1. What are the vision, mission, and values of Better World Books? Critically evaluate them. Are they helpful to the company’s leaders in formulating strategic intent? Why or why not?
According to our text, a vision is a statement about what an organization ultimately wants to accomplish, it captures the companies aspiration. Where as a firm’s mission is a description of what it actually does, what its business is, and why it does it; it can be customer orientated or product orientated. Lastly the values of a firm state the ethical standards and norms that govern the behavior of individuals within the organization.
As the case mentions, “Better World Books collects and sells books online to fund literacy initiatives worldwide”; they are a self-sustaining, triple-bottom line company that creates social, economic, and environmental value. Their mission statement is: “Better World Books is a global bookstore that harnesses the power of capitalism to bring literacy and opportunity to people around the world”. Some of the firm’s core values are as follows:
Be Genuine – Be honest and true
Embrace Change – Adapt & help others find ways to succeed
Invest Well; Waste Not – Choose wisely; reuse, reduce, recycle
We <3 Books – Respect the book, read often & encourage others
I believe the vision, mission, and values of this company are critical in helping the company’s leaders formulate a strategy within the company. It gives them a sense of guidance, motivation, and goals to reach. Having a mission is something that the company as a whole follows and sticks to in everyday business operations, and the values helps the firm as well as its employees make sense of everyday work. It gives them a feeling of pride, purpose, and reasoning behind why they perform the tasks they do. It in turn keeps everyone on track, everyone on the same page, so that ultimately they can reach their strategic goals, and highest potential of sales. I only stated a few of Better