Our method

Since starting to measure purpose in 2015, Lynxeye has perfected its purpose index into a reliable model for global trends, summarizing the general public’s views and expectations of companies.

In the study, respondents associate companies with statements such as “Acts ethically right”, “Will have a clear role in the future”, “Is reliable”, and “Has a visionary leader”.

These associations have been selected based on factors proven to drive preference and based on ways that companies can positively impact people and society.

The associations are grouped to form five purpose characteristics: Trustworthy, Visionary, Future-proof, Responsible, and Innovative. Together, they make up “An honest intention to lead positive change”.

Index scores for each characteristic add up to a purpose index score for each company, allowing us to rank one company as more purposeful than another company according to the public.

For purpose-driven companies that want to solve problems for people, meet challenges for industries and address dilemmas for society, two questions become central: How do they identify which problems, challenges and dilemmas are most important to their customers? And how do they prioritize them?

As part of our work to understand the impact and opportunities of corporate purpose, we looked at which problems and challenges the general public think companies should help solve.

When designing the survey, we looked at all 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals ensuring they were covered. But we also covered customer needs that that are often important for positioning, like simplification, quality, or accessibility.

In addition to surveying which problems are important to people, we also survey how well companies are doing in solving those problems, allowing us to analyze the gaps between expectation and performance.

This tells us, for example, that fair working conditions are very important to a clear majority of respondents, even though many are disappointed in how well companies are successfully delivering on that issue.

A general pattern is a large gap between expectations and delivery on environmental responsibility, while there is generally a smaller expectation gap when it comes to technology-related challenges.