Abstract:
The discursive construal of purpose by means of competence in German and English
corporate mission statements
The current chapter shows the results of an ongoing research project into the discursive
construal of corporate identity in German and English mission statements. More
specifically, it focuses on the correlation between two key concepts that are at the core of
effective mission statements, viz. purpose and competence. The corpus analysis shows
that the concept of competence includes at least the qualities of volition and ability, two
notions which are jointly described as subject-inherent in studies on modal semantics.
The data show that the notions of ability and volition are means to achieve a purpose or
to solve a problem. But also other means lie at the basis of successful achievement of the
purpose and the desired future position stated in a mission statement. On the same level
as expressions of volition and ability these different means (or paths) towards
achievement include reference to social participants. These different means towards
achievement have resulted in the threefold basic typology of competence which we
propose as not just (a) volition and (b) ability, but also a third category (c) social
participant-related means for corporate purpose, hence social competence. The basic
threefold typology and the more fine grained subclassification have provided us with an
overall typology which formed the framework for systematic analysis of the corpus data
and for answering our research question, viz. how expressions of competence support the
realization of goals in mission statement texts. On a theoretical level we hope that this
study may also illustrate a relevant connection between linguistic semantics, more
specifically the field of modality, and a broader discourse analytical approach on the one
hand and management studies on the other. On an practical level the findings and
proposed typology of competence may give rise to guidelines for corporate
communication practitioners in terms of contents and strategies for writing mission
statement texts.
Short title: Competence as means for purpose in mission statements
Keywords: discursive construal, corporate identity, purpose, means for purpose,
competence, ability, willingness / volition, subject-inherent modality, social, corporate
mission statement / Leitbild, German, English.
Bio:
Dr. Birgitta Meex is a lecturer of German at the Departments of Applied Language
Studies and Business Studies of Lessius University College. She is a member of the
Dutch, German and Computational Linguistics Research Unit at K.U.Leuven (Catholic
University of Leuven) and a member of the Departmental Research Unit of Discourse
Studies at Lessius University College. She teaches courses in internal communication,
grammar, oral skills and business German. Her academic research is inspired by the
ambition to incorporate the disciplines of discourse analysis and cognitive linguistics. She
is currently investigating corporate identity in terms of the discursive and grammatical
construction of values and purpose in the mission statement genre.
Dr. Heidi Verplaetse is a research assistant and English lecturer at Lessius University
College. She is a member of the research unit of Functional, cognitive and descriptive
linguistics: English, Spanish and Typology at K.U.Leuven, and a member of the
Departmental Research Unit of Discourse Studies at Lessius University College. Her
current teaching includes courses on corporate and public external communication, as
well as writing and translation of business texts and scientific / medical texts. Her current
academic research is inspired by the ambition to integrate the fields of modal semantics
and cognitive linguistics on the one hand and corpus based research and discourse
analysis on the other.