what is the difference between mission and objectives?

Before I talk about the mission, we need to understand what a vision is.

A vision is an ideal image of the future of an organisation, 中文解作 遠景, 願景 或 長遠目標. To arrive at this vision, you need some kind of mission, 中文解作 使命. A MISSION is what the organisation has to do in order to bring itself to the vision. This is something AT THE STRATEGIC LEVEL.

KEY OBJECTIVES are the desired outcome AT THE OPERATIONAL LEVEL.

In other words, the vision is what the company directors want to see.

The mission is what the company directors want to do.

Key objectives are what the employees must do.

If the employees achieve the key objectives, they will be able to help the directors accomplish the mission.

Can you see the difference now?

As an example, you may follow
http://www.kcr.com.hk/html/eng/corporate/about_kcrc/vision_mission/index.asp
and look at KCR's vision, mission and key objectives.

‘The Corporation is dedicated to finding better ways to...’ means these are the key objectives for the employees.

Please ask again if you still have questions.

Both of them are describing some goals, expectations and wishes which an organization will commit or acheive in coming future.

Mission is long term expectations for an organization, it may be more than 5-year time

Objective is short term and may be 1 up to 5 years

Mission is more qualitative and just describe the full picture. Such as Improve our sales by align with our excellent customer services.

However, objective is more precise, detail and quanitative. Such as Sales increase 10% in end 2007 by existing sales team

即是mission係短期目標，objectives係長期目標。

例如公司既目的係占有整個玩具市場。
mission係收購其他玩具公司咁！