BM_IMD_REPORT-How-Authentic-is-your-Corporate-Purpose

(Bruhn et al., 2012), awareness, transparency, balanced processing and self-regulation/internalized
moral perspective (Bento & Ribeiro, 2013; Leroy, Anseel, Gardner, & Sels, 2012; Neider &
Schriesheim, 2011; Walumbwa et al., 2008), connectedness (Turker, 2008; Lee & Robbins, 1995),
passion (Tate, 2008), improvement (O’Connell, 2014) and image (Riordan, Gatewood, & Bill, 1997).
As a second step, we asked a second group of research assistants to describe a company that they
regarded as having an authentic corporate purpose: “What specifically about these companies
makes you believe in the authenticity of their corporate purpose?” Their responses were then
content analyzed to ensure that the emergent categories were a close fit to our original
multidimensional conceptualization of the authentic corporate purpose construct. At this point, the
dimensions of naturalness and improvement were dropped, while embeddedness (Lee & Robbins,
1995) and long-term orientation (Bearden, Money & Nevins, 2006; Ganesan, 1994) were added
leaving a total of twelve dimensions and fifty-three items that related to the construct of
authenticity of corporate purpose at the organizational level.
As a final step, we conducted an item purification test with the second group of research assistants,
by asking them to name a company that they would classify as having an authentic corporate
purpose. We then asked each rater to point out the degree to which these 53 items described the
authenticity of the company’s corporate purpose (where 1 = “describes very poorly’ to 7 “describes
very well”), with the intent of removing any items with a mean rating below four. No items needed
to be removed at this stage providing support that our minor adaptations from other disciplines
adequately captured the intended dimensions of authentic corporate purpose.
In summary, our final corporate purpose authenticity scale contains twelve dimensions that are fully
defined in Section 3: awareness (6 items), balance (4 items), connectedness (5 items), consistency (4
items), embeddedness (4 items), long-term orientation (4 items), originality (4 items), passion (4
items), reliability (4 items), reputation (5 items), self-regulation (5 items) and transparency (4 items).
This final scale was pre-tested with a sample of employees in an academic research department
(n=18). The full questionnaire generated from this process of verification can be found in Appendix I.
The criteria used for collecting the sample were as follows:
Geographies and sectors: For this research, we invited responses from executives at
companies located all over the world (companies in nearly 50 different countries are thus
represented in our sample). In this study, we also accepted responses from executives in all
business & industry sectors;
Executive level: The executives surveyed were primarily alumni and network contacts of a
top business school – thus high middle- to senior managers. The average age was 51 and
there were 46 different nationalities.
The finalized survey questionnaire was sent in two phases to a total of 10,500 (first to 7,000 and
then – one month later – to a further 3,500) executives. We can report a 2% response rate, since a
total of 200 questionnaires were received in return. Semi complete questionnaires were included in
the analysis where feasible to integrate them. A further 40 responses were received with only the
first question answered, and these were used in the analysis of the first question only.
10