The Impact of Mission Fulfillment on the Internal Audience: Psychological Job Outcomes in a Services Setting

The way a firm fulfills its mission statement may play a role in internal marketing and affect important psychological job outcomes of employees. The conceptual model proposed herein argues that mission fulfillment influences key psychological states related to motivation (i.e., employee engagement), social identity (organizational identification), and emotional resources (emotional exhaustion). These psychological states in turn drive affective commitment and turnover intentions, two variables of continued interest to researchers and managers. The authors test this model empirically using data from 3,999 employees of a health care service system. The findings provide support for the hypothesized model rather than an alternative and shed light on an important tool for internal marketing. Besides suggesting avenues for future research, such as refining the concept of employee engagement and uncovering the antecedents of employees’ perceptions of mission fulfillment, this study demonstrates the importance of exploring the psychological processes that comprise the mechanisms by which contextual variables affect key outcomes. For managers, the results imply the importance of aligning an organization’s actions with its stated mission, given that employees are attuned to and affected by such an alignment. Further, managers should actively communicate to employees the organization’s efforts and accomplishments in fulfilling its mission.