Stakeholder Orientation in Cruise Lines’ Mission Statements

Consistent with the extant management literature, mission statements are crucial for the sustainability and growth of any firms and have been considered to be a tool for the strategic management process. Despite the considerable attention awarded to this theme, the role of the mission statement in the strategic management of tourism firms has not been sufficiently highlighted. The present paper tries to bridge this literature gap and aims to (i) analyze the content of mission statements; and (ii) investigate the stakeholder orientation of cruise line mission statements. We apply a content analysis method to analyze the mission statements of 44 cruise lines, employing three different perspectives: (1) the inclusion of stakeholder groups; (2) mentions of specific “mission” components; (3) reference to four goals usually assigned to mission statements. The analysis was performed using the software package QDA-Miner. The results suggest that it is possible to identify four clusters of firms that present similar content in their mission statements, and that cruise companies tend to reserve a major attention to customers. This contribution presents some valuable research implications mainly useful for researchers and academics, but also maybe of benefit to professionals and investors.