Many Ethiopian business firms are nowadays observed adorning their entrancernlobbies, annual reports and promotional materials with their 'vision' and 'mission'rnstatements~ 'Do such statements of strategic intent, business purpose and values havernany meaningful impact on organizational performance?';s the central question of thisrnresearch project.rnThe research has compiled and analyzed the mission statements and performancernrecords of some ten Ethiopian business firms in the financial service sector. Variousrnstatistical inference techniques have been used 10 estimate whether there are anyrnsignificant differences in peljormance among groups of firms with and withoutrnarticulated mission statements, as well as among those with mission statements ofrndifferent strategic orientations.rnThe study has shown that there are no significant differences in performance betweenrnthe sample enterprises with mission statements and those without as well as amongrnthose with mission statements of different strategic orientations. The reason isrnprobably due to the low strategic values of the articulated mission statements that arernnot well supported by strategic management processes with in the organizations.