A content analysis of top-ranked universities' mission statements from five global regions. (January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bayrak, Tuncay
• Is Part Of: International journal of educational development. Volume 72(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-01
• Subjects: Higher education -- Mission statement -- Global universities -- Text analytics; Education -- Periodicals; Education -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Education -- Economic aspects -- Periodicals; Education -- Periodicals; Éducation -- Périodiques; Education; Periodicals; 370.11
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2019.102130
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0738-0593

Abstract

Highlights: This study examines how the highest ranked universities from five global regions compare in terms of their mission statements. This study reveals that terms research, knowledge, education, and society are among the most commonly appearing terms across the five regions. Higher education institutions in every region call attention to the importance of serving community. This study reveals across the five regions, there is a commitment to generating and disseminating knowledge and focusing on teaching excellence. Abstract: In general, a mission statement reflects the context in which a higher education institution operates. It's also a direction setting statement indicating the direction required for effective strategic and operational decisions. This study examines how the highest ranked universities in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa, and North America compare in terms of their mission statements and how they communicate to their stakeholders and to the public about what their main purposes, values, goals, and objectives are. Having downloaded each university's mission statement from the Internet, we then classified them into five main categories of Asian, African, European, Latin American, and North American universities and analyzed them separately using the text mining and analysis tools available in SAS Enterprise Miner, a powerful commercial business analytics program. Results show that although we found similar terms and themes in the mission statements across the five different regions, there is great variability in the mission statements with respect to how they communicate their core values, main purposes, and value propositions.