Airbnb started with a bold purpose: “to create a world where anyone can feel at home, anywhere.” In its early years, this sense of belonging shaped the company’s culture and decisions. The focus was on helping hosts and guests build authentic connections and feel at home in unfamiliar places. However, Airbnb’s rapid growth brought increasing pressure to meet investor expectations and scale globally. This led to a series of trade-offs, as decisions began to prioritize growth and profit over ideals. Like many growing companies, Airbnb struggled to preserve the spirit of its original purpose. Its journey illustrates a broader reality: while start-ups tend to naturally embody and maintain their purpose, more mature companies often face structural and strategic challenges in sustaining that same alignment over time.
Beyond mission, vision, and values: the true role of purpose
Many companies confuse purpose with mission, vision, or values – but these are distinct concepts. Vision defines where a company wants to go, representing its long-term goal. Mission describes how it plans to get there, through the strategies and actions that drive progress. Values establish expected behaviors and cultural norms, guiding decisions and shaping the internal environment. Purpose, however, runs deeper. It expresses why the company exists, reflecting its core identity, shaped by the values and aspirations of its leaders and employees.
Purpose-driven organizations attract professionals, clients, and investors, seeking meaning beyond financial results. Companies that integrate purpose authentically not only perform better but also inspire loyalty among all stakeholders. Several studies show that when effectively embedded, purpose improves talent retention, strengthens customer relationships, and drives financial performance. However, purpose must go beyond mere statements: companies that fail to integrate it into decision-making risk engaging in the so-called purpose-washing – when bold statements are not reflected in concrete actions. In a context where purpose if often treated as a marketing tool, only an authentic and lived purpose creates real value.
Why start-ups get purpose right (and big companies don’t)?
Before comparing how different companies put purpose into practice, it is important to clarify the two dimensions analyzed in this study. The first is company maturity: start-ups, scale-ups (in the growth phase), and established companies. The second dimension is leadership structure, distinguishing between founder-led companies and those led by external CEOs. The two dimensions are analyzed separately – a start-up is not always led by its founder, and a large company may still have its founder at the helm.
The analysis reveals three key findings. First, start-ups incorporate purpose more effectively than mature companies, driven by agility, less complex structures, and leadership that remains close to the mission. Second, founder-led companies show greater alignment than those with external CEOs, who tend to priorities financial performance. Third, as companies grow, maintaining purpose becomes more difficult, requiring active reinforcement through governance mechanisms, communication, and integration into operations.
In practice, larger companies often face structural and political barriers. For example, Patagonia had to reinforce its environmental commitment as it expanded, ensuring alignment throughout its value chain. Airbnb itself struggled to uphold its purpose of belonging during rapid growth, facing resistance in some communities.
Overall, our study shows that without deliberate effort, purpose tends to erode over time – particularly in complex and bureaucratic environments.
From Theory to Practice: Measuring Purpose in Organizations
This study adopted a mixed-methods approach to examine how corporate purpose is implemented across different stages of organizational maturity. A survey conducted with 164 employees – 49 from start-ups, 21 from growth-stage companies, and 84 from established firms – captured perceptions of purpose integration. Additionally, two expert interviews provided qualitative insights into the role of leadership in preserving purpose.
Company maturity was treated as the independent variable, categorizing organizations into three groups to observe structural and cultural differences. The dependent variable, purpose realization, measured employees’ perception of how purpose is integrated into strategy and operations, with emphasis on leadership commitment, value alignment, and incorporation into decision-making and performance assessments. Leadership structure acted as a moderating variable, distinguishing between founder-led firms and those with external CEOs. The hypothesis was that founders, due to their direct connection to the original mission, would be more likely to keep purpose aligned, while external CEOs would often priorities operational and financial targets.
The results confirm that start-ups excel in embedding purpose, thanks to their agility, adaptable structures, and leadership proximity to the company’s core reason for being. Founder-led companies demonstrate greater alignment than those with externally hired CEOs, as founders bring a deeply rooted commitment that is difficult for outside leaders to replicate. As companies grow, purpose must evolve – keeping pace with market changes, leadership transitions, and new organizational challenges.
Based on the results of this study, companies can adopt three steps to sustainably embed purpose:
- start-ups should institutionalize purpose early on, to scale without losing their identity;
- scale-ups should implement governance mechanisms that reinforce purpose in processes and culture, ensuring its continuity as they grow; and
- established firms should integrate purpose into performance metrics, strategic decisions, and internal communications. Moreover, leaders must champion purpose as a strategic compass, ensuring alignment, transparency, and integration across departments – to avoid purpose-washing.
Declaring a purpose is easy but sustaining it is hard. Without concrete actions, it becomes empty corporate jargon. Start-ups benefit from agility, but large companies must overcome bureaucracy to make purpose a true pillar of strategy. It cannot be a formality or a branding exercise; it must guide decision-making at all levels. Organizations that align purpose with operations not only inspire employees and clients but also build long-term resilience and competitive advantage. When lived authentically, purpose empowers professionals to make decisions that reflect the company’s values – even in uncertain or decentralized contexts.
The real challenge lies in this question: how should purpose evolve over time without losing its essence? The answer will shape the future of purpose-driven leadership.
Diogo Moraes, Research Fellow at CATÓLICA-LISBON Entrepreneurship Center
Nick Hellenkamp, MSc in International Management at CATÓLICA-LISBON