of the Ashridge Mission Model, Andrew Campbell, the company's mission statement has a bigger impact on organizations as it provides a sense of direction, clarity in thinking and unity which might not exist. This at times is misleading and may lead to cynicism.

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The model is modified in a way to evaluate the company's mission and measure the impression of the mission statement. The model is made up of two schools, the strategic and the cultural. In the strategic school, the mission is a link to the developmental strategy of the company in its operations. In the cultural school, the mission statement is perceived as formulae that enhance efficient communication between the employees of a given company. In the case study for a titter, its mission aims at empowering the user to express their feelings and thoughts without any obstacles. From the guidance offered by the Ashridge mission model, Twitter has been in a position to emerge one of the highest internet revenue earners. By sharing its information, the company has built a link between people and the rest of the world, reaching a large audience globally (Twitter, 2016). Twitter's sense of mission has helped in embracing the fundamentals of a mission and discus its aspects with team members. To keep up with the emerging changes in the internet world, twitter has been able to develop new strategies while still analyzing the existing mission.

The Ashridge Sense of Mission Model

The model comprises four critical components namely, purpose, strategy, standards, and values. Twitter follows the Ashridge Sense of Mission Model.

Purpose of the Organization

Any business organization considers giving the purpose of its operations. The purpose of the organization outlines the beneficiaries of the company and the reason to engage in business. Business organizations with the right purpose will have a positive impact on the company by creating wealth to the shareholders by satisfying their needs. Twitter company has the purpose to make it possible for people to communicate freely without hindrances. Twitter is a major technology company that has shown its significance even in major social and political issues. For instance, twitter played a critical role in the US political during the political campaigns which played a significant role in the election results. Major political protests like the ones witnessed in Egypt and Algeria in the year 2011 also were influenced by the ability of twitter giving its users a platform to express themselves (Twitter, 2015). Even with its positive impact on society, Twitter aims at satisfying all the needs of its users by expanding its user capacity to over a billion users. Through the expansion, the company would be in a capacity to earn more than $1billion in its net income. The company aimed at providing a platform for small scale entrepreneurs to put their businesses on the global map at a lower budget. The company continues to play a critical role in politics and business improvement, making it one of the valuable companies in terms of value.

The Strategy of The Company

The strategy of any company is to ensure that they attain success. Companies with good operating strategies consider all the factors that may have an impact on their success including competition from similar organisations. Twitter's strategy was to develop a competitive ability against social media companies that offer similar or almost the same services. The company considered its potential to dominate the technology market platform. To have a large number of users, twitter used the strategy of developing the friend's invitation tool to people with twitter accounts. Many businesses use the Twitter platform to market their products and services, especially for small business organisations. For bigger businesses, Twitter used the strategy of allowing managers to include employee groups. Through the strategy, the company was able to grow in terms of users and activities. It is de o this growth that twitter has attracted more businesses and social groups in campaigns.

Company Values

Company values are a set of social standards and beliefs which make up the company's culture, providing its operational patterns. The values of a company are a significant aspect that determines the success of any given business. Clients consider a company's values as it determines the level of loyalty. Through the boundaries and restrictions applied by Twitter, the company promotes values. The company restricts users from using abusive language as well as protecting trademarks through copyright protection. Twitter applies the intellectual property program which aims at supervising and prosecution on trademarks and copyrights. The company maintains confidentiality between its employees and the third parties by discouraging access to private publications and confidential information through remedy technology. Government regulations also make the company liable to federal laws involving business issues. Twitter has the power to suspend users who fail to follow the restrictions, hence encourages ethical values.

Organizational Standards

Behavioural standards are rules put into place to guide people on the daily operations of an organization. Some of the rules set are the communication structure, business operation procedures and the employees' code of conduct. Twitter maintains good behavioural standards amongst its stakeholders. The company maintains these standards by providing guidelines to new users. The users are issued with terms and conditions which they need to agree to before signing up. The terms act as guidelines to the concerned stakeholders, hence maintaining good behavioural standards in its business operations.

Conclusion

Companies' mission statements play a critical role and hence should be based on the translation of minimum requirements. Twitter's mission statement has enabled it to expand globally compared to other social media platforms. The company has applied the Ashridge Sense of Mission Model in its operations making it a favourite to many interested stakeholders. The twitter mission statement gives the purpose of its operations, giving the stakeholders a reason to be part of the company. It clearly outlines its urge to satisfy the people's needs through its campaign to allow people to communicate freely.

The strategy applied by business organizations matters as it is the success determiner. Twitter's competitive ability has given it significant growth over the years. Its growth continues to attract even more users encouraging business operations across the globe. Twitter has been able to maintain its values and those of the users through giving guidelines and terms of use. The organization has been able to maintain good behavioural standards as it clearly outlines the procedures to be followed by users. This indicates that the company has a strong sense of mission.

Question 2

Strategic Decision-Making Theory

For a company to maintain its competitive ability, it is critical to apply the right strategy while making important decisions. Strategic decisions are key factors in the long-term excellence of any given business organisation. They include the actions that are put in place to achieve an organisational change. Also, strategic decisions help the organisation involved in embracing both financial and non-financial commitments. Strategic decisions are the ones that link between the current and future achievements of the organisation. Strategic decisions involve the company's operating environment, including the resources and how people relate in the course of operation. Business organisations can either apply the deliberate or the emergent strategies in their operations as indicated in the Porter's and Mintzberg's theories. Deliberate strategy places emphasis on achieving its goals. The emergent strategy involves developing ideas over time to accommodate the emerging changes. It provides a set of ideas and actions that develop over time, that were not initially intended. The new plans become consistent over time. Through the application of the emergent strategy, companies can identify what works in practice.

The application of the theories of strategic decision making in the running of organizations has played a critical role in the success of organizations. The success of a company requires them to undertake efficient analysis and management of the complexity that surrounds making strategies. The application of strategic decision making by Twitter makes it one of the giant technology companies. They have gradually expanded the number of users subsequently increasing sales. Throughout its evolution since the year 2006, Twitter has always involved all the partners and stakeholders in making decisions (Ireland, Hoskisson, & Hitt, 2013). This becomes one of the company's strength as, through this, the opinions of all the concerned parties are involved without discrimination of their classes or creed. In the year 2006, when the company went by the name Odeo, one of the partners, Jack Dorsey suggested the revamp of the then-current strategy after the company failed to pick momentum in terms of revenue earning (Ireland et al., 2013).

Emergent Strategy

Mintzberg's General Model of the Strategic Decision Process consists of three faces including the identification, developmental and selection face. According to the theory, the identification phase involves identification and recognition of the emerging ideas, crisis or problems that may arise both from outside and inside the organisation. Through the recognition, the decision activity is invoked. The reaction to the arising issues, which involves developing alternatives is done in the developmental phase. In the final phase, the alternatives are narrowed down to one after closely analysing the ones identified in the second stage. After identifying the best from the feasible options, then it is ratified to action. Twitter has applied the theory in its operation severally, solving major operational challenges. After facing poor prospects in 2006 under the Odeo company, they had developed new alternatives to remain relevant in the technology industry (Ireland et al., 2013). They developed several alternatives that could save the situation. They later narrowed them to one by embracing an idea developed by one of the partners.

Twitter has benefitted from the theories of SDM, as they perceive the decision as a commitment towards a certain set of actions. When members of the organisation came up with a decision, it is meant to make changes necessary to overcome the challenge at hand....