Mission statements in FT ranked European business schools - a content analysis

Abstract

Purpose: The objective of this article is to investigate mission statements of European business schools ranked by Financial Times (FT) ranking team. In particular, the research focuses on such aspects as dynamics of missions’ changes, the keywords used, the impact of mission statement on b-school performance in the ranking process. Design/Methodology/Approach: Mission statements of b-schools ranked in “FT” from the years 2008, 2012, 2015 and 2017 were collected. Next, they were coded by means of 6-items typology, based on typology used in previous research, descriptive statistics, McNemars and Chi-square tests have been used to analyse the data. Mission statement has not significant influence on the performance of schools in “FT” rankings. Findings: Mission statements of top listed schools and below average listed schools don’t differ significantly. The usage of keywords: “research” and “global” surged in most of the schools. Practical Implications: The article offers clear insights into the significance of mission statements of business schools, their changes and strategies of European business schools (e.g. going global, focusing on research). Originality/Value: The research encourages further research to focus on global market of business schools and further dynamic comparison.