SWOT analysis problems and solutions: Practitioners’ feedback into the ongoing academic debate

Thomas King; Shelly Freyn; Jason Morrison

doi:10.37380/jisib.v13i1.989

Authors

Thomas King Fortune 50 company in the retail industry in Minneapolis, MN
Shelly Freyn Alfred University
Jason Morrison Alfred University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37380/jisib.v13i1.989

Keywords:

academic-practitioner divide, strategic management tools, SWOT

Abstract

The literature on SWOT is characterized by a debate among academics who have identified problems and proposed solutions for the strategic management tool, yet little research to date has captured practitioners’ perspectives. Recent literature indicates that SWOT is still the most popular strategic management tool among competitive intelligence (CI) professionals. The purpose of this study is to bridge this academic-practitioner divide in the SWOT literature by conducting a cross-sectional survey that gathers practitioners’ feedback regarding whether they are experiencing the problems or employing the solutions proposed by academia. A survey was distributed via LinkedIn to collect data from CI and other business professionals who conduct SWOT in the workforce. The findings confirm that practitioners experience select problems identified by the literature. Specifically, they may have too many factors per SWOT category, may be defining factors with ambiguous and unclear words, and may not have a means for resolving conflicts when factors fall in multiple categories (e.g., opportunity and threat). The findings also indicate that practitioners may not be consistently conducting SWOT as a structured business process, as proposed in the literature. The feedback provided by CI and other business professionals aids in closing the academic-practitioner divide by more clearly identifying persistent issues with SWOT and creating valuable and actionable insights that will drive the continual improvement of this popular strategic management tool.

Author Biographies

Thomas King, Fortune 50 company in the retail industry in Minneapolis, MN

Thomas King is a Strategic Intelligence Lead at a Fortune 50 company in the retail industry in Minneapolis, MN. Thomas has 5 years of experience leading the overall competitor insights and intelligence program which informs the company's enterprise strategy, planning, and portfolio decisions. He holds a Master of Science in Applied Intelligence Studies from Mercyhurst University and his research efforts seek to bridge the gap between the academic literature and practitioner experience in order to improve strategic management tools.
Shelly Freyn, Alfred University

Shelly Freyn is Associate Professor of Marketing at Alfred University and a Competitive Intelligence Fellow. She has twenty years in industry experience and has taught marketing and competitive intelligence (CI) for over a decade. She is co-creator of one of the first undergraduate programs in CI. Shelly presents at national and international conferences on competitive intelligence and received the Strategic Competitive Intelligence Professionals Distinguished Member award in academia along with both the Academic Scholar award and Teaching Excellence award at Alfred University. Her research efforts apply CI to improving strategic decision making in both the boardroom and the classroom.
Jason Morrison, Alfred University

Dr. Jason Morrison is Assistant Professor of Finance at Alfred University. He received his Ph.D. in Finance at the University of Texas at Arlington. Jason has over 20 years of industry experience as an entreprenuer and 7 years of teaching. His research efforts are focused on entreprenuership, mutual funds, and real estate.

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