governance then regulation and process will dominate the enterprise.
The mission will become lost in the day-to-day routines of compliance
to the regulations. Bureaucracies are classic examples of this type of
organisation, where the original mission of the organisation is lost in
the day-to-day paperwork and strict regulations that have to be
adhered to at all times.
● Non-consensual mission: The opposite of the previous situation is where
external stakeholders, that hold passionate ideological views, dom-
inate the strategic process. When this occurs it can become difficult to
develop a mission statement that is acceptable to the different stake-
holder groups alternatively the mission becomes a highly political one.
One example is of state-owned industries that needed to shed produc-
tion capacity and jobs in order to become competitive. These industries
suffered because stakeholder groups, such as governments, could not
support the organisation’s strategic decisions because of their own
political/ideological position. European governments and unions cur-
rently feel unable to support the closure of car plants even though there
is clear overcapacity and therefore lack of profitability in the industry.
Strategic intent 139Passionate
supportNon-
consensual
supportDissipated
missionFaint
supportMissionFigure 7.2
Level of adoption of
a mission statement
(Source: Adapted
from Johnson and
Scholes, 1999)