Page 213 - Performance Leadership

202 • Part III Principles from the Values and Social Dimensions

even the only stakeholder mentioned, although I strongly suspect that
if I would actively search for mission statements in the nonprofit sec-
tor, that number would be higher. And it looks like community is
becoming more important as a stakeholder. An increasing number of
organizations produce annual sustainability reports, often based on the
Global Reporting Initiative guidelines. Many mission statements
address the community as a boundary condition, typically last in the
mission statement, such as “. . . while being a responsible citizen.”
There are a few examples of mission statements that mention the com-
munity first, typically in the case of health providers or insurance com-
panies. For instance, insurance conglomerate Achmea aims to be a
socially responsible, leading, and innovative provider of financial serv-
ices, financial security, and health care (All Finance, All Care). Our
goal is to offer our customers the right product/service combinations
and in so doing to shoulder their burden. A human approach to our
customers will play a central role in achieving this goal.”

Shareholders
Shareholders are ranked fifth in the list of most mentioned stakehold-
ers; only 39 percent of mission statements even mention the share-
holder. At first glance, this would suggest that shareholders, according
to the mission statements of organizations, are not the primary stake-
holder. However, if we look at in how many cases the shareholder is
mentioned first, the shareholder ranks third, after the customer and the
organization itself. We found a small number of mission statements that
mentioned the shareholder as the only stakeholder.
In a good number of cases, the shareholder is mentioned last in the
mission statement. For instance, consider pharmaceutical company
Merck’s mission statement: “The mission of Merck is ‘to provide soci-
ety with superior products and services by developing innovations and
solutions that improve the quality of life and satisfy customer needs,
and to provide employees with meaningful work and advancement
opportunities and investors with a superior rate of return.’” The share-
holder is mentioned last in the mission statement, but this is not to
imply a lesser degree of importance. Being mentioned last can also
mean the mission statement describes a cause-and-effect relationship.
Oil company Sunoco, in its description of its stakeholders, states that