“Our five year mission— to boldly go where no man has been before… .”

The paper presents research conducted in New Zealand on the content, creation, use and impact of mission statements. Following a review of the literature the paper goes on to report an empirical study comparing the reality of mission statements with the theory. The paper concludes that practice rarely coincides with theory and that there are a wide variety of types of mission statement in current use. Recommendations are made for creating more actionable mission statements.