Institutional mission effectiveness on employees’ commitment in the Central African Union Mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church

Abstract

The drafting and adoption of a mission statement by both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations have become widespread in the corporate world. An effective mission statement is crucial to driving the organization’s goal and is a motivational tool to bring about employees’ commitment within an organization. Nevertheless, the institutional mission is often adopted but then forgotten by both managers and personnel. Consequently, the individuals within the organizations know very little about the mission statement and how it can affect employees’ commitment. More so, in the context of faith-based institutions, there is a dearth of research focusing on the effectiveness and impact of mission statements on employees. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the effect of institutional mission statement effectiveness in light of its relevance, quality, and management’s ability to communicate the mission statement to employees within the Central African Union Mission of Seventh –day Adventist church. The present study also determined the relationship between institutional mission statements and employee commitment. A self-designed questionnaire was used to collect data from 77 respondents. The study revealed a significant relationship between institutional mission statement relevance, quality communication, and employees’ commitment. The findings show that the mission statement is relevant (mean = 3.57; SD = .49) and of high quality (mean = 3.18; SD = .53). However, the respondents also indicated that the mission statement is not communicated as fully as it should to the stakeholders (mean = 2.89; SD = .52). The finding show that the employees have a high level of commitment to their organization with a mean of 3.36 and a standard deviation of 0.50. Pearson correlation analysis was performed and the result indicated a moderate but significant correlation between relevance and commitment (r=.45,p<0.01); quality and commitment (r=.49,p<0.01); communication and commitment (r=.47,p<0.01). The results from the regression analysis showed that relevance of the mission statement has an effect on employees’ commitment, with an adjusted R square = .20; F (1, 75) = 20.050, p < 0.05. The results also show that the quality of the mission statement has an effect on the employees’ commitment: adjusted R square is 0.235, F (1, 75) = 24.344, p < 0.05. Third, there is a statistically significant effect of communication of the mission statement on the employees’ commitment. The results show an adjusted R-square is 0.228, F (1, 75) = 22.163, p < 0.05. The findings were used as a basis to propose practical strategies to the Seventh-day Adventist church leaders in the Central African Union Mission on how to use the mission statement to promote employees’ commitment.