Accounts and Accountability: On Organizational Purpose, Organizational Identity, and Meaningful Work

The recent rediscovery of corporate purpose has illuminated how much more we still need to understand about purpose and its role in organizations. After tracing the historical roots of purpose and conceptualizing its unique value in bridging the mundane and the moral in organizational life, we propose links among purpose and organizational identity, image and reputation, as well as with meaningful work. These linkages suggest two core functions of purpose: a vehicle for accountability (internal and external) and a source of accounts and justifications. These functions serve as mechanisms connecting purpose to different levels of analysis both within and outside of the organization. We also highlight potential impediments to maximizing the benefits of purpose: stakeholder cynicism and employee disillusionment. We conclude by suggesting new areas of research to overcome these impediments and to better establish purpose as a root construct in organizational scholarship.

History: This paper has been accepted for the Strategy Science Special Issue on Corporate Purpose.