How Corporate Purpose Discourses Neutralize Public Critique and Maintain Status Quo A Mixed-Methods Discourse-Analytic Study of Corporate Purpose Statements and Their Legitimating Functions 

• Sunday Sunday

  Ladoke Akintola University of Technology

  Author

Corporate purpose has become a central legitimating discourse in contemporary capitalism, yet its capacity to absorb and neutralize critique remains undertheorized. This study investigates how corporate purpose statements function as discursive governance mechanisms that deflect public criticism while preserving existing power relations. Drawing on a mixed-methods design combining critical discourse analysis of 147 corporate purpose statements from Fortune Global 500 firms (2019–2025) with a computational rhetorical analysis of 2,340 CEO letters, the research identifies three neutralizing mechanisms: semantic dilution, temporal deferral, and moral appropriation. Findings demonstrate that 89.4% of sampled purpose statements deployed at least one neutralizing mechanism, with semantic dilution present in 76.2% of cases. Firms facing higher public scrutiny intensity exhibited significantly greater reliance on these mechanisms (*p* < 0.001, Cohen's *d* = 0.82). The study develops performative purpose neutralization theory (PPNT), extending Okeke and Ugbebor's performative purpose alignment framework by specifying how purpose discourse actively depoliticizes critique. The findings have implications for regulators, stakeholders, and scholars seeking to distinguish between purpose as transformative commitment and purpose as discursive shield.

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