Academy of Management Executive, 2005, Vol. 19, No.

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Aligning organizational
processes with mission: The
case of service excellence
John C. Crotts, Duncan R. Dickson, and Robert C. Ford

Executive Overview
It has become increasingly clear in the research literature that successful organizations
have found ways to ensure that their organizational missions are aligned both in terms of
fit with the external environment and with all factors internal to the organization. The
challenge is that accomplishing this fit is easier said than done. Too often there is a gap
between what the organization says it seeks to do and what its employees actually do.
The purpose of this paper is to offer managers a method by which they can create and
conduct an audit of the gaps in the alignment of their organizational practices, policies,
and procedures with their mission. The value of conducting such an audit is to create a
diagnostic device to identify and close the gaps in an effort to secure better alignment
with the mission. The authors use the mission of service excellence to illustrate the logic
and process of developing such an audit, as this is one of the more challenging aspects of
any organization and especially a service organizations mission. If what gets measured
gets managed, then conducting such an audit can serve as an important tool for ensuring
that the internal actions of the organization are being effectively managed to achieve the
mission.
........................................................................................................................................................................

Mission Alignment
During the annual ritual of strategic planning at
most organizations, the discussion often begins
with a review of the mission. Frequently, those
discussions result in an agreement that the mis-
sion is well-stated but poorly implemented. While
missions typically include clear references to fi-
nancial performance, environmental responsibil-
ity, employee respect, and excellence in customer
service, too often it is only financial performance
that gets measured and managed while the other
equally important parts of the mission get lost in
noble words. In other words, there is a gap be-
tween what the mission says and what people in
the organization believe is managements real
message. This gap is a result of the lack of align-
ment among the managerial tools of policies, pro-
cedures, and practices with the mission. This lack
of alignment confuses everyone about what the
mission really is as they try to implement it. Iden-
tifying this alignment gap for the non-financial
aspects of the mission is no less critical than it is
54
for the financial. Unfortunately, the tools for find-
ing and closing the gap are few and far between.
Management scholars have been discussing the
importance of the concept of alignment in relation
to external contingences and internal structure,
policies, and practices for some time.1 As early as
1983, Tichy noted that the strategic management
task is to keep the organization both internally and
externally aligned.2 Miles and Snow extend this
reasoning by suggesting that an organization that
has a tight fit or alignment with various contin-
gency factors, (e.g., size, environment, technology,
resource availability) can significantly improve
firm performance.3 They state, Tight fit is the un-
derlying causal dynamic producing sustained, ex-
cellent performance and a strong corporate cul-
ture.4 Externally, strategic choices are shaped by
the need to align organizational resources with
environmental opportunities and threats.5 Inter-
nally, ensuring a consistent fit between organiza-
tional mission and the structure, policies, and pro-
cedures of the organization and the practices of its
leadership can also significantly improve organi-
2005 Crotts, Dickson, and Ford
zational performance. Porter suggests that the best
way for any organization to achieve a sustainable
competitive advantage is to reinforce its chosen
strategy with a host of activities, including func-
tional policies, staffing decisions, and structure.6
Nadler and Tushman propose five key areas that
the organization should seek to establish and mon-
itor, where congruence or fit is critical for organi-
zational success. They state, Put another way, the
degree to which the strategy, work, people, struc-
ture, and culture are smoothly aligned will deter-
mine the organizations ability to compete and suc-
ceed.7
Research investigating the importance of align-
ment or fit to an organizations success has, not
surprisingly, found it important. One study tracing
the linkage between organizational mission and
financial performance found that the degree to
which an organization aligns its internal structure,
policies, and procedures with its mission was pos-
itively associated with employee behavior which,
in turn, had the most direct relationship with finan-
cial performance.8 In the human resource manage-
ment area, there has been considerable effort fo-
cused on aligning HR policies and processes with
the organizational mission.9 The need to ensure
that all HR practices and policies are tightly
aligned with the overall organizations mission
has become a well-accepted fact.
The importance of mission alignment in influ-
encing organizational performance appears to be
well-established in the management literature
and is even part of most standard texts on strate-
gy.10 The achievement of this alignment is more
problematic, as it depends on an ability to both
measure and manage the gaps between what the
mission says is valued and what management ac-
tually says, writes, and does. In our consulting and
discussions with practicing managers, we have
discovered that nearly all practitioners agree with
the logic of aligning a thoughtful and carefully
developed mission with their practices, policies,
and procedures. We have also discovered that only
a surprisingly few of these managers have spent
an equal amount of time and effort in ensuring that
their words and actions were actually aligned with
their mission.
While the academic discussions of alignment
span both internal and external alignment, the
purpose of this article is to focus on internal align-
ment and especially on the alignment of policies,
practices, and procedures with the mission. Al-
though the internal alignment literature largely
focuses on the nature and importance of structural
alignment, we seek to focus instead on the internal
processes and procedures that management writes
55
or the actions that management takes to signal to
employees what the organization mission is and
how much they are really committed to it. Align-
ment is the idea of developing and making consis-
tent the various practices, actions, policies, and
procedures that managers use to communicate to
employees what is important and what is not, what
has value to the organization and what does not,
and what they should do and what they should not.
Structural alignment is obviously important, but
there is a need for managers to also ensure that the
policies and procedures they create and the ac-
tions they take also align consistently with the
organizations mission.
A second purpose is to offer practicing managers
a new application of a familiar toolauditingas
a useful method or technique for achieving this
alignment. The method or technique we offer is to
design and conduct an alignment audit that as-
sesses the degree to which those internal proce-
dures and managerial practices are aligned with
the mission.
If management believes that it is important to
have everyone focused on even the hard-to-mea-
sure aspects of its mission, then developing an
understanding of what the factors are that lead to
such a focus and how they can be measured to
ensure that they are aligned is critical. If what gets
measured gets managed, then auditing these
words, deeds, and practices can be as important a
tool for ensuring the achievement of non-financial
aspects of the overall mission as they are for
achieving the financial aspects. If this sounds
easy, it isnt. Organizations are complicated and
employees can and do get conflicting signals
about what is expected.11 Managers can be incon-
sistent in what they say, do, and reward. The result
is a mixed message that dilutes or even distorts
the employee focus on what the mission says.
While we appreciate the complexity of organiza-
tions, the challenges of finding the best balance
across competing organizational goals, and the
difficulty of incorporating all key managerial prac-
tices and procedures in any audit scheme, we be-
lieve that the internal processes managers can
manage should be carefully assessed to ensure
that they are aligned with that mission. We pro-
pose here and detail in Table 1 a simple assess-
ment process that leads to developing an align-
ment audit.
The policies, procedures, or practices that cue
employees to act in support of a mission can be
explicit, like the items included in an employee
performance review, or implicit, like a story told by
a top manager about an exemplary employee who
gets recognized for providing excellent service.
56 Academy of Management Executive August

Table 1
The Mission Alignment Audit Process

1. Define the outcome of the mission in measurable terms (e.g. customer satisfaction scores)
2. Identify key policies, procedures and practices that cue employee behavior (e.g., job descriptions, annual plans)
3. Create an audit of whether or not the mission is included in each key policy, procedure, and practice. (e.g., See Table 2)
4. Conduct the audit
5. Fix and align any item that is out of alignment
6. Compare the audit results against the mission outcome measurement to affirm value of alignment

They can be human resource policies like the re-
quirements expressed in a job description or sys-
tem procedures like how allegations of employee
disrespect are to be handled. The key point seen in
Table 1 is that having everything in place and
even having them aligned is still not sufficient for
achieving a mission. What is also required is that
the organization reviews or audits these to make
sure that they are all guiding the employees in the
same way with the same message. While it is also
important to make sure that the policies, practices,
and procedures are not so tightly aligned that em-
ployees are afraid to express any disagreements,
do not feel empowered to take new initiatives or
explore new ideas, or are discouraged from think-
ing outside of the box to solve problems or meet
new challenges, consistent reminders of the mis-
sion should focus and empower problem-solving.
Focusing on the mission need not conflict with
flexibility and ability to change.
This paper is premised on several key ideas.
First, employees are smarter than many managers
give them credit. They know the difference be-
tween what is said to be important and what is
measured and rewarded. Second, the greater the
organizations cuesas represented by its poli-
cies, procedures, and management practicesare
aligned with its mission, the more likely it is that
the organizations employees will actually work
towards that mission. Third, confusion over mis-
sion is not a good thing for anyone. While it is
important not to make everything so tightly de-
fined that any variation, creativity, or new ideas
are discouraged or ignored, the hectic pace of to-
days business environment demands that every-
one work towards the same organizational mis-
sion.
What these three premises mean to the practic-
ing manager seeking to achieve any mission is
that it is in his or her interest to align the organi-
zations strategic and tactical practices, staffing
policies, and systems procedures with each other
and the mission. This leads to consistent and fo-
cused cues that guide and direct employees be-
havior as they make their day-to-day decisions
about how to close the gap between what is hap-
pening and what must happen to achieve the mis-
sion.
This is the point and power of our emphasis on
auditing organizational alignment. While ideally
the entire organization and its varying compo-
nents, policies, and procedures are all aligned
with the mission, we suggest that there are obvi-
ous internal processes that an organization should
look at first to see how consistently aligned they
are, how easy it is to get out of alignment, and how
managers can audit the cues they send to ensure
mission alignment in their organizations. In other
words, by conducting an audit of the alignment of
their strategic practices, staffing policies, and sys-
tem procedures we identify in our example below
(and detailed in Table 2), managers can initiate a
process to systematically assess how well their
organizations are aligned on these factors. These
are organized and summarized into strategic and
tactical practices, staffing policies and processes,
and systems procedures and design factors. In Ta-
ble 2 we include sample items focused on the ser-
vice excellence mission example that can be used
as part of a template for conducting an alignment
audit for all aspects of the organizations mission.
The Audit Process
To illustrate how an alignment audit can work, we
focus on a mission of excellence in customer ser-
vice. While other aspects of an organizations mis-
sion can and should be audited for alignment, our
concern with the customer service aspect is de-
rived from our own research interests and our dis-
cussions with practicing managers that tell us that
this aspect of the organization mission is often the
most challenging to implement.12 Mission align-
ment audits can appear to be much less sophisti-
cated than the traditional financial audit. Most
organizations have now learned how to communi-
cate and audit their alignment with their financial
goals. However it is still relatively rare to find
organizations that thoughtfully and thoroughly as-
sess the degree to which they achieve the non-
financial parts of their mission. Few, for example,
audit the alignment of their policies and practices
2005 Crotts, Dickson, and Ford 57

Table 2
Service Mission Alignment Factors with Possible Audit Items

Strategic and Tactical Practices

1. Departmental Goals are aligned with customer service mission.
Possible audit items:
Management specifically rewards unit/department managers on how well they score on customer service measures.
Management specifically rewards managers on how well their unit/department provides excellent service to other units/
departments.
2. Environmental Setting/physical design communicates customer service mission.
Possible audit items:
Our physical facility/room layout is designed to be customer friendly.
Our temperature, lighting, and environmental conditions are designed to be customer friendly.
3. Stories are told about and successes celebrate excellence in customer service.
Possible audit items:
Management has formal celebrations for employees who provide excellent customer service.
Excellent customer service is formally recognized and rewarded in our reward system.
4. Top management walks the service mission talk.
Possible audit item:
Management shows its commitment to excellent customer service by visibly walking the talk.
5. Performance standards are aligned with service mission.
Possible audit items:
Customer service excellence is part of each manager/supervisors annual plan/goals/objectives.
Management has established standards of service quality for all aspects of the service experience that our customers
guests tell us are important to them.
6. Budget allocations are aligned with service mission.
Possible audit items:
Our departmental/unit supervisors have the financial resources to train employees on how to provide service excellence.
Employees are reminded that customer service is equally important with financial goals.
Staffing Policies and Processes Factors
7. Job descriptions include service mission.
Possible audit item:
Every job description includes a responsibility for excellent customer service.
8. Job ads include service mission.
Possible audit item:
Our recruitment literature mentions our commitment to excellent customer service.
9. Interviews include questions about commitment to service mission.
Possible audit items:
We routinely ask applicants about their customer service commitment in employment interviews.
Commitment to excellent customer service is one criterion we use to decide who gets hired.
10. Orientation programs stress service mission.
Possible audit item:
We routinely explain our commitment to customer service in our orientation for new employees.
11. Performance appraisals include and reward service mission.
Possible audit items:
Commitment to excellent customer service is part of everyones annual performance evaluation.
Poor customer service can lead to employee discipline/discharge practices.
12. Training programs include training in service mission.
Possible audit item:
Management routinely schedules time to remind staff members of their commitment to service excellence in regular staff
meetings.
System Procedures and Design Factors
13. Service quality systematically measured.
Possible audit items:
We follow a set plan to consistently collect information about customer satisfaction.
We follow a set plan to consistently fix discovered customer service problems.
14. Feedback on service quality systematically provided to all.
Possible audit items:
We follow a set plan to consistently share customer feedback with our employees.
Unit/department comparisons of customer service performance scores are systematically and publicly shared across units/
departments.
15. Service delivery system design reflects service mission.
Possible audit items:
We follow a set plan to consistently record how long guests have to wait for service.
We follow a set plan to consistently keep our guests informed about all aspects of their service experience.
58 Academy of Management Executive
with a mission commitment to respect the environ-
ment, maximize their human resources, or commit
to service excellence.
In a real sense the audit process starts with
defining what the mission really means in terms of
desired outcomes. To paraphrase the Alice in Won-
derland saying: It doesnt matter which way you go
if you dont know where you want to be. If the
mission specifies, as in our example, a commit-
ment to excellent customer service, then the start-
ing point of the assessment process that leads to a
mission audit is to find an appropriate measure of
the degree to which the organization actually
achieves service excellence. One well-tested mea-
sure for assessing the degree to which customers
experience excellence in customer service is SERV-
QUAL developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and
Berry.13 However, other measures can be used,
such as those offered commercially by organiza-
tions like Gallup and Press Gainey or even a sim-
ple comment card system that assesses the degree
to which customers express satisfaction or dissat-
isfaction with the service experience. The point is
that the measures can be very sophisticated or
relatively simple but measurement needs to take
place in order to ensure that everyone in the orga-
nization realizes that there is a reason to align all
their practices, policies, and procedures and that
the organization is taking this mission seriously.14
In effect, the measurement serves as a message.
Just as a financial audit gives an assessment of the
degree to which the numbers represent the reality,
a customer service alignment audit needs to have
reliable definitions of what it means to provide
excellent service to the customers. Gathering these
measures and conducting an audit also sends a
powerful message to the employees about the real
level of commitment to this mission.
Once a measurement system of mission achieve-
ment is set up, then the internal actions that man-
agement creates to communicate the mission to its
employees can be defined. Although this list of
practices, policies, and procedures could be end-
less, the factors chosen for an audit should be
selected on the basis of the degree to which they
are important communicators of the mission and
what must be done to execute it. While we offer a
few of the more obvious factors in Table 2, many
more can be added by a manager who seeks to
drive this process more emphatically and deeply
into the organization. Since we are proposing a
general model that all managers can build on to
suit each organizations unique circumstances, the
items we include in Table 2 are relatively simple to
identify and measure. Moreover, we are focusing
on obvious practices, policies, and procedures for
August
conducting an audit as they are most easily iden-
tified and inexpensively changed.
Once measures for assessing the achievement of
the mission are developed and used, the next step
is to organize the audit tool. Here, the policies,
procedures, and practices that should lead to
achieving that mission can be identified and orga-
nized into a simple questionnaire or form. The next
step is to perform the actual mission alignment
audit. When the key policies, procedures, and
managerial practices are measured or systemati-
cally audited, then gaps can be identified between
the organizations mission and what management
is signaling to its employees.
The measured items are categorized and listed
in Table 2 in the form of a simple questionnaire
that asks whether the practice, policy, or procedure
is present or not. Thus, in a service mission align-
ment audit, questions are asked such as, Is cus-
tomer service mentioned in new employee inter-
views? or Is customer service feedback
systematically provided to managers? Although it
may be that one item is more important than oth-
ers, it seems clear from the research that the cus-
tomer service experience is viewed by customers
in a holistic way. Thus, managers should look for
any item that does not get a yes in this simple
audit. Once that item is identified, managers know
that their practices, policies, or procedures are not
communicating or cueing the type of behavior that
aligns with the mission. Since these audited items
are existing policies, procedures, and practices,
the incremental cost of changing them to align
with the mission should be minimal.
It is important to note that the audit items we
offer represent only the tip of an organizational
iceberg. Managers truly interested in utilizing this
audit approach to ensure alignment can use these
categories and questions as a beginning point and
then add items that are unique to their organiza-
tion and mission. The entire reason for such an audit
is to provide a systematic assessment of where the
companys policies, procedures, and practices are
and are not aligned so that those that are not can
be discovered and brought into alignment.
The Case of a Service Excellence
Alignment Audit
Tracing back the tactical actions and organiza-
tional practices that lead to the implementation of
a strategic plan to achieve the mission is the first
step in any organizational alignment. This details
the what part of the mission. In the case of de-
fining the who, everything related to staffing and
human resource policies should be tightly linked
2005 Crotts, Dickson, and Ford
to and aligned with a commitment to customer
service.15 Finally, in detailing the how, delivery
systems procedures, facilities design, and informa-
tion systems must be linked back and aligned to
the mission and strategy.
All these linkages can be assessed through an
alignment audit. For example, does the organiza-
tion have any systematic measures of the quality
or value of the customer service it provides? It does
little good to talk about excellent customer service
in a mission statement if there are no measure-
ments of how customers evaluate the customer
service they get. Likewise, an alignment audit
should look at the extent to which customer feed-
back on excellent customer service is included in
the strategic plan, budgets, and even the annual
plans and goals of individual managers.
Finally, we must offer one last caution in creat-
ing and using an alignment audit. Even though our
example focuses on service excellence, most mis-
sions are multidimensional, and any audit of their
many parts needs to consider how each part re-
lates to the others. If, for example, the business
model is to focus on profitability and only on other
aspects of a mission like customer service, em-
ployee welfare, or environmental stakeholder in-
terests when they do not conflict with achieving
the profitability goal, then auditing the degree to
which the organizational practices and actions
align with each of the various aspects of the mis-
sion need to accommodate that emphasis. If the
costs of delivering excellent customer service jeop-
ardize the profit goal, then management may elect
to be satisfied with a reputation for good customer
service instead of excellent. However, the reality of
these potential trade-offs need not detract from the
utility of conducting an alignment audit, as it is
still critical to identify and assess what those
trade-offs are and what they mean in terms of
achieving all parts of the mission.
Strategic and Tactical Actions and Practices
Departmental and Unit Goals are Aligned with
Service Mission
One of the most important cues that any organiza-
tion can send is how the mission statement aligns
with the goals of individual managers and the
departments they manage. Nothing causes a
breakdown in alignment quicker between a mis-
sion of excellent customer service and the actual
delivery of excellent customer service than not
having departmental and unit managers account-
able in some measurable way for delivering it.16
They know for what they and their departments are
59
held accountable and what the organization be-
lieves in. If there is no alignment between these
two, then the message and the mission get lost.
One of the authors experience demonstrates this
point well. Upon arrival at the International Air-
port in Montego Bay, Jamaica, he saw that the
wheels had become detached from his very expen-
sive suitcase while on the flight. He had paid the
extra money for the suitcase primarily because he
needed wheels to help him move his typically
overloaded case while traveling. The airline dis-
avowed responsibility for the damage and showed
him its disclaimer indicating that it was not re-
sponsible for anything like this damage.
Leaving the airport unhappy with the airlines
handling of the dispute and the damage to his
suitcase, the author wrestled it through immigra-
tion and customs and then on to the hotel shuttle.
On arrival at the hotel, the young bellman greeting
the author expressed his dismay at seeing such a
nice suitcase so mangled. He inquired as to what
had happened and, when told the story, expressed
his apology for the unfortunate experience. The
next day the author went to an early morning meet-
ing. On returning to the room late that afternoon,
he noticed that the bag was missing. The author
asked his wife what had happened and she
seemed surprised that he didnt know. She told him
an engineer had come to the room and taken the
suitcase away. She thought that the author had
made arrangements with the engineer to have the
case repaired. Later, while dressing for dinner,
there was a knock on the door. There was the
engineer with the suitcaserepaired and good as
new. The surprised and very grateful author asked
him how he knew that the suitcase was broken. He
said that the bellman had mentioned it and asked
him if he could fix it. He could and he did.
Astounded, the author offered the engineer a
gratuity, which he promptly declined and said it
was his pleasure and he was only too happy to
help. The next day he also tried to tip the bellman
but the bellman also refused and indicated that he
was simply happy to have been of service. The Ritz
Carlton Rose Hall earned its reputation that week.
These employees were in perfect alignment with
The Ritz Carlton mission statement which states,
To be the premier worldwide provider of luxury
travel and hospitality services. They knew what
was expected of them and did it. In comparison,
the mission statement of the airline which also
touts its commitment to guest service excellence is
unfulfilled by its employees.
The point should be clear that if the mission
statement does not get translated into individual
managers and departmental mission statements,
60 Academy of Management Executive
then it is unlikely that the message of customer
service will be heard. The Ritz Carlton is famous
for making sure that these are aligned while the
unmentioned airline clearly is out of alignment. A
mission statement by itself cannot guarantee good
customer service even if it is the obvious starting
point.
Environmental Setting and Physical Design
Communicates Service Mission
A second area of alignment included in our audit
template is in the design and development of the
physical environment or setting in which the ser-
vice experience takes place. Here companies not
only specifically consider how the environmental
setting will impact the customer experience but
also take into consideration how that setting will
impact their employees when planning their phys-
ical layout and design.17
Disney is considered the master of aligning the
design of its physical structures to its mission
which was: To create happiness for people of all
ages everywhere. Even a casual observer of its
theme parks and hotels will notice that it spends
considerable effort on the details in the setting to
define the quality of the guest experience. Disney
even transplants trees throughout its resort every
few years so that guests will find the same height
trees in their photos when they compare the trip
they took this year with the one they took several
years ago. The customers may get older but the
fantasy world of the Magic Kingdom and its trees
never age. Likewise, its engineers take special
care in designing the waiting line experience so
that their Disney World guests have as little dis-
comfort as possible while waiting in Orlandos
90-degree summer heat to enter the next attraction.
But they take it even further as they make sure
that their employees feel the magic of their mis-
sion too. They recognize the need to align the cast
member experience in the physical setting with
the guests experience. If the cast member (Dis-
neys term for its employees) doesnt feel the magic
of the place, the guests wont either. Thus, they
make sure that their physical structures and lay-
outs communicate their mission to each employee.
Communicating this mission to new employees
and even applicants is even more critical. When
one considers the first impression an organization
can make on a potential employee, it becomes
easy to see an obvious opportunity to create align-
ment of physical design with the mission. For ex-
ample, the employment office in many organiza-
tions is located in a place that sends a message to
new applicants about their importance to the orga-
August
nization. In many hotels it is in the third subbase-
ment next to the dumpsters or the boiler room. In
restaurants it is frequently at a table in a closed off
(hopefully) section of the dining room.
In contrast, Disney sends all applicants to its
Casting Center, which incorporates the Disney cul-
ture and symbols. This building communicates the
Disney culture to new applicants and at the same
time reinforces the company mission to the inter-
viewers while dealing with a large number of
daily applicants. From the moment the new appli-
cant enters the doors that are replicas of the ones
Alice floated through on her journey to Wonder-
land, the physical design reminds everyone of the
magic that Disney seeks to create for its guests and
employees. The unique facade of the Casting Cen-
ter replicates a Venetian Palace painted with a
harlequin design. Applicants entering it see Dis-
neys most famous characters peering down from
twelve pillars in the ornate rotunda. The message
communicated to the applicant through this phys-
ical design is: You are entering a different world;
this isnt your typical employment office. Be pre-
pared for new and unusual things; also be pre-
pared to have some fun.
By designing the Casting Center to align with its
mission, Disney communicates to all its culture
and mission. Better yet, those who are not hired
leave with a feeling that this company cares about
its employees as much as it cares about its guests.
While few think about this issue, we include it in
our audit to remind organizations of the impor-
tance of their physical design and layout. Obvi-
ously they can contribute or detract from aligning
both customers and employees with the mission of
excellent guest service.
Service Excellence Stories are Told and
Successes Celebrated
Perhaps there is no better way for managers to
communicate their commitment to the service mis-
sion than through the stories they tell and are told
about them.18 People seem to remember stories
and their teaching points much better than some
four-point lecture on service excellence. An exam-
ple of a story that communicated the organizations
commitment to service excellence is one told about
Ron Magruder, former President of Olive Garden
Restaurants and currently Chief Executive of Hops.
The story is about an action he took when making
one of his routine visits to an Olive Garden Res-
taurant in Houston. He arrived at the peak of the
lunchtime crowd and immediately learned that the
store manager was in the weeds. Two of her
cooks had not shown up and the restaurant was
2005 Crotts, Dickson, and Ford
full of hungry and impatient customers. Ron, find-
ing the manager in the kitchen trying to cook as
fast as she could to catch up with the orders, took
off his coat, grabbed an apron, and joined her on
the cook line. In the middle of this chaos, a phone
call came in from the manager of another Houston
area Olive Garden asking her if she had seen Ron
yet. The manager tersely told the other manager to
not bother her while the president of the company
was on the next grille cooking. The story spread
rapidly throughout the company and left little
doubt as to where the company and its leaders
stood on commitment to customer service.
Stories like this can teach the mission and guide
behavior by all. For example, the mission of South-
west Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of
customer service delivered with a sense of
warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and com-
pany spirit. Southwest Airlines culture is full of
stories about how its people implemented this mis-
sion by providing excellent customer service. The
impact these stories have is not only derived from
the moral of a particular story but also from the
fact that top managers tell them with passion. Tell-
ing stories about what a mission statement focus
on service excellence looks like in practice is a
powerful way to gain alignment and should be
part of any audit. Likewise, what gets celebrated
and what does not also communicates the commit-
ment of management to its service mission. When
thank-you or congratulatory letters from customers
are read aloud to all employees in a service team
by its manager, the team members know what that
manager and the organization values and believes
to be important. When top management sends a
thank-you to some employee who does something
special for a customer, he or she sends a powerful
reminder of what the company believes in and
wants all of its employees to do. In a strategic
sense, what stories management tells and what it
celebrates are vital ways to align a commitment to
a service mission with action; these cues need to
be included in an audit.
Top Management Walks the Service Mission Talk
In a similar sense, top management has to walk
the talk. Too often, the do as I say and not as I do
mentality interferes with the alignment between
the mission statement on the wall and actual em-
ployee behaviors.19 If management says we need
to be vigilant on cleanliness and walks by trash on
the floor, the grand words lose their impact by the
lack of willingness of top management to show
they really care.
One of the exemplars in this area has been J.W.
61
(Bill) Marriott. He is legendary when it comes to
visiting his properties and spending time with all
levels of employees reaffirming the Marriott mis-
sion and values. Other organizations have their
tales of top managements commitment to service
excellence as well. Herb Kelleher, former CEO of
Southwest Airlines, was noted for pitching in to
help serve customers. He felt it was important to
model the behavior that all employees should
show to customers. His beliefs and those leaders
like him are simple; if we are unwilling to take the
time to do what we can for customers, how can we
expect any employee to believe that we are serious
about doing the best we can to serve them?
Likewise, David Neeleman founder and CEO of
Jet Blue is rapidly earning a similar reputation for
walking the talk. Neeleman tries to take a flight on
Jet Blue every week working in the capacity of his
employees. He interacts with the passengers as
well as his employees modeling the behavior that
is expected and demonstrating the attention to ser-
vice that mirrors its mission. Jet Blue embraces five
values that represent the company and create its
unique culture: Safety, Caring, Integrity, Fun, &
Passion. All of these values should, Neeleman be-
lieves, lead to a focus on service.
Benchmark service organizations know that, in
order to align the practices and behaviors of their
employees with the service mission, their top man-
agers have to lead the way. Everyone watches
what they do and say and the commitment to ser-
vice begins with them. If they dont take customer
service excellence seriously, they cant expect any-
one else to take it seriously either. Employees
watch top managers for cues as to what is good
and bad, valued and not valued, expected and not
wanted. Assessing the practices of top manage-
ment is a key aspect of any alignment audit.
Performance Standards are Aligned with
Service Mission
A final aspect of aligning strategic practices to
mission in our audit template is the performance
standards that are created to link everyones ef-
forts to the goal of excellent service.20 SYSCO pro-
vides an excellent illustration of this strategy, as
reported in Buckingham and Coffmans book First
Break all the Rules.21 The SYSCO facility in Poco-
moke, Maryland, is in the top 25 percent of all
SYSCO facilities in terms of growth, sales per em-
ployee, profit per employee, and market penetra-
tion. They also have single digit turnover, and one
of the companys lowest breakage and spillage
rates. In an interview with the general manager,
Fred Landford, it is clear that this is not a great
62 Academy of Management Executive
mystery to him and his employees. Everything is
measured, every measure is posted, and every
measure has some kind of reward attached to it.
Mr. Langford says that all the measures are care-
fully linked to the customers wants and expecta-
tions. This alignment of standards with customer
service mission offers a solid explanation for why
SYSCO is such a strong and profitable competitor.
Staffing Policies and Processes
A customer-focused strategy has to translate into
human resource practices that are aligned with
that strategy. In the case of service excellence, an
audit can identify breakdowns in the linkages be-
tween the mission of excellent customer service
and the staffs commitment and ability to deliver
that service. An audit of human resources policies
can reveal possible misalignments such as: Do we
ask people about their commitment to excellent
customer service in our interviews? Do we tell
them about our commitment to it in our advertise-
ments for new employees? Is this mentioned in our
job descriptions? Do we offer any new employee
orientation and training on what excellent cus-
tomer service is to our organization and how im-
portant we value it? More importantly, do we eval-
uate, reward, discipline, and promote people on
the degree to which they provide excellent cus-
tomer service? It is amazing to see how often an
organization writes a mission statement proclaim-
ing its commitment to excellent customer service
but doesnt bother to note this as an important
requirement in the job ads, ask about it in an
interview, include it in any job descriptions, or
formally reward it in the annual performance re-
view process. Whatever the mission is, it should be
reflected in all these HR practices and procedures
if the organization wants to secure alignment.22
Job Descriptions Include Service Mission
A major HR issue is the alignment of job descrip-
tions with job duties. This issue is included on our
audit template. Not only is it critical in determining
the nature and type of employee being sought in
the recruiting process but also aligning job de-
scriptions with the job assignments given to em-
ployees is crucial in ensuring that what manage-
ment wants to happen actually does happen for
both new and continuing employees. We are re-
minded of a local budget steakhouse manager who
took a cue from Wal-Mart and hired a greeter to
enhance his customer service experience. The job
description was premised on the idea that a
greeter could welcome the guest and explain the
August
self-serve process to the guest thereby creating a
better guest experience.
After a short while, the manager noticed that
there were many periods of time when there were
no arrivals at the restaurant and decided to add
some other tasks to fill in the slack time. The man-
ager asked the greeter to ensure that clean trays
were always available. The greeter added this
new responsibility to the original job description
and began keeping clean trays stocked. However,
whenever the manager saw that the available
trays were low, he mentioned it to the greeter and
asked him to take care of the problem. From that
time onward the only contact the greeter had with
the manager was to receive criticism when there
were not enough trays. Before long the greeter
stopped greeting at all and concentrated 100 per-
cent of the effort on trays. Within three weeks the
greeter quit the job. The manager deemed the
greeting position a failure.
If there is a misalignment between the job de-
scription and what the managers tell the employ-
ees are their real tasks then there is an obvious
disconnect between what a company says and
what it actually holds its people accountable for in
their job performance. As we noted above, confu-
sion over job role and function is not likely to lead
to achieving a companys mission. Including the
linkage of job descriptions to mission in an align-
ment audit is an important part of ensuring that
what people are asked to do in their job perfor-
mance is the same thing as what the organization
needs them to do to accomplish that mission.
Job Ads Include Service Mission
Job ads are another component of our alignment
audit template as they communicate powerfully to
new entrants what the job entails. To illustrate our
point we searched the obvious places for some job
listings from companies we are familiar with to
discover if any included their customer service
mission in their job advertisements. There are not
very many examples of this alignment. Starbucks,
however, offers one example of an organization
that understands the need to communicate its com-
mitment to guest satisfaction in its job ads and
offers an illustration of what this alignment looks
like in these excerpts from an on-line ad:
Job Summary and Mission
This job contributes to Starbucks by leading
a team of store partners (employees) to create
and maintain Starbucks Experience for our
customers and partners. The store manager is
required to regularly and customarily exer-
2005 Crotts, Dickson, and Ford
cise discretion in managing the overall oper-
ation of the store by spending a majority of his
or her time supervising and directing the
workforce, making staffing decisions, ensur-
ing customer satisfaction and product quality,
managing the stores financial performance,
and managing safety and security within the
store
Leadership Setting goals for the work
group, developing organizational capability,
and modeling how we work together:
Trains and holds partners accountable
for delivering legendary customer service
Plans, identifies, communicates, and
delegates appropriate responsibilities and
practices to store partners.
Manages with integrity, honesty, and
knowledge that promote the culture, values,
and mission of Starbucks.
Clearly, Starbucks values and seeks those who
will accept the mission of championing guest sat-
isfaction. By including this mission in its ads Star-
bucks is telling the potential candidate that this
commitment is important and that everyone is ac-
countable for guest satisfaction. Including this fac-
tor in an alignment audit is a relatively simple
thing to do, as it focuses on what is in print. If the
organization doesnt see the need to articulate a
commitment to customer service in its job ads, then
it will certainly call into question its overarching
commitment to this part of its mission.
Interviews Include Questions About
Service Mission
Another HR area that an alignment audit should
include for assessment is whether or not the mis-
sion is included in some way in the job interview
process. It is common to ask questions or share
information that only reflect job knowledge and
past work experiences. While this makes sense
since organizations do need to hire competent and
skilled people, the benchmark organizations seek
to also include questions about the applicants at-
titudes towards providing excellent customer ser-
vice. One example is the interviewer who asks
prospective employees how they would handle a
problem customer. The answer that this inter-
viewer listens for is that the candidate has never
met a problem customer, since that person be-
lieves that the mission of the organization is to
provide excellent service to every customer.
The point is simple: the fact that the question is
asked gives the interviewer an opportunity to find
out something about the applicants attitude to-
63
wards customer service and, equally important,
signals to the applicant that this company cares
enough about this part of its mission that it will
ask its applicants questions about it. If the inter-
view process doesnt include some discussion of
the company mission or an attempt to ensure that
the candidate is comfortable with that mission,
then the organization will miss a relatively easy
opportunity to acquaint the new employee with
that mission and emphasize its importance.
Orientation Programs Stress Mission
Organizations offer a wide variety of orientation
programs to tell new employees what is expected.
Too often, these orientation programs only consist
of job skill training and some overview of organi-
zational policies and procedures. Then the new
employee is assigned to someone who is told to
show them how we do it here. The likelihood that
this person will actually orient the new employee
to the commitment the organization has to its mis-
sion is obviously problematic.
In contrast, we offer the famous Walt Disney
World Co. Traditions orientation process as a
model of how to show the new employee not only
the job expectations but the mission expectations
as well. Although somewhat modified today, the
original Traditions program was established as a
two-day long program that everyone, regardless of
job duties or organizational level, went through. It
taught the companys history, achievements, qual-
ity standards, philosophy, and mission. It also de-
tailed the employees responsibility in creating the
Disney show, an introduction to company poli-
cies and procedures, and an introduction and ori-
entation to each cast members work area plus a
familiarization tour of the entire 43 square miles of
the property. By being the first exposure to Disney
for all new employees it provided a common bond
with the company and its values. They learned
that achieving Disneys happiness mission was a
result of a following a four-part action hierarchy
that tells new employees what Disney values. In
other words, the employee should use the follow-
ing priorities to guide his or her decisions about
what action to take when dealing with a guest
service situation: safety, courtesy, show, and effi-
ciency. Everyone who went through this program
had no doubt what the mission is, what was im-
portant, and how they fit into it. Above all and
regardless of their job assignments, all cast mem-
bers learned from their very first day on the job
that their mission was to create happiness for each
guest.
As far as an orientation to the organization, the
64 Academy of Management Executive
first impression makes a lasting one. The organi-
zation can choose whether to communicate to its
new employees its values and mission or send
instead the message that the job is only a task, the
company only cares about following its rules and
regulations, and the supervisor is just interested in
getting a person filling a vacant position as soon
as possible. While everyone knows that these
things are also important, the benchmark organi-
zations also know that they only get one chance to
make a first impression. They make sure that
teaching employees how what they do is aligned
to the mission is a vital part of that first impres-
sion.
This too is a relatively easy factor to assess in an
alignment audit. We include it on our template
because it is important to orient new employees to
the mission and especially to a mission that in-
cludes service excellence. If the orientation is not
linked to the mission in a clear and direct linkage,
then the organization will miss an opportunity to
start off the new employee alignment with that
mission. While everyone will likely agree with our
logic for including it in our audit template, it is still
surprising how few organizations bother to make
this a component of their orientation programs. It
may seem expensive to add this component, and
few organizations can duplicate the Disney pro-
gram, but not to include any mission orientation is
an invitation for the wrong people to define for the
new employee what the organization stands for
and values as important. It is better for most orga-
nizations to pay now as they will pay later for not
having made the effort to provide the right mission
orientation.
Performance Appraisals Include and Reward
Service Mission
Probably one of the more important items to in-
clude in any alignment audit is the assessment of
whether or not the performance appraisal and or-
ganizational reward system are tied to the mission
statement in a clear, systematic way. In a recent
experience with an unnamed hotel in a large
northern city, one of the authors asked the hotel
manager on what basis he was appraised. Budget,
Revpar (revenue per available room), and turnover
was the answer. When asked if there was any-
where in his appraisal form or performance review
a mention of the companys mission on its commit-
ment to customer service excellence, he answered
none. In comparison is an example from a very
successful hotel. Here the Food and Beverage De-
partment manager has three equal parts to his
annual performance review process and bonus
August
plan. One-third is on budget performance, one-
third is based on external customer service scores,
and one-third on service to his internal customers
(both his staff employees and other departments
he serves). In the first case there is no alignment
between the service excellence mission and the
performance assessment and reward policies for
the manager; for the second manager, there is.
Annual Training in Service Mission
In too many organizations, once an employee is
trained for a specific job, there is no additional
formal training and especially none in service ex-
cellence. In benchmark organizations, on the other
hand, the commitment to service mission is not
only covered in the orientation programs, as dis-
cussed earlier, but also annual renewals of this
training remind employees anew of the organiza-
tions commitment to its mission. In the case of
excellent customer service, the Ritz-Carlton is a
classic example of an organization that recognizes
the importance of continuing training to reach its
mission. They not only provide a lengthy orienta-
tion program, but also at day 21 of employment
they have a formal review session where senior
managers meet with the new employees individu-
ally to find out how things are going, to identify
what else that employee needs to learn, and to tell
him or her how important that employee is to the
service mission and reinforce the relevance of the
training.
Beyond this intense orientation there is an an-
nual certification process in which the employee
must show again that he or she is still qualified to
do the job and is still fully aware of the mission of
the Ritz-Carlton organization. This review occurs
in addition to those at regular departmental meet-
ings of the twenty principles of service that are
included on the Credo Card every employee car-
ries. These practices represent the alignment of
continual training with mission. Not only does
training take place on the key drivers of guest
satisfaction for this organization, but also they are
constantly reinforced. Many organizations con-
sider this level of training an excessive expense
and not feasible for an organization that is not in
the luxury hotel market. On the other hand, any
organization, regardless of the market it serves,
must recognize the value of ensuring that its em-
ployees know what they should do in creating the
service experience that the customer expects. Con-
stant training is being increasingly recognized as
a necessity and not a luxury in competitive mar-
kets. As organizations come to understand the
value of repeat and loyal customers, they also un-
2005 Crotts, Dickson, and Ford
derstand that it is training in service excellence
that makes its customers come back and tell their
friends. From a managerial standpoint, this is a
simple point to audit: it either exists or it doesnt. If
it doesnt, then it should be added to get this crit-
ical, ongoing reminder of the mission in alignment
for all employees.
If management wants everyone to focus on the
customer service mission then ensuring that these
human resources policies or processes are in com-
plete alignment with that mission is a good way to
get all employees to focus on that mission. Going
back to our premises stated above, employees
know what is important and what is not on the
basis of what the organization discusses, rewards,
and punishes. If no one has ever lost a job on the
basis of customer service but has lost a job on
technical performance of job duties, the message
is clear as to what is valued and important, and
what employees are paid to do. All the mission
statements in the world cant diminish the power of
these kinds of direct and indirect cues for behavior.
When the wrong behaviors are cued the mission is
lost. The benchmark service organizations teach
us that the need to keep these critical human re-
source policies and processes aligned is vital to
organizational success.
Systems Procedures and Design
Finally, organizational systems must also be
aligned with the mission. In the case of customer
service mission, this means that the organizational
support people, the back of the house design, and
all the other systems that deliver the service expe-
rience to the guest must be aligned with that mis-
sion. If productivity standards for the bank tellers
are set in a way that increase waits and minimize
customer satisfaction, the waiting system is out of
alignment. If automatic telephone trees are set up
to minimize costs instead of maximizing the cus-
tomer experience, this misalignment may lead to
customer defections. If the service recovery system
is set up to make sure no one cheats the company
instead of rewarding employees for finding and
fixing customer problems, the alignment is also
wrong. The point is that there are multiple parts of
the organizations service delivery system that can
impact the customer experience and too often they
are designed only for the convenience of the orga-
nization instead of the customer. The alignment is
off and everyone who works at the point of contact
with the unhappy customer knows it. This may be
easy to audit since the number of complaints can
be readily correlated to the number of repeat cus-
tomers. There is an old saying in the service indus-
65
try that if you dont satisfy your customers your
competitors will be only too happy to try. When
customer counts fall off, it may be too late to start
thinking about alignment. Ensuring the alignment
of systems with the customer service mission will
not be cost free. However, studies of the factors that
lead to customer loyalty, the drivers of repeat busi-
ness, and the determinants of customer satisfac-
tion report that doing the right things right has a
value that can offset the costs.23
Feedback on Service Quality Systematically
Provided to All
Feedback is a cornerstone of quality improvement
and a logical inclusion in our audit template.24
How can an employee do a better job at anything
unless he or she knows how well that job is being
currently performed? How can a carefully estab-
lished standard of performance measure have any
impact on behavior unless those whose behavior
needs to change know what the measures and the
results of those measures are? In the case of ser-
vice excellence, its not enough to know what the
quality and value of the service experience is if
that information isnt shared with those who de-
liver it in ways that can help them to improve. The
benchmark service organizations measure their
commitment to service in multiple ways and then
share those measures with everyone affected by
them. British Airways, for example, tracks some
350 indicators of quality, ranging from on-time per-
formance to aircraft cleanliness, to how much time
it takes to check in for a flight. It then issues a
monthly report on its key performance indicators to
all its managers who can use these internally gen-
erated indicators of quality with externally gath-
ered customer surveys. Putting both internal and
external generated data together allows everyone
to know a wide range of measures of performance
and to keep track of how they and their units are
doing in comparison to other units. Sometimes,
industry-wide data can be made available to all
employees so they can see how their company is
doing in comparison to others in the same busi-
ness. Airlines make these comparisons with on-
time arrival rates, lost baggage incidents, and sim-
ilar measures of customer satisfaction with the
airline service, giving all employees ownership in
performance and specific feedback on the degree
to which the service mission is being achieved.
More specific information makes it possible to gain
more specific alignment with the organizational
mission. Even better, it allows each employee to
see in very specific terms how the company is
doing in areas where he or she can impact the
66 Academy of Management Executive
results. If on-time performance is a problem in
Chicago, then the Chicago team can meet to ad-
dress how it can eliminate this problem as its
contribution to the service mission.
Service Quality Systematically Measured
A second area where the organization needs to
ensure alignment with mission is in developing
ways to effectively fix problems that the system
measures identify.25 This issue is especially criti-
cal for organizations with service excellence mis-
sions, as they must work hard to turn a customer
who is dissatisfied with the company and its ser-
vice into a satisfied one. One system procedure for
doing this is the service guarantee.26 The premise
behind a guarantee is that the customer can use it
to trigger a series of remedial practices to a service
failure. Not only will a guarantee allow the orga-
nization to successfully fix a failure but it also
alerts the entire organization to that failure. The
organizations that are most successful at using the
service guarantee use them to initiate investiga-
tions into the organizational production and sup-
port systems so that they can identify and fix
causes of future problems.
A well-known example is the Hampton Inns.
They recognized that no matter how much they
talked about the need for all employees to focus on
delivering excellent customer service, it would not
occur if there were systematic impediments to pro-
viding such service. They realized that too often
leaders do things or require things that get in the
way of employees providing that level of service
and wanted to avoid that error by offering an un-
conditional guarantee. If a customer is not com-
pletely satisfied with its services, you are not ex-
pected to pay. For many organizations the
customer would have to seek out a manager to
invoke this guarantee but Hampton Inns empowers
its employees to honor such requests. Further, em-
ployees can even take the initiative to invoke the
request on behalf of their guests. In fact, employ-
ees initiate almost 40 percent of the invocations.
Hampton Inns unconditional guarantee has cre-
ated a systems cue for both guests and employees
that carry the message: When we talk about guest
satisfaction we mean business. Benchmark orga-
nizations in guest satisfaction know how to align
their systems to their mission, and this service
guarantee is an excellent example of how this
organization keeps everyone focused on its mis-
sion.
August
Service Delivery System Design Reflects
Service Mission
Another area to include in an alignment audit is
the design of the service system or the way in
which the service is delivered to the customer.27
Consider a classic story told by the former COO of
the Ritz Carlton, Horst Schulze. He was faced with
a problem of increasing complaints on room ser-
vice breakfast deliveries being both cold and slow.
The hotel general manager decided to investigate
by organizing a team of room service employees to
find out what the root causes of the problem were
and how it might be fixed. The team studied the
problem at great length and found out that the
cause was unavailability of elevators when break-
fast room service demand was high. The team then
decided to study why the elevators were unavail-
able or slow to respond and even had a room
service team member stand in an elevator for a
morning to write down where the elevators were
when the room service people wanted them, what
they were being used for, and even used a stop
watch to clock how long the elevators took to re-
spond.
What they found out was astonishing and unex-
pected. The whole problem was traced to a bad
management decision to cut expenses by reducing
the number of bed sheets each floor was allowed to
stock (the par) for the housekeeping staff. This de-
cision had left some floors with too few sheets and
the housekeepers were tying up the elevators to go
find sheets from other floors to finish their work.
Consequently, the room service people were com-
peting for the elevators with the housekeepers and
slowed them both down. Because a manager was
trying to save some money on sheets, the entire
system was disrupted in unexpected ways with
real additional costs. This cost saving move on
sheets drove up the total costs of the hotel as it
would not charge its customers for meals that were
not acceptable or timely.
This is a good example of a system where the
relationships among its parts was not thoroughly
understood. The fact that the system did finally get
studied and the discrepancy with the service mis-
sion discovered and corrected is a tribute to the
manager who decided to find out the reason that
the service delivery system was not aligned with
the organizations service mission. While the result
was unexpected and surprising, it should not have
been. Benchmark service organizations know that
everything they do sends a message and studies
itself and its service delivery systems constantly to
make sure they are all aligned to send the same
message.
2005 Crotts, Dickson, and Ford
In an organizations complicated work world
with the ever-increasing sophistication of the tech-
nology used, it is easy to add something new to the
system without realizing the impact that it might
have on the ability of the organization or its em-
ployees to meet the customers service experience
expectations. Buying a new automatic telephone
answering system with tree responses may more
quickly handle the typical contingencies of most
customer problems but the same system can also
frustrate the very unique problems that some cus-
tomers have. The commitment of benchmark orga-
nizations to keeping all their systems aligned with
a commitment to service excellence means that
they spend the time and exert the energy to both
study their current systems and to make sure that
the system stays in alignment after any new sys-
tem improvement.
Conclusions
The concept of aligning everything that the orga-
nization does with its mission seems simple and
obvious but is surprisingly difficult to execute. A
causal review of any organization shows how
many policies, procedures, and systems get in the
way of the mission instead of keeping everyone
focused on the goal. The idea of an alignment
audit like the one illustrated in the template here
can be an excellent way to determine the extent to
which the organization is consistently cueing its
employees on what to do and how to do it. The
more things line up pointing towards the organi-
zational mission, the more likely it is that the em-
ployees will get the message.
If the organization must rely on its employees to
ensure it meets its mission, managers should
spend the time and make the effort to audit every-
thing that they do, every policy they write, form
they design, system they create, celebration they
hold, and story they tell to ensure that they all send
the same message to their employees and custom-
ers. The alignment audit using the example of cus-
tomer service we offer is a starting point. There is
much more academic and practical work to be
done. We encourage managers to use our ap-
proach only as a starting point for a more intensive
and customized audit of their organizations align-
ment with their mission. We encourage scholars to
consider focusing more on the issues of mission
alignment we identify to help bring greater clarity
and emphasis on which elements are most impor-
tant and why. The message we stress is that mis-
alignment leads to confusion while alignment can
be the key to organizational success. Whether the
mission is excellence in customer service, stake-
67
holder concerns, employee welfare, or profitability,
it is helpful to ensure that all the things that the
organization does are aligned with that mission
and then assessed to make sure that what needs to
fit together to achieve that mission are actually in
place.
Endnotes
1
Powell, T. 1992. Organizational alignment as competitive
advantage. Strategic Management Journal, 13(2):119 135; Bart,
C. 1998. Mission statement rationales and organizational align-
ment in the not-for-profit health care sector. Health Care Man-
agement Review, 23(4): 54 70.
2
Tichy, N. 1983. Managing strategic change. New York, NY:
Wiley.
3
Miles, R.E. & Snow, C.C. 1984. Fit, failure and the hall of
fame, California Management Review 24(3): 10 28. Miles, R.E. &
Snow, C.C. Fit, failure and the hall of fame, NY: Free Press.
4
Miles, R. & Snow, C. 1986. Organizations: New concepts for
new forms. California Management Review, 28(2): 68 73.
5
Powell, T. 1992. Organizational alignment as competitive
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John C. Crotts, Ph.D. is a Professor and Chair of the Hospitality
and Tourism Management Program at the College of Charles-
ton. His research encompasses the areas of economic psychol-
ogy, tourism marketing strategy, and management of coopera-
tive alliances. In 2004, the School of Hotel and Tourism
Management of Hong Kong Polytechnic University ranked him
in the top one percent of scholars worldwide for his published
research productivity. In addition to serving as the founding
editor of International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Ad-
ministration, he also serves on the editoral board of the Journal
of Travel and Tourism Marketing, the Journal of Hospitality and
Tourism and the Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tour-
ism Management. Contact: crottsj@cofc.edu.
Duncan R. Dickson is an Assistant Professor at Rosen College of
Hospitality Management. With over thirty years in the hospital-
ity industry he gathered expertise in Guest Service Manage-
ment, Human Resource Management, and Theme Park Manage-
ment. After almost twenty years with the Walt Disney World,
Co., he joined the University of Central Florida in 1997, first as
an adjunct and since January 2001 as an Assistant Professor.
Contact: ddickson@mail.ucf.edu.
Robert C. Ford is currently a Professor of Management at the
University of Central Floridas College of Business Administra-
tion. He joined UCF in 1993 as Chair of the Department of
Hospitality Management and later became Associate Dean for
Graduate and External Programs serving until 2003. He has
authored or co-authored over 100 articles, books, and presenta-
tions on management and organizations focusing on human
resources management and services management topics espe-
cially on achieving service excellence in health care and hos-
pitality. His texts include Principles of Management: A Decision
Making Approach, Organization Theory, Managing the Guest
Experience in Hospitality and Achieving Service Excellence:
Strategies for Healthcare. Dr. Ford has served the Academy of
Management as the Director of Placement and the Division
Chair for both the Management History and the Management
Education and Management Development Divisions and as ed-
itor of the Academy of Management Executive. Contact:
rford@bus.ucf.edu.
Editors note: This article was submitted and ac-
cepted after the third author completed his term as
editor of the Academy of Management Executive.
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