Strategic management importance of mission and vision statements: Comparison of Turkey and Japan

It is important for businesses to be strategically managed and form statements in this field in order to survive and compete effectively. In this regard, the assessment of mission and vision statements of successful enterprises is crucial. The aim of this study is the importance of mission and vision statements of enterprises in strategic management, the way of use them in enterprises, to make detailed analysis about the extent of the required issues in the statements and to compare Turkish and Japanese enterprises from this perspective. Especially, while creating mission and vision expressions in enterprises, it has been tried to find out the true value of these expressions and to eliminate the ambiguity about the elements to be used. In this study, only the vision and mission statements has been covered. Qualitative content analysis and interpretation method have been applied. 500 leading enterprises of the Istanbul Chamber of Industry in 2015 and 200 enterprises of Japan Times in 2015 form the basis of this study. Of all these enterprises, the ones which were able to enter the top 100 have been evaluated. In the light of the data obtained , the study is supported by tables and graphs by comparing two countries with content analysis. In the study, the Turkish and Japanese business mission statement includes philosophy, product / service, business competence and more than half of the business elements to the customer. However, the place / market, technology, profitability / growth / continuity, social responsibility and employee element are backward. For the vision; originality, management philosophy, future-orientedness and business image are important, the elements of being inspirational and attractive are back on the planet. The study is expected to be useful for the researchers and the scholars working in the field of strategic management. In conclusion, the deficiencies and complexity regarding the elements required while forming the mission and vision statements of Turkish and Japanese enterprises have been observed. Keywords: Strategy, Strategic Management, Mission, Vision, Content Analysis