ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the role of the mission statement, which garners attention in connection with actual corporate management. The role of the mission statement was also emphasized in discussions on corporate governance that were actively conducted starting in the latter half of the 1990s. The conceptual framework based on the combination of the shareholder model and agency theory does not consider the role of the mission statement of the firm. As discussed in this chapter, given that the mission statement plays an important role at stakeholder-oriented firms, it is quite understandable that it does not affect the corporate performance of shareholder-centric U.S. and U.K. firms. The content of the mission statements varies widely, specifying, for example, long-term corporate goals, an employee code of conduct, competitive strategies, and business domains. Although the mass media and others have paid much attention to the mission statement, it has not been considered important in the traditional model of a firm in economics.
