With church attendance falling, church leaders are searching for methods to reverse that trend. Benchmarking the practices of successful churches offers one such avenue. This article points to issues of internal and external fit which should be considered before those benchmarked best practices are implemented by church leaders.

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of a university's faculty as to how the strategies, staffing policies, and systems procedures were aligned with the mission statement. Differences in perceptions were examined by college affiliation, rank, primary teaching assignment and gender. Data were analyzed to determine if there were correlations between faculty members' perceptions of alignment of the university's mission statement with administration's actions, policies, and procedures and their level of organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and overall satisfaction with their job and the organization The population for this study was comprised initially of 1363 teaching faculty members of the University of Central with more than one year of service and reduced to 1285 who were determined to meet the criteria for inclusion. The 67-item survey instrument used in this study was developed and copyrighted by Dr. Robert C. Ford (Ford et al, 2006), and was administered during January and February 2006 A total of 297 usable responses (23.1%) were returned. An analysis of all responses indicated that there was a wide disparity in perceptions and that respondents did not believe that there was a strong alignment of mission with administrative practices, policies, and procedures. This confirmed an earlier finding as to the importance of perception (Dickson, Ford, & Upchurch, 2006, Ford et al., 2006). Significant differences in faculty perceptions by college affiliation, university rank, and primary teaching assignment were identified. Significant differences based on gender were minimal. The correlations of items representing level of organizational commitment were highly correlated. Items representing job satisfaction and overall satisfaction with their job and the organization were moderately intercorrelated, and the interrelationship was not strong.

No description available.

The master's thesis focuses on detailed mission statements analysis of leading companies operating in Czech republic. The aim of the thesis is to provide the comprehensive view on the current situation in field of mission statements and to examine the relationship between mission statement and firm performance. Theoretical part introduces the topic, basic charasteristics of mission statements and describes research methods used in practical part. In second part is performed content analysis, textual analysis, analysis of mission statements availability, readability, origin of its owner. Also the link between the corporate ethos and mission statements is defined in practical part. Through the statistical analysis of dependence is examined the relationship between mission statements and chosen financial indicators at the end of the thesis.

Master of Science / Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology / Doris J. Carroll / Diversity in higher education plays an important role in students’ perspectives on their college experiences. For students looking for an institution that has a diverse living and learning environment, it is important that students can find information related to diversity. This report highlighted dimensions of diversity as communicated through mission and diversity statements from institutions in the Big 12 Conference. The Big 12 Conference institutions include Baylor University, Iowa State University, Kansas State University, Oklahoma State University, Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, University of Colorado – Boulder, University of Kansas – Lawrence, University of Missouri, University of Nebraska, University of Oklahoma, and the University of Texas. The institutions’ mission and/or diversity statements were evaluated using the four dimension of diversity: access and success, climate and intergroup relations, education and scholarship, and institutional viability and vitality. The results of this report alert students, faculty, and staff, as well as the institution, about the aspects of diversity being developed at their institution and in which dimensions they need further development.

Master of Arts / Department of Communication Studies / William Schenck-Hamlin / The following research project seeks to answer the question: “To what extent can differences among juvenile detention centers be explained on the basis of concepts of restorative and retributive justice?” To investigate, mission statements were collected from a national sample of Juvenile Detention Centers. A semantic network analysis was performed to answer the above research question. The computer program CATPAC was used to create 2-d images of the semantic analysis. From these images eight themes emerged through clusters: institutional identity, public safety, life skill values, family and child tie, and community and family tie, support from staff, support from environment, and support from environment and staff. These themes were reflective of retributive or restorative orientation. Results indicate that male public institutions are reflective of retributive justice while female public, male private, and female private institutions are more reflective of restorative justice. These findings suggest biases and treatment patterns within the juvenile justice system.

Mission statement is important to companies, especially as a strategic communication tool with stakeholders. Innovation is also important to companies and has its implications on performance. This study examines the relationship between financial performance and explicitly communicating innovation in mission statement. The study uses a quantitative approach with logistic regression to test empirical hypotheses related to revenues, profits, change in assets and market value, and their relationship with explicitly communicating innovation in mission statements. The conclusion is that among all the financial performance indicators considered, only market value represents a strong and significant result, indicating a positive relationship with explicitly communicating innovation.

Den här studien undersöker förhållandena för att inkludera bloggar i svenska folkbibliotekens kataloger. Varför förvärvas bloggar som blivit böcker, men inte bloggarna själva? Studien söker förståelse för och diskuterar de hinder och möjligheter som påverkar en inkludering av bloggar i katalogerna. Den teoretiska basen består av ett postmodernt perspektiv på biblioteken, och en jämförelse mellan olika sätt att se på folkbibliotekens uppdrag. Studien använder en blandad metod och kombinerar djupare intervjuer för att få insikt i folkbiblioteken, med en enkätstudie riktad till svenska folkbibliotekarier. Frågorna handlade om attityder gentemot bibliotekens uppdrag, bloggen som medieformat, och hur en inkludering av bloggar i bibliotekskatalogen skulle påverka biblioteket idag och i framtiden. Studien fann att bloggens materialitet medför hinder som behöver överbryggas för att en inkludering ska vara möjlig, och uppdragen folkbibliotekarierna håller viktiga gynnar en inkludering av bloggar.

The IT business has dramatically changed within last few years. Nowadays M Computers ltd. established mainly as a hardware reseller is being faced with a decision about the answer to these changes and further direction of the business to gain the competitive advantage. The goal of presented master`s thesis is to analyze and evaluate the current position of the company using the methods of strategic analysis. Furthermore a proposal of company strategy by the year 2009 will be provided.

This study examines how one college in a large private university sought to benefit its students by implementing a program of faculty-mentored, co-curricular high impact practices (HIPs). This qualitative single case study uses confirmatory and exploratory document analysis to examine how an educational leader translated institutional purpose via unit leaders and program managers into the educational practice of faculty mentors. The researcher found stronger and weaker areas of alignment of institution purpose to educational practice across a systems theory-based purpose-to-practice continuum. Variety in the concentration of themes across the data may be due to how these themes were emphasized in the administrative directives and could indicate a training gap in HIPs. In addition, the researcher found that certain HIPs were used more frequently, first- and second-year undergraduates rarely participated, and themes emerged from the educational practice narrative that were important to participants that did not appear in institutional purpose documents. The study offers recommendations to leaders in higher education to (a) use institutional purpose language clearly in administrative directives; (b) educate faculty to create high-quality HIP opportunities for underserved students; and (c) acknowledge program impacts that fall outside declared institutional purpose.