The vision, mission, and values statements were first formulated in the business world (Cady, Wheeler, DeWolf, & Brodke, 2011); later on, they moved into the field of education and, in developed countries, have become a common practice at all levels of education (Chapple, 2015). These strategic statements articulate the distinctiveness of organization’s identity, patterns of behavior and operational practices (Lewis, Carley, & Diesner, 2016; Gentile, 2018), and define the way organizations interact inside them and with the broader environment.

School mission statements represent a useful source of data for gaining access to the school perspective on matters of purpose for at least a few reasons. In the context of a global market, it is important for vocational schools as well as business organizations, to demonstrate their distinctiveness. At the local level, strategy statements help mobilize the school community, perform its functions, and develop loyalty (Aramavičiūtė, 2005; Davis, Ruhe, Lee & Rajadhyaksha, 2015; Stemler, Bebell & Sonnabend, 2011). At national and international levels, the exclusivity of the vocational schools helps to compete in attracting learners, international partners, meeting social (sometimes even political) needs or solving social (political) problems, developing relations with the parties concerned, social stakeholders (Grbic, Hafferty & Hafferty, 2013; Ferrari & Velcoff, 2007). The use of specific language codes, agreed upon by communities of schools, symbolizes their social identity (Stemler et al., 2011), affects school community members’ perception of institutional behavior (Ferrari & Velcoff, 2006; Pekarsky, 2007). Thus, by examining the key words of visions and missions that are selected in vocational training environments, it is possible to identify the diversity (or uniformity) of the sector of vocational schools in relation to the objectives of the vocational training system, to reflect on the value of vocational training in training skilled workers and professionals and in educating members of society.

There are studies examining the visions and missions of graduate schools (Gurley, Peters, Collins, & Fifolt, 2014; Stemler et al., 2011; Kose, 2011), higher education institutions, private and public schools (Boerema, 2006), medical schools (Grbic et al., 2013), etc. at the national levels. As Chapple (2015) noticed, lack of research is still felt in the lower levels of the education system, for example, in the VET level. In Lithuania, studies of visions and missions of vocational schools have not been found despite the fact that this educational level underwent many heavy transformations. One reason may be that educational researchers have generally ignored mission statements as a source of empirical research data because of the stereotypical view that school mission statements actually say nothing at all of any value, either because they are filled with banalities and commonalities distant from real life or because they are beautiful but ineffective rhetoric. In an effort to empirically evaluate the validity of this criticism we developed and conducted the research study aiming to examine the extent to which the public vocational schools in Lithuania vary in their mission and vision statements. The focus is placed on the geographical location of schools: those situated in large, medium-sized cities and small towns. The visions and missions of vocational schools are likely to reflect the socio-economic characteristics of the regions, thus, fulfilling social contracts with social communities. Referring to this presupposition, the following research questions are examined in the study: how vocational schools position themselves for the broader social environment: how vocational schools' distinctiveness (identity) is demonstrated in description of their vision, what persuasive goal predominates in their mission statements, which work values are embedded in the description of their vision and mission. This analysis can provide insight into both the diversity of public vocational schools and the positioning with a view of a regional perspective.

The study covered all state vocational schools and vocational education/training centres in the country. The home pages of VET institutions in Lithuania were examined as a data source. The web sites of 62 vocational schools (population) were examined looking for the texts with vision/mission/value statements. Of these, 44 vocational education institutions (or 71 per cent) declare the vision of the institution on their web page), mission – 42 (or 67.7 per cent), values are set by 20 (or 32 per cent) vocational schools. For further analysis of vision and mission data, vocational schools were divided into 3 groups, namely, according to their location in large, medium-sized and small cities. This division of schools is based on a hypothetical assumption of possible differences in their visions and missions due to the geographical situation (which is related to the regional economy). Network text analysis was applied for data analysis, which is described as the relationship between words and concepts in the text (Carley, 1997; Grbis, et. al., 2013). In other words, the network text analysis means that core concepts within larger networks of meaning are elaborated and the aggregations of these statements as semantic networks are presented (i.e., maps of the relationships among concepts). Using the qualitative data processing program MAXQDA 2020, descriptive statistics were first performed. The words defining the vision, mission or values were counted in the wording of the strategic statements of all vocational education and training institutions, followed by the number of categories and concepts that make up them and the frequency of repetition of categories between different groups of schools. A measure of centrality has been used to create a semantic network of categories. Centrality indicates the place of a concept or category in the network: categories with greater centrality usually occupy a strategic focus area. In other words, centrality is the combination of categories or their compatibility which is measured through their density. Density is measured by the number of links by which a category (concept) is related to other categories (concepts) (Carley, 1997; Grbis et al., 2013). Thus, the more schools are associated with the same categories that are related to other categories, the greater their “social consensus” is.

The results of the study revealed that the missions of vocational schools in the country are defined in a unified way, their content is essentially homogeneous. Schools in medium-sized cities focus more on training skilled workers; schools in small towns focus on personality educations; schools in large cities place greater emphasis on the various levels of education and functions performed. The results of the analysis of visions of vocational schools indicate the formation of a weak institutional identity. Schools in large cities present themselves more as institutions for the training of highly skilled professionals, medium-sized cities as ambitious, recognisable vocational schools, and small towns as value-driven, continuously learning vocational education institutions. Vocational schools are distinguished by dominant instrumental values. More diverse instrumental values are declared by schools of large cities. The survey data supports the presupposition that vocational schools are likely to reflect the socio-economic characteristics of the region in their value-mission statements in the following way. Larger cities are characterized by higher investment, rapid growth and development, high-skilled job places and intellectual professions. The strategic statements of the schools of these cities are broadly oriented, characterized by a greater diversity of values and the desire to educate highly qualified professionals. Medium-sized cities seek to find their area of specialization in the country's economy, to attract specialists in certain fields, to reduce unemployment. Vocational schools set ambitious goals to be a leading and recognized training place for professionals with strong values. Small towns are usually distinguished by a slow pace of life, stronger community ties, high unemployment, and social problems. Schools in these areas place more emphasis in their strategic statements on lifelong learning, personal development, and the promotion of social/altruistic values. In this study, only certain observed tendencies are captured; a deeper analysis would be needed to confirm these assumptions.

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