Purpose: The purpose of the study was to examine mission statements and their elements and to investigate correlations betweenmission statements and organizational performance. Methods: The current research was a descriptive study based on the examinationof mission statements of 353 hospitals that posted mission statements on their webpage and 92 hospitals that made their incomestatements public. Results: The most common mission element was ‘identification of principal services’, which accounted for 92.6%. Mission statements of hospitals included the average of 4.82 mission elements out of 9, and the objective of medical quality improvementwas 0.81 among 6 objectives of IOM (Institute of Medicine). Net profit of hospitals with mission statements that have above averagenumber of mission elements were significantly higher (t=2.71, p =.008) than those of other hospitals. Net profit was significantlycorrelated with mission statements (r=.26, p qqqlt;.001), and mission elements (r=.29, p qqqlt;.001). Conclusion: The results of the study empiricallyreveal that mission statements in the hospital affect organizational performance. That is, better organizational performance isshown for hospitals with better, more diversified, and more firmly stated mission statements which include identification of targetcustomers, identification of principal services, contribution to society as a non-profit organization, and concern for employees.