Drinking the Punch?
The Meaning of Work in a
Mission-Driven Business
Marya Besharov
Meaning Meeting
March 30, 2007
Mission and Meaning
• Mission-driven business
– For-profit firm, espouses set of values that guide action
– Claims to maximize profits only in ways consistent with values
– A type of hybrid-identity organization? (Foreman & Whetten 2002;
Albert & Whetten 1985)
• Mission-driven organizations common in nonprofit sector
– Mission a source of meaning for organizational members
• What is the role of mission for employees of missiondriven businesses?
• Today: Field study of a multi-site mission-driven
business, Whole Foods Market
“Drawing a paycheck is nice, but it’s not the whole
meaning of life. We believe we offer each of our Team
Members an opportunity to fulfill a higher purpose: helping
to make the world a better place.”
-- Whole Foods Market employee handbook
“We’re not filling bellies, we’re filling souls.”
-- Starbucks executive
“Don’t be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term,
we will be better served—as shareholders and in all other
ways—by a company that does good things for the world
even if we forgo some short term gains. This is an
important aspect of our culture and is broadly shared
within the company…. We aspire to make Google an
institution that makes the world a better place.”
-- Google co-founders
Research Questions
• How do employees in a mission-driven business
experience the mission?
– Is the mission a source of meaning and motivation?
• What explains differences in meaning from
mission?
– Across people, work roles, work sites
• What are the organizational consequences of
having employees who derive meaning from
mission?
– Work effort, commitment, intent to stay
Issues for Discussion
• Literature and framing
– Does the framing make sense?
– Other literature I could draw on?
• Analytic approach
– Coding of interview transcripts
– Role of interview vs. survey data
• Emerging findings
– Focus on mission vs. meaning from work more generally?
– What else would be interesting?
Prior Research: Meaning of Work
• Focus on role of individuals and interpersonal
relationships in constructing meaning
– Wrzesniewski 2003; Wrzesniewski & Dutton 2001; Wrzesniewski,
Dutton, & Debebe 2003; Wrzesniewski, McCauley, Rozin, & Schwartz
1997
• Less attention to role of organizations in shaping
meaning
– Pratt 2000; Pratt & Ashforth 2003
• My focus: Organizations as enabling and
constraining meaning, through mission
Prior Research: Mission
• Most research on mission conducted in nonprofit
and public sector organizations
– Worker cooperatives (Rothschild & Whitt 1986)
– Public bureaucracies (Rainey & Steinbauer 1999)
– Social movements (Benford & Snow 2000)
• Recently, attention to role of mission in business
organizations
– Ideology-infused psych. contracts (Thompson & Bunderson
2003)
– Org. identity orientation (Brickson 2005, 2007)
– Moral lens perspective (Blair-Loy, Wharton, & Goodstein 2003)
– Economic models of mission as source of motivation (Ackerlof &
Kranton 2005; Van den Steen 2004)
Method
• Field study of multi-site mission-driven
business: Whole Foods Market
• Interviews, observation, surveys at 8
stores
• Variation in meaning of mission across
people, job levels and roles, work sites
(and, unfortunately, time)
Whole Foods Market
• Organic and natural foods retailer
• 39,000 employees, 180+ locations*
• Mission: Whole foods, whole people, whole
planet
“Whole Foods Market remains uniquely mission driven: We're highly selective
about what we sell, dedicated to stringent Quality Standards, and committed to
sustainable agriculture…We believe in a virtuous circle entwining the food chain,
human beings and Mother Earth: each is reliant upon the others through a
beautiful and delicate symbiosis.”
-- WFM website
• Strong financial performance through 2006
Data
• Interviews
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91 interviews conducted: 44 employees, 47 managers
30-80 minutes each
At least 10 per site*
Range of departments, tenures, roles
Topics: prior work experience, reasons for joining, most and least
rewarding aspects of job, company mission, non-work time, future plans
• Observation
– Department manager meetings
– Storewide meetings
• Survey
– Measures include: work orientation, “mission orientation,” extra-role
behavior, commitment, work effort, intent to stay
– Anticipate ~1,000 completed surveys across 8 stores
Preliminary Findings:
Meaning of Mission
• Meaning from work
–
–
–
–
Mission
Relationships (social)
Career (professional relationships?)
Job: pay and benefits
• Orientation toward mission
– Primary source of meaning
– Nice-to-have
– Irrelevant
Mission: Primary Source of Meaning
It means a lot, were it not for that mission I am not sure if I would still be here, I
mean it’s not just a job, it definitely is more than a job... It’s one of the ways that
I can make a difference in the world and not just helping the few there by being
a profitable store and helping the company to make good decisions about what
we spend money on, but also in day-to-day life where I am interacting with
people and trying to help people grow and develop in ways that are meaningful
to them. So, you know, I think it kind of helps me to bring a lot of my own
philosophy together in a way that helps to, you know, that I can make a living
and I can also do something where I feel like I am making difference.
--Store manager
It means a lot to me. You know, I have four children in the world and yeah,
trying to help to make the world a better place, this is very important and what
people eat and how it affects their health is a huge subject, well certainly there
[are] health reasons to eating natural foods, good quality foods, there are the
social-political implications, environmental, there are so many dimensions…
helping to change around those wrongs in the food industry is important to me.
--Manager, customer service dept.
Mission: Nice-to-have
To me [the mission] means that, I mean another reason why it is
great to work here is that, you know, the company is, it is here to
make money, but along with making money we can accomplish
more than that. I mean that’s what the whole mission means to me.
We can make a difference in the world and still make our bottom line
but do it the right way.
-- Grocery manager
What tantalizes me the most is what am I getting paid, what is going
to be on the table for me…The reason why I work for this company
is not because they care for the earth. That’s nice. I’m happy I’m
part of that. But that is not the reason why I work here. I work here
because I need the work.
--Employee, admin. dept.
Mission: Irrelevant
There is a sign up somewhere, I have never really paid too much
attention to that stuff, something like organic food and happy people
and making the world a better place, I don’t really know.
--Employee, produce dept.
I used to know all the missions, I forgot them, but, I mean, I think they
are trying to grow and expand and then make it possible for natural
and organic foods become more affordable….So I think they are well
intentioned, I don’t think that the CEO is a money hungry guy, which is
a good thing.…I mean, other than that, I don’t know really what else
they are trying to do. I paid a lot of attention back in those days, you
know, like what was going on and everything, but I have gotten to the
point where I just kind of come in, do my job and go home.
--Employee, customer service dept.
Preliminary Findings: Consequences
• Employees who are deeply committed to mission may
also be highly attuned to values violations, resistant to
organizational change
• Other employees are less attuned to violations, more
open to changes in how mission is carried out
• Even employees who are not “true believers” are
involved in carrying out the mission (routinization of
mission in work practice)
• Variation in meaning of mission creates challenges
– For individuals to sustain the meaning they’ve constructed
– For managing work teams
Attention to Values Violations
“I’m not wasting my precious 40-hours or more a week on a company
that I would have to eventually feel disappointment in. I want to be
proud of where I work. That’s why I worked at Ben and Jerry’s, you
know, because I knew they were doing good things. I don’t want to
be part of a wasteful consumerism—even though that’s what we
promote sometimes.…I am definitely conflicted. I am conflicted
because, you know, there are things where like well, we don’t
recycle.…We don’t always recycle all of our paper, only when there’s
a box in the back.…They’re offering 20-hours a month for the Green
Team person. That’s nothing, you know. It’s...not enough time for
[what that job] entails.”
--Employee, bakery dept.
Perceptions of Growth and Change
Right now, I think [the mission is] their public image, I don’t know, I think
everything is about the bottom line, that’s what it feels like when I am there,
it’s all about the money, you know, and all the good things they do promote
their image. People want to buy into [that], but I think that the company does
it because of the money….
When I first started here, it was more of like the health conscious, socially
conscious people that [shopped] at Bread & Circus, because they felt safe,
like they felt like [the company] did the research of where the products were
coming from and what was in the food, and that I definitely noticed has
changed. The products that we carry do not meet same standards that they
used to, definitely….Bread & Circus started out as a place where they didn’t
really have products with sugar in them, you know what I mean, and now
they sell like, they sell chips from Frito Lay, and for a while we had Huggies
diapers.…You know, we have Heinz ketchup, which doesn’t sound like a big
deal, but before we didn’t have anything like that…So on that level it’s really
changed, and I don’t think they are concerned about, you know, in America
people’s health, it’s a big issue… there is that big obesity problem, and
before it felt like Whole Foods was part of fighting that problem, and now I
feel like they contribute to it…
--Employee, customer service dept.
Alternative Views
There are issues that come up like the whole lobster thing. Certain
people believe in it, certain people don’t. I support the company
whatever they want to do. I could care less whether we have lobsters
or don’t, to be honest with you, because I don’t eat lobster first of all,
[and] they never made us a ton of money.
--Assistant Store Manager
I think they are doing a great job, I mean, to see us kind of force
companies like, you know, Kraft and all these other companies to
make a natural product, a lot of people get scared, they are like, “Oh,
these guys are making a natural product now.” I think it is a great
thing that we are forcing these conventional type people to make
natural products, I think it is unbelievable.…
Even when we [had], you know, undisciplined team members, this
mission was still carried out, we always still recycle, we always still
give unbelievable customer service, and we hardly ever compromise
on our products. [We’ve] always [had] all natural products [and we still
do].
--Manager, grocery dept.
Routinization of mission
If you don’t know what you are doing and you are
portraying, you know, someone who supposedly know[s]
what they are doing and you get caught out there, then
you are going to have a little bit of trouble….Say if I work
in produce, you know, they have an organic side and a
non-organic and if you mix that stuff up together you are
in hot water, so you really have to know what you are
talking about and know what you are doing.
--Employee, prepared foods dept.
Variation in Meaning
I don’t have as much in common with my team. I’ve
found common dominators and I certainly do connect.
But I don’t think they’re thinking about some of the same
things that I am. Like I would say that I have more in
common with the core values of the company than a lot
of my team members do. But any old way, I think I was
hoping maybe to enjoy a little bit more of sharing some
of that, having a little more of an authentic connection
that has to do with my value system and the Whole
Foods value system. I was anticipating sharing that a
little bit more with my team. So, I find that the job within
the team is more of job versus a mutually held mission.
--Employee, bakery dept.
Implications
• Mission as one way in which organizations enable and
constrain meaning
• Meaning from mission has consequences for behavior
– Putting in extra effort vs. giving up on the job
• Meaning from mission not necessarily positive for the
individual or the organization
– Risk of disenchantment, commitment to mission over
organization
– Employees who don’t care deeply about mission still carry it out
Issues for Discussion
• Literature and framing
– Does the framing make sense?
– Other literature I could draw on?
• Analytic approach
– Coding of interview transcripts
– Role of interview vs. survey data
• Emerging findings
– Focus on mission vs. meaning from work more generally?
– What else would be interesting?