Hillshade Phenomenon—The delayed impact of corporate mission drift on society
2022 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE credits
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
Background:
The research focus of "Mission Drift" has always been social enterprises, especially "MFIs" (Micro-Financial Institutions). However, as the times change, the public is increasingly concerned about how the commercial enterprises align with their mission statement. This leads people to find that, with the increase in the performance of commercial enterprises, choosing performance or choosing to maintain the mission has become a choice that commercial enterprises cannot ignore. It is also emerging that companies rely on positive mission statements to gain social favor and interests. However, the actual corporate behavior is entirely inconsistent with the mission.
Purpose:
While some theoretical studies on corporate mission drift, these studies tend to lean more towards social enterprise. However, with the development of the business environment, more and more business enterprises will issue a positive mission statement at the beginning of their birth. Moreover, their business behavior will gradually deviate from the mission as the performance progresses. Behaviors such as overextending and performance exaggeration ensued, resulting in a rather severe and lagging negative impact on society. This study aims to understand the path of the impact of these companies on consumers when they experience mission drift.
Method:
This study takes China's food delivery and online micro-loan industries, which have entered the stage of corporate mission drift, as an example. Based on the logistic regression model, this paper will analyze the influencing factors on consumers of the two business enterprises and the path to intervene in consumer behavior through these influencing factors. According to the existing consumer behavior and opinions, a large number of statistical data can be used to explain the current situation and understand the behavior logic after the enterprise mission drift. The data source for this study was an anonymous questionnaire.
Conclusion:
This study shows that after mission drift, commercial enterprises will exhibit similar service groups and business goals deviation characteristics as social enterprises, focusing on serving consumers who can bring more benefits or deviate from the enterprise's service goals. Achieving this is to gain business expansion by interfering with consumers' judgments through consumer-related influence factors. Ultimately, overgrowth harms society. For example, the food delivery industry was founded on a mission to meet the dining needs of overtime workers and other consumers who did not have time to cook. However, with the continuous development of enterprises and user mining, more and more consumers give up cooking and rely on the Food delivery service for each meal, which brings health risks to many young people (This paper studies the relationship between Food Delivery Service and BMI of college students). The situation is the same in the Online Micro-loan industry. The company that initially aimed to simplify the micro-loan application process for eligible applicants has attracted tens of millions of students to apply for loans, becoming the initiator of excessive debt among young people. These things ultimately point to the fact that today’s commercial enterprises should, like social enterprises, find a balance between their development and users, the industry, and society when they issue a “mission statement,” rather than letting go of the pursuit of growth.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2022.
Keywords [en]
Mission drift; Social impact; Enterprise Development; Consumers influence.
National Category
Business Administration
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-56969ISRN: JU-IHH-FÖA-2-20221640OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hj-56969DiVA, id: diva2:1666590
Subject / course
JIBS, Business Administration
Supervisors
Examiners
2022-07-012022-06-092022-07-01Bibliographically approved