NEWS

Lisbon’s AESE Business School hosted the third edition of the international symposium, “Companies with a Human Face: How to Integrate Values into Business”, which was organized in collaboration with the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya’s (UIC)

Department of Management by Missions and Corporate Governance.In 1990, less than 40% of the companies that made up the Fortune Global 500 had mission statements. Today, that number has risen to 99% and the use of mission statements has become common practice amongst companies and a key tool for employee motivation. Studies have shown that management by missions helps make mission statements genuinely effective and ensures that everyone in the organization plays an active role in pursuing the corporate mission, embracing the values it espouses and making sure these values reach every department, team and employee.

This was the general thrust of the symposium, where this new trend in corporate management was examined through the use of case studies, keynote addresses and interviews. “It has been shown that an organization’s results improve if its employees have embraced the corporate mission and are not solely goal-oriented", pointed out Carlos Rey, the Director of the UIC's Department of Management by Missions and Corporate Governance.

“A company’s vision lies within the hearts of its employees”, added António Calçada, the CEO of Repsol Portugal. “Management by missions has changed the way we work and, above all, the way we approach internal communications”, he continued. Repsol Portugal has been using a methodology based on management by missions for several years and has realized the value of adopting a cross-cutting approach to its activities, as evidenced by the results presented by Calçada during his address.

He was followed by Joaquim Borrás, the Executive President of ISS Facility Services, who affirmed that the key lies in transparency, urgency, encouraging people to take part and ensuring that progress is being made. “Doing good business means using your business to do good”, he concluded.

The next symposium will be hosted by the UIC Barcelona in 2016.