Who are the Brazilian companies and what do they do? Analyses of mission statements

Abstract The research aims to delineate an identity profile of the 500 biggest Brazilian companies based on their mission statements. It is a qualitative study, using discourse and content analyses, and the theoretical framework is grounded in the field of strategic management. The study identified that the majority of Brazilian companies include their mission statement on their website. The analysis shows that 71,7% of the statements have the components recommended by the literature for a good mission statement - “goals,” “policies/values,” and “competitive arena” - and revels the predominance of an external focus (customers). The results show that the technique of elaborating and using mission statements is widespread in Brazil, but there is room for improvement in terms of contents. The article identifies new possibilities for research, such as a comparative analysis of performance among companies with different identity profiles, regarding their mission statements.