Mission, Vision, Social Responsibility, Strategic Planning

Required elements to include in the Mission and Vision Paper:

Part I

Select one of the following pairs of companies:

1. Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s
2. Southwest Airlines and Jet Blue Air
3. UPS and FedEx
4. Patagonia Outdoor Clothing and Columbia Sportswear
5. Bank of America and Wells Fargo
6. Google and Yahoo
7. Hilton Hotels and Marriott Hotels

1) Using the companies’ investor Web sites, annual report, or other reliable web source (not a Wiki file); find the mission statement of each of the two companies.
2) Prepare a well-reasoned analysis of the similarities and differences of the two organizations based on the mission statement.
3) Discuss the quality of each mission statement based on concepts from the textbook.
4) Assess whether the mission statement clearly defines the organization and drives strategic decisions?
5) Provide recommendations to the leadership team for improving the quality of the current mission statement.

Discuss the “vision” for each company. Do the companies appear to be heading in the same direction? Explain your rationale and provide support for your position.

Part II

– Select one of the companies in the pair and respond to the questions below. Ensure that correlations are drawn between your responses and concepts discussed in the textbook.
– How does the company respond to the issue of social responsibility? In what kinds of activities does the organization participate? Do you think its activities are appropriate? Explain you answer.
– Prepare a SWOT analysis of the selected company, including at least two strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats each.
– Based on the concepts learned so far, provide your recommendation for turning the weaknesses into strengths and the threats into opportunities.

Required Formatting of Paper:

– This paper should be double-spaced, 12-point font, and between five and six pages in length excluding the title page and reference page.
– Use APA formatting for in-text citations and reference page. You are expected to paraphrase and not use quotes other than in identifying the mission statement and vision statement.
– You are required to use the company investor websites and at least two academic or highly respected business publications, to a total of no less than four references.