Purpose driven. John-Oliver BreckoffContact

Research & implications

The Research behind Purpose & Vision

For many years I have worked on Purpose and Vision, in client projects and, alongside them, in the research and literature. This page brings together what I have found on the research side: the key studies, how robust they are, and what they mean for leaders.

Before we turn to the studies, four remarks on how to read them.

With that in mind, here is what the studies have in common. Four patterns run across all five categories, and they are the part I would ask you to remember.

4 Patterns across the Research

Not every finding is equally strong. Looking at the studies together, I have identified 4 clear patterns that run across all 5 categories. They align closely with what I have seen in 25 years of working with clients and projects addressing these questions.

It is also the reason I keep insisting on a Purpose being authentic: inauthenticity tends to be detected immediately and then produces the opposite of the intended effect. Yet both organizations and individuals often struggle to define a real Purpose, one that encapsulates the DNA of the company. See my article Does your Company pursue a real or pseudo Purpose?

1Purpose needs direction

Purpose works best when it comes with clear direction. In a study based on about 500,000 employee responses, companies that combined a strong Purpose with clear direction from management outperformed on profitability and stock returns. Purpose without that clarity showed no clear link in this study.

Core study
Gartenberg, Prat & Serafeim, 2019

Supported by
Gallup, 2015 and Gallup, 2026 · McKinsey, 2017 · Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1996 · Carton, 2018

2Purpose gives meaning, Vision gives direction

Meaningful work is strongly linked to engagement, commitment and job satisfaction. Clear goals are among the best-established drivers of performance, and a shared Vision is the strongest team-level predictor of innovation. A Vision works best when it is vivid, focused on a few core values and translated into everyday work.

Meta-analyses
Allan et al., 2019 · Hülsheger, Anderson & Salgado, 2009

Supported by
Locke & Latham, 2002 · Carton, Murphy & Clark, 2014 · Carton, 2018

3Statements alone move little

Purpose, Mission and value statements on their own show little effect. Results appear where Purpose is built into management systems, decisions and daily work, and where employees see their leaders act on it.

Meta-analysis
Desmidt, Prinzie & Decramer, 2011

Supported by
Guiso, Sapienza & Zingales, 2015 · CECP, 2026 · Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1996

4Authenticity is key

People respond to Purpose when they believe the organization can live up to it. Claims that are not backed by action backfire, with employees and with customers.

Supported by
Valdés et al., 2026 · Scheidler et al., 2019 · Walter et al., 2024 · Accenture, 2018

The Research grouped
by the 5 Categories

Strong: peer-reviewed meta-analyses, field experiments and large studies with objective outcomes
Solid: other peer-reviewed studies, and working papers with a disclosed method
Indicative: studies by consultancies and other firms whose data are not disclosed

Category

Research

Type / Evidence

1Employee Engagement

People engage more when they understand why their organization exists and see where it is heading.

In the overview

69%vs 1%

69% of employees who strongly agree that their leaders make them enthusiastic about the future are engaged, versus 1% who disagree.

Gallup, 2015 (updated 2021) · Survey of 10,000 employees, 2005–2008

VisionIndicative
77%vs 20%

77% of employees are engaged when their company’s Purpose is lived and aligned with their own, versus 20% when it is neither.

McKinsey & Company, 2020 · Survey of 855 US employees

PurposeIndicative
Show further researchHide further research4 studies
16%

A wide gap in practice. Only 16% of US employees say their company’s leadership makes them enthusiastic about the future.

Gallup, 2026 · US employee survey, August 2025

VisionIndicative

Vision needs implementation. In a controlled experiment, a leader’s Vision mainly changed followers’ attitudes. Concrete task cues that put the Vision into practice raised performance.

Kirkpatrick & Locke, Journal of Applied Psychology, 1996 · Experiment with 282 participants

VisionSolid

Connect daily work to the aspiration. Lofty aspirations motivate when leaders show how everyday tasks contribute to them. Without that link, their breadth makes it hard for employees to see what their own work changes.

Carton, Administrative Science Quarterly, 2018 · Archival study of NASA in the 1960s

Purpose & VisionSolid

2Talent Attraction & Retention

A credible Purpose helps organizations attract people and keep them.

In the overview

50%

At companies with more than 1,000 employees, job postings that convey a strong Purpose receive about 50% more applications. In firms with fewer than 50 employees, the gain is about 10%.

Valdés et al., Management Science, 2026 · Field data on job postings

The authors link the difference to how credible a Purpose claim appears.

PurposeStrong
40%

Deloitte reports that Purpose-driven companies achieve 40% higher workforce retention than their competitors.

Deloitte, 2019 · Global Marketing Trends

The underlying data are not published.

PurposeIndicative
Show further researchHide further research4 studies
+25%

Purpose works like a pay rise. In a hiring field experiment, describing the work as socially oriented raised applications by 25%, comparable to a 36% wage increase, and attracted more productive workers.

Hedblom, Hickman & List, NBER Working Paper, 2019 · Field experiment with more than 1,100 job seekers

Working paper, not yet peer-reviewed.

PurposeSolid
44%

People accept less pay for Purpose. Prospective workers submitted 44% lower wage bids for the same job after learning about the employer’s social responsibility.

Burbano, Organization Science, 2016 · Randomized field experiments in online labour markets

PurposeStrong
6.3%vs 8.1%

Integration lowers turnover. Companies that build Purpose into their management systems show lower voluntary turnover than companies with lower integration.

CECP, 2026 · Five-year analysis of the S&P Global 1200

PurposeIndicative

Hypocrisy drives people away. Companies that invest more in external good causes than in their own employees are seen as hypocritical. This raises exhaustion, intentions to quit and actual turnover.

Scheidler et al., Journal of Business Ethics, 2019 · Survey of 3,410 employees and a secondary dataset (n = 1,902)

PurposeSolid

3Innovation

Teams that share a clear Vision show more innovation.

In the overview

30%

Companies with integrated Purpose-driven management systems report 30% higher innovation rates than their peers.

CECP, 2026 · Press release on a study of the S&P Global 1200

Self-reported; the public report does not show how innovation was measured.

PurposeIndicative
Show further researchHide further research3 studies

Vision bonds top teams. When CEOs articulate a Vision, their top management teams bond more strongly, which is linked to more corporate entrepreneurship. The effect appeared in top teams with high gender diversity, not in those with low diversity.

Adomako et al., The Leadership Quarterly, 2025 · Multi-wave survey of 558 top managers in 175 small and medium-sized firms in Taiwan

VisionSolid

4Customer Loyalty

Customers reward companies whose Purpose they believe in.

In the overview

4–6×

Consumers are 4 times more likely to buy from, and 6 times more likely to protect, companies they believe have a strong Purpose.

Zeno Group, 2020 · Survey of 8,000 consumers in eight countries

Measures stated intentions.

PurposeIndicative
175%

Brands with a strong Purpose grew their brand value by 175% over 12 years, more than double the growth of brands with a weaker Purpose.

Kantar BrandZ, 2020 · Brand valuation data, 2006–2018

PurposeIndicative
Show further researchHide further research3 studies
63%

Customers leave when Purpose is betrayed. 63% prefer to buy from companies whose Purpose reflects their values. Of those disappointed by how a company acted, 47% stopped buying from it.

Accenture Strategy, 2018 · Survey of nearly 30,000 consumers in 35 countries

PurposeIndicative

5Financial Results

Purpose pays off financially when it comes with clear direction.

In the overview

6.9%

Companies in the top fifth for Purpose combined with “clarity in the path” (Vision) earned 6.9% annual excess stock returns.

Gartenberg, Prat & Serafeim, Organization Science, 2019 · About 500,000 employee survey responses from 429 US companies (figure on page 11 of the article, page 12 of the PDF)

Purpose & VisionStrong
Show further researchHide further research5 studies
80%vs 32%

Purpose-led companies outgrow their rivals. 80% of companies that outgrow their competitors on revenue link everything they do to a clear brand Purpose, versus 32% of under-performers.

Millward Brown Vermeer, 2015 · Survey of 10,495 respondents in 60 markets (figure on page 6 of the PDF)

Performance is self-reported.

PurposeIndicative

Proclaimed values are not enough. Values advertised on corporate websites showed no link to performance. Where employees saw top management as trustworthy and ethical, performance was stronger.

Guiso, Sapienza & Zingales, Journal of Financial Economics, 2015 · Corporate websites and employee survey data from US companies

Mission & valuesStrong
3×

Healthy organizations outperform. Companies in the top quartile of organizational health deliver about three times the shareholder returns of the bottom quartile. Clear direction is one of nine health dimensions.

McKinsey & Company, 2017 · Organizational Health Index

VisionIndicative

Vivid visions with few values perform better. Hospitals whose leaders combined vivid imagery with a few core values performed better on heart-attack readmissions. Most organizations do the opposite: little imagery, many values.

Carton, Murphy & Clark, Academy of Management Journal, 2014 · 151 hospitals and an experiment

VisionStrong
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References

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Last updated October 2026