Editing SWOT analysis (section)

== History ==
In 1965, three colleagues at the Long Range Planning Service (LRPS) of [[Stanford Research Institute]]—Robert F. Stewart, Otis J. Benepe, and [[Arnold Mitchell]]—wrote a technical report titled ''Formal Planning: The Staff Planner's Role at Start-Up''.<ref name=Puyt2020>{{cite journal |last1=Puyt |first1=Richard W. |last2=Lie |first2=Finn Birger |last3=De Graaf |first3=Frank Jan |last4=Wilderom |first4=Celeste P. M. |date=July 2020 |title=Origins of SWOT analysis |journal=Academy of Management Proceedings |volume=2020 |issue=1 |pages=17416 |doi=10.5465/AMBPP.2020.132|s2cid=225400774 |url=https://research.hva.nl/en/publications/925cb00a-6410-4d26-be1e-be030de12f3a }}</ref> The report described how a person in the role of a company's staff planner would gather information from managers assessing operational issues grouped into four components represented by the acronym SOFT: the "satisfactory" in present operations, "opportunities" in future operations, "faults" in present operations, and "threats" to future operations.<ref name=Puyt2020/> Stewart et al. focused on internal operational assessment and divided the four components into {{em|present}} (satisfactory and fault) and {{em|future}} (opportunity and threat),<ref name=Puyt2020/> and not, as would later become common in SWOT analysis, into {{em|internal}} (strengths and weaknesses) and {{em|external}} (opportunities and threats).<ref name=Learned1965/>

Also in 1965, four colleagues at the [[Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration]] (later the Harvard Business School)—Edmund P. Learned, C. Roland Christensen, [[Kenneth R. Andrews]], and William D. Guth—published the first of many editions of the textbook ''Business Policy: Text and Cases''.<ref name=Learned1965>{{cite book |last1=Learned |first1=Edmund Philip |last2=Christensen |first2=C. Roland |last3=Andrews |first3=Kenneth R. |last4=Guth |first4=William D. |date=1965 |title=Business policy: text and cases |edition=1st |location=Homewood, Illinois |publisher=Richard D. Irwin, Inc. |page=[https://archive.org/details/businesspolicyte0000lear/page/20 20] |oclc=680327 |url=https://archive.org/details/businesspolicyte0000lear/page/20 |url-access=registration}} (See also {{harvnb|Andrews|1971|p=37}}.) Many publications cite this textbook as an early statement of the ideas behind SWOT, although it contains neither a 2&nbsp;×&nbsp;2 matrix nor any detailed procedure for doing a SWOT assessment; for example, [[Robert S. Kaplan]] and [[David P. Norton]] called this textbook "one of the early SWOT references", in: {{cite book |last1=Kaplan |first1=Robert S. |last2=Norton |first2=David P. |date=2008 |title=The execution premium: linking strategy to operations for competitive advantage |location=Boston, MA |publisher=[[Harvard Business Press]] |page=[https://archive.org/details/executionpremium00kapl/page/67 67] |isbn=9781422121160 |oclc=227277585 |url=https://archive.org/details/executionpremium00kapl |url-access=registration}}</ref> ({{em|Business policy}} was a term then current for what has come to be called strategic management.<ref name=Browne1999>{{cite book |last1=Browne |first1=Michael |last2=Banerjee |first2=Bobby |last3=Fulop |first3=Liz |last4=Linstead |first4=Stephen |date=1999 |chapter=Managing strategically |editor1-last=Fulop |editor1-first=Liz |editor2-last=Linstead |editor2-first=Stephen |title=Management: a critical text |location=South Yarra, Vic. |publisher=[[Macmillan Education]] |pages=364–413 (373–379) |isbn=0732937191 |oclc=39837267 |doi=10.1007/978-1-349-15064-9_11}}</ref>) The first chapter of the textbook stated, without using the acronym, the four components of SWOT and their division into internal and external appraisal:

{{Quote|Deciding what strategy should be is, at least ideally, a rational undertaking. Its principal subactivities include identifying opportunities and threats in the company's environment and attaching some estimate of risk to the discernible alternatives. Before a choice can be made, the company's strengths and weaknesses must be appraised.<ref name=Learned1965/>}}

Looking back from three decades later, in the book ''Strategy Safari'' (1998), management scholar [[Henry Mintzberg]] and colleagues said that ''Business Policy: Text and Cases'' "quickly became the most popular classroom book in the field", widely diffusing its authors' ideas, which Mintzberg et al. called the "design school" model (in contrast to nine other schools that they identified) of strategic management, "with its famous notion of SWOT" emphasizing assessment of a company's internal and external situations.<ref name=Mintzberg1998>{{cite book |last1=Mintzberg |first1=Henry |author-link1=Henry Mintzberg |last2=Ahlstrand |first2=Bruce W. |author-link2=Bruce Ahlstrand |last3=Lampel |first3=Joseph |date=1998 |chapter=The design school: strategy formation as a process of conception |title=Strategy safari: a guided tour through the wilds of strategic management |location=New York |publisher=[[Free Press (publisher)|Free Press]] |pages=[https://archive.org/details/strategysafarigu00mint_0/page/24 24–25] |isbn=0684847434 |oclc=38354698 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/strategysafarigu00mint_0/page/24 |chapter-url-access=registration}}</ref><ref name=Mintzberg1990>An analysis of the "design school" model was also in Mintzberg's earlier publications such as: {{cite journal |last=Mintzberg |first=Henry |author-link=Henry Mintzberg |date=March 1990 |title=The design school: reconsidering the basic premises of strategic management |journal=[[Strategic Management Journal]] |volume=11 |issue=3 |pages=171–195 |jstor=2486485 |doi=10.1002/smj.4250110302|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name=Browne1999/> However, the textbook contains neither a 2&nbsp;×&nbsp;2 SWOT matrix nor any detailed procedure for doing a SWOT assessment.<ref name=Learned1965/> ''Strategy Safari'' and other books identified [[Kenneth R. Andrews]] as the co-author of ''Business Policy: Text and Cases'' who was responsible for writing the theoretical part of the book containing the SWOT components.<ref name=Mintzberg1998/><ref>{{cite book |last=Kiechel |first=Walter |author-link=Walter Kiechel |date=2010 |title=The lords of strategy: the secret intellectual history of the new corporate world |location=Boston, MA |publisher=[[Harvard Business Press]] |page=[https://archive.org/details/lordsofstrategys0000kiec/page/121 121] |isbn=9781591397823 |oclc=259247279 |url=https://archive.org/details/lordsofstrategys0000kiec/page/121 |url-access=registration |quote=What Andrews and his colleagues in the Business Policy course resolutely refused to do—and the main reason his ideas largely disappear from the subsequent history of strategy—was to agree that there were standard frameworks or constructs that could be applied to analyzing a business and its competitive situation. Oh, they might allow one, perhaps because they had helped develop it: so-called SWOT analysis, which called for looking at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats besetting an enterprise.}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Hill|Westbrook|1997|p=47}}: "The work of Kenneth Andrews has been especially influential in popularizing the idea that good strategy means ensuring a fit between the external situation a firm faces (threats and opportunities) and its own internal qualities or characteristics (strengths and weaknesses)."</ref> More generally, Mintzberg et al. attributed some conceptual influences on what they called the "design school" (of which they were strongly critical) to earlier books by [[Philip Selznick]] (''Leadership in Administration'', 1957) and [[Alfred D. Chandler Jr.]] (''Strategy and Structure'', 1962),<ref name=Mintzberg1998/> with other possible influences going back to the [[McKinsey]] consulting firm in the 1930s.<ref name=Mintzberg1990/><ref>{{cite book |last=McKinsey |first=James Oscar |author-link=James O. McKinsey |date=1932 |title=Adjusting policies to meet changing conditions |series=General management series |volume=G.M. 116 |location=New York |publisher=[[American Management Association]] |oclc=10865820}} Presented at the AMA General Management Conference held in New York, May 3, 1932.</ref>

However, a 2023 history of SWOT by Richard W. Puyt and colleagues criticized Mintzberg's "vilification of SWOT" and Mintzberg's apparently poor knowledge of the LRPS at Stanford.<ref name=Puyt2023>{{Cite journal |last=Puyt |first=Richard W. |last2=Lie |first2=Finn Birger |last3=Wilderom |first3=Celeste P. M. |date=2023-06-01 |title=The origins of SWOT analysis |journal=Long Range Planning |volume=56 |issue=3 |pages=102304 |doi=10.1016/j.lrp.2023.102304 |doi-access=free |issn=0024-6301}}</ref> Puyt et al. considered the LRPS to be the originator of SWOT (via SOFT) and said that the claim of Mintzberg and others that SWOT was invented at, or disseminated by, Harvard Business School is an "academic urban legend".<ref name=Puyt2023 />

By the end of the 1960s, the four components of SWOT (without using the acronym) had appeared in other publications on strategic planning by various authors,<ref>Examples of publications in the late 1960s that mention the four components of SWOT without using the acronym include:
* {{cite journal |last=Quinn |first=James Brian |author-link=James Brian Quinn |date=Autumn 1968 |title=Technological strategies for industrial companies |journal=Management Decision |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=182–188 |doi=10.1108/eb000858}}
* {{cite journal |last=Hargreaves |first=D. |date=March 1969 |title=Corporate planning: a chairman's guide |journal=Long Range Planning |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=28–37 |doi=10.1016/0024-6301(69)90069-7}}
* {{cite journal |last=Humble |first=John W. |date=June 1969 |title=Corporate planning and management by objectives |journal=Long Range Planning |volume=1 |issue=4 |pages=36–43 |doi=10.1016/0024-6301(69)90044-2}}
* {{cite journal |last=Ringbakk |first=Kjell-Arne |date=December 1969 |title=Organised planning in major U.S. companies |journal=Long Range Planning |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=46–57 |doi=10.1016/0024-6301(69)90009-0}}
* {{cite book |last=Steiner |first=George A. |date=1969 |title=Top management planning |series=Studies of the modern corporation |location=New York |publisher=Macmillan |oclc=220043}}
</ref> and by 1972 the acronym had appeared in the title of a journal article by Norman Stait, a [[Management consulting|management consultant]] at the British firm Urwick, Orr and Partners.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Stait |first=Norman H. |date=July 1972 |title=Management training and the smaller company: SWOT analysis |journal=Industrial and Commercial Training |volume=4 |issue=7 |pages=325–330 |doi=10.1108/eb003232}}</ref> By 1973, the acronym was well-known enough that accountant William W. Fea, in a published lecture, mentioned "the mnemonic, familiar to students, of S.W.O.T., namely strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Fea |first=William W. |date=1973 |title=The sixtieth Thomas Hawksley lecture: The accountant—overhead burden or service? |journal=[[Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers]] |volume=187 |issue=1 |pages=687–697 (689) |doi=10.1243/PIME_PROC_1973_187_155_02}}</ref> Early examples of a 2&nbsp;×&nbsp;2 SWOT matrix are found in John Argenti's book ''Systematic Corporate Planning'' (1974)<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Puyt |first1=Richard W. |last2=Lie |first2=Finn Birger |last3=Madsen |first3=Dag Øivind |date=June 2024 |title=From SOFT approach to SWOT analysis, a historical reconstruction |journal=Journal of Management History |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=333–373 |doi=10.1108/JMH-05-2023-0047 |doi-access=free}}</ref> and in a 1980 article by management professor [[Igor Ansoff]] (but Ansoff used the acronym T/O/S/W instead of SWOT).<ref name=Ansoff1980>{{cite journal |last=Ansoff |first=H. Igor |author-link=H. Igor Ansoff |date=April 1980 |title=Strategic issue management |journal=[[Strategic Management Journal]] |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=131–148 |jstor=2486096 |doi=10.1002/smj.4250010204|s2cid=167511003 }}</ref> In the 1960s Ansoff had worked with the LRPS, where the SOFT approach originated.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Puyt |first1=Richard W. |last2=Antoniou |first2=Peter H. |last3=Caputo |first3=Andrea |date=November 2024 |title=The Ansoff archive: revisiting Ansoff's legacy and the holistic approach to strategic management |journal=Strategic Change |volume=33 |issue=6 |pages=513–518 |doi=10.1002/jsc.2600 |doi-access=free|hdl=11572/433690 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>