Robin Edgard Ulrik Mertens
This paper presents a methodology to observe and analyze how an organization's declared purpose is translated into the criteria and rules that govern actual decisions.
We need to explain the gap between an organization's stated purpose and its real decisions, and find a systematic way to observe this translation process.
The study applies the 'Operating Spine' methodology, which directly analyzes governance artifacts (decision rules, criteria, metrics) to trace the translation of purpose. It uses comparative case studies of Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, and Patagonia.
It shows that what institutions act on is not the original intent, but its translated representation embedded in decision rules. The paper contributes a replicable method to observe this process, aiding in the analysis of institutional drift between purpose and action.