Determining the Most Important Components of the Petroleum Corporate Mission Statement Using Grey Systems Theory

Strategic management contexts usually define a couple of activities, including preparing a mission statement, which is one of the essential parts in developing the strategic plan of an organization. Numerous researches in the strategic management literature have expressed the attributes of an effectively written mission statement for a firm in general. Although the corporate mission statement and its components vary from industry to industry, none of the researchers have specifically studied the components of a corporate mission statement in the petroleum industry. In this study, the general components of the corporate mission statement were extracted and listed based on the strategic management literature review. Then, the most important components of the corporate mission statement specific to the petroleum industry were selected using the industry experts’ opinions. The grey systems theory was utilized to aggregate the expert judgments that are qualitative in nature. Fourteen components for the petroleum industry corporate mission statement were selected as the research results. Whether developing a new business or reformulating direction for an ongoing company in the petroleum industry, these specific components should be included in the content of the corporate mission statement.