The International Journal of Management Education 14 (2016) 310e326

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Research notes

Rediscovering SWOT’s integrative nature: A new

understanding of an old framework
Geoffrey G. Bell a, *, Linda Rochford b
a
Labovitz School of Business and Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 365Q LSBE, 1318 Kirby Drive, Duluth, MN 55812, USA
b
Labovitz School of Business and Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 385K LSBE, 1318 Kirby Drive, Duluth, MN 55812, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: SWOT is one of the oldest and best-known organizing frameworks in management.
Received 15 January 2016 Originally intended as an integrative framework (Mintzberg, 1990), it often degenerates
Received in revised form 13 June 2016 into a series of lists (Valentin, 2001). We seek to revitalize SWOT’s role in the classroom by
Accepted 22 June 2016
highlighting its critical role in integrating internal and external analysis by drawing upon
advances in the field (Porter’s five forces, PEST analysis, and the RBV) that occurred sub-
sequent to its original development. This is vital because integration remains a critical, yet
Keywords:
unrealized, goal of strategy (Barney, 2001a; Priem & Butler, 2001a), and “understanding
SWOT
Pedagogy
parts and wholes is the first mission of teaching strategy” (Lampel, 2005, p.20). A revised
Threshold concept model of SWOT could serve an important integrating function to help students understand
Strategy formulation parts and wholes, a task not done by other frameworks.
Integrating internal and external analysis © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A foundational goal of teaching strategy is helping students see and understand wholes and parts simultaneously (Lampel,
2005). More broadly, integration remains a critical, yet unrealized, goal of strategy (Priem & Butler, 2001a). The ubiquitous
and popular SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) organizing framework (Barney 1991a; Mintzberg
1990; Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, & Lampel, 1998) was originally developed to help managers formulate strategy in terms of
the relationships and interactions between internal and external factors (Dess, Lumpkin, & Eisner, 2008; Marshall & Johnston
2010). However, over time, SWOT shifted from integrative framework to a set of checklists (Valentin, 2001). Because of that
shift, SWOT has lost its ability to provide insight to the relationship between the firm’s internal and external environments
(Mintzberg, 1987). To reinvigorate and realize the potential of SWOT, we propose that it should be re-envisioned as a
framework to integrate internal and external analysis (the RBV, PEST analysis, and Porter’s five forces model) that were not
developed at the time of its creation.
We begin by reviewing the literature, including both SWOT’s initial development and subsequent critique, and we do so in
light of the threshold concept literature. Much of the troublesome nature of the SWOT concept derives from the loss of its
integrative function. We next examine the coverage of SWOT in the textbook literature and report the results of a survey of
faculty teaching SWOT. Finally, we recommend changes in the pedagogy of teaching SWOT to highlight its integrative nature.

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: ggbell@d.umn.edu (G.G. Bell), lrochfor@d.umn.edu (L. Rochford).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2016.06.003
1472-8117/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 G.G. Bell, L. Rochford / The International Journal of Management Education 14 (2016) 310e326 311

While our paper is primarily pedagogical in nature, we recognize that doing a better job of teaching SWOT in the classroom
should translate into more effective use of the tool in practice.

1. Origins and development of the SWOT organizing framework

At the core of the so-called design or fit school of strategy (Learned, Christensen, Andrews, & Guth, 1965; Mintzberg, 1990,
1994; Mintzberg et al., 1998) is a model that “seeks to attain a match, or fit, between internal capabilities and external
possibilities” (Mintzberg et al., 1998, p. 24, italics original). Harvard Business School faculty developed the SWOT organizing
framework in the early 1960s (Bower, 2008; Novicevic & Harvey, 2004), drawing upon Selznick’s, (1984 [1957]) idea of
matching an organization’s internal factors (capabilities, resources, and limitations) with its external environment as a first
step in the process of formulating strategy (Bower, 2008). SWOT “is meant to spark strategic insight and distill fragmentary
facts and figures into coherent backdrops for strategic planning” (Valentin, 2005, p. 91). It has “improved strategy scholars’
understanding and has been useful for practitioners” (Priem & Butler, 2001a, p. 30).
Subsequent to the development of SWOT, new tools and concepts for strategy formulation such as Porter’s five force model
(Porter, 1980, 1985) and resource-based theory (Barney, 1991a, 2001b; Wernerfeld, 1984) were developed. This evolution and
development in strategy may have inadvertently undermined SWOT’s originally integrative nature, because it led scholars to
focus independently on internal and external analysis rather than drawing them together.
From a research perspective, Porter’s (1980) five force analysis assesses industry attractiveness and focuses on the external
environment facing the firm. Its more analytic approach generates a better understanding of industry forces than does the
“OT” of SWOT (Rumelt, Schendel, & Teece, 1991). The emergence of the resource-based view of the firm (Barney, 1991a, 1991b;
Wernerfeld, 1984) extolled managers to look “inside” the firm at its resources and capabilities for sources of sustainable
competitive advantage and resultant rents.1 Internal evaluation highlights the firm’s strengths, although the RBV generally
fails to consider firm weaknesses explicitly (Arend, 2004; West & DeCastro, 2001). Subsequently, because of the reductionist
nature of the research process, the emergence and development of these distinct research paths resulted in a division of
attention from the whole to an independent focus on external and internal environments. This was highlighted by Priem and
Butler (2001b), who argued that Wernerfeld’s (1984) “two sides of the coin” conceptualization heightens the separate and
independent consideration of internal and external analysis. While this may be conducive to research development, it im-
pedes integrative analysis. Indeed, Priem and Butler’s (2001a) call for the development of a synthesis of the resource- and
environment-based perspectives as a major new thrust of strategy research, which really highlights how SWOT is no longer
regarded as an integrative tool but still might usefully fill such a role.
From a pedagogical perspective, most strategic management texts cover external and internal analysis in separate
chapters, which leads students to conclude that they are distinct constructs, rather than components of an integrated whole.
Rothaermel’s text (Rothaermel, 2015) presents an exception to this, in that he covers external analysis in chapter 3, internal
analysis in chapter 4, and then presents SWOT as an integrator as a brief conclusion to chapter 4.

2. Critiques of SWOT analysis

SWOT is criticized for being circular in its logic and presenting checklists that inhibit integration. We briefly examine these
claims. Because several of these critiques refer to the integrative vs. Checklist nature of SWOT, we begin by briefly defining
what we mean by SWOT as an integrative concept.
Integrative concepts “build on previous knowledge and combine the old and new understanding of a topic” (Vidal, Smith,
& Spetic, 2015: 500). They expose “previous interrelatedness of something” (Meyer & Land, 2005: 373) “as concepts are
combined or seen through new conceptual lenses” (Burch, Burch, Bradley, & Heller 2015: 478). They cause students to
compare their new knowledge with previous understandings and therefore rethink those prior understandings (Vidal et al.,
2015). Integrative concepts brings new connections and patterns into view (Wright & Hibbert, 2015). They bring together and
reveal interrelationships among basic concepts so they may be viewed holistically (Entwhistle, 2008).
Recall that SWOT was originally intended to help managers formulate strategy by examining the relationships and in-
teractions between the firm’s internal and external environment (Dess et al., 2008; Marshall & Johnston, 2010; Mintzberg,
1987). Thus, SWOT is integrative in that it should help students see the relationships among its components e “S” and
“W” from internal firm analysis, and “O” and “T” from external (environmental) analysis. It becomes a way for them to realize
and observe that a firm resource is only a “strength” if it helps that firm respond to an opportunity or threat in the broader
environment, and similarly a trend in the wider environment is only an “opportunity” if the firm has the resources internally
to take advantage of that trend (Hofer & Schendel, 1978).

1
While Barney (2001b) argues that the RBV considers both internal and external analysis, its primary focus remains on internal analysis. For example,
Barney defines valuable resources as ones that “exploit opportunities or neutralize threats in the environment” (Barney 1991a, p. 106), but he provides no
guidance how the manager should identify opportunities and threats, and therefore how to create value (Priem & Butler, 2001b).
312 G.G. Bell, L. Rochford / The International Journal of Management Education 14 (2016) 310e326

2.1. Circular logic reveals SWOT’s integrative nature

Morris (2005) sees an inherent circularity in the logic underlying SWOT analysis because we cannot know what consti-
tutes a strength or weakness absent knowledge of the external environment, and we cannot understand whether an envi-
ronmental trend is an opportunity or threat without knowing whether the organization has the resources and capabilities to
exploit or neutralize it. Conversely, Hofer and Schendel (1978) argued that we cannot know whether a particular firm trait is a
strength or a weakness without knowing the environmental context. As a result, what has been perceived as circularity
reflects SWOT’s integrative nature e it brings together components inside and outside the firm into a whole. Moreover,
circularity is a subcategory of tautology (Priem & Butler, 2001b), and tautology does not prevent theory from being insightful
(Barney, 2001a), as SWOT has been (Priem & Butler, 2001a).

2.2. Checklists inhibit integration

Perhaps as a response to this circularity, SWOT has often been reduced to a set of superficial output lists that by themselves
convey no information (Valentin, 2001). These criticisms highlight the lack of integration present in SWOT as practiced,
suggesting that the integrative nature of SWOT is missed by learners and practitioners, indicating that they have learned the
tool in a ritualized manner (Meyer & Land, 2005) producing output that is overly simple.
This lack of integration may result from the teacher trying to facilitate learner understanding by presenting a naïve model
consisting of four lists (Valentin, 2001) rather than a fully integrative tool. Students understand this naïve model as a “false
proxy” of the real model, leading them to settle for SWOT as a set of lists (c.f., Meyer & Land, 2005). Such reliance on checklists
precludes the transformation (Meyer & Land, 2006a, 2006b) that would occur when students learn SWOT as an integrative
tool. This false proxy is particularly likely to occur when students learn SWOT prior to learning the underlying external and
internal environmental analysis, that is, learning the overview before learning the component “bits” (Davies, 2006; Meyer &
Land, 2006b; Priem & Butler, 2001a), as often occurs in textbooks. That is, if SWOT is presented prior to internal and external
analysis, there is a temporal sequencing problem (Albert 2013) and students will almost certainly fail to see its integrative
role. (See Rothaermel, 2015 as a significant exception.)
These superficial output lists have been criticized for being unprioritized, which is troublesome because weaknesses or
strengths are rarely of the same magnitude (Kotler, 2000; Thompson & Strickland, 1998). When we consider the internal and
external environments integratively, it will be much easier to assess the relative importance of the components and relate the
output lists to one another.

3. Viewing SWOT through a threshold concept lens

Although we make no assertion that SWOT is a threshold concept, the threshold concept idea is a useful lens through
which to review some of these criticisms of SWOT. Threshold concepts are core or key concepts in a field (Davies, 2006; Meyer
& Land, 2006b) that are transformative in nature (Meyer & Land, 2005); “portals” that open new worlds to the learner
(Entwhistle, 2008). Learners need to “cross the threshold” to come to a new, deeper, and fundamentally changed conception
of the concept (Meyer & Land, 2006a). For example, opportunity costs is often seen as a threshold concept. It is very difficult
for students to grasp the idea of a “cost” as the “next best use” of a resource, but once that idea is grasped, the student’s view of
the world transforms. Threshold concepts have the following dimensions (c.f., Meyer & Land, 2006b):

Transformative. Once the concept is understood, it fundamentally changes the way that the student thinks and behaves.

Irreversible. Once the concept has been grasped the student, it is hard for them to think of the construct in the way they
formerly had done.

Integrative. The concept exposes previously unseen relationships.

Bounded (often, but not always). The concept has boundaries where it either does not hold or where it represents a
transition to another field or concept. For example, there are many situations where Newtonian physics does not hold, or
where it serves as a transition to quantum physics.

Troublesome. The concept is difficult to understand, and alien to the learner.

The dimensions of threshold concepts that seem most relevant to SWOT are “integrative” and “troublesome” (Meyer &
Land, 2006b), as it has shifted from being clearly a set of integrated constructs to four checklists (Valentin, 2001), so the
idea that SWOT should be integrative is alien to the learner.
When a concept is integrative, a previously hidden interrelatedness is revealed. Integrative concepts are higher-order
concepts bringing together lower-level concepts (Entwhistle, 2008). They may be counter-intuitive and involve a “denial
of the world which the student experiences” (Davies, 2006). The goal of SWOT is integrating internal and external factors to
help students (and managers) determine how to position the firm’s resource base vis- a-vis its environment. So for example, in
most strategy textbooks, students will study external analysis (Porter’s 5-forces model; PESTEL analysis) and internal analysis
 G.G. Bell, L. Rochford / The International Journal of Management Education 14 (2016) 310e326 313

Table 1
How is SWOT Covered in Textbooks?.

Introduction to management Strategic management

Textbook coverage of SWOT
Textbook coversa the concept of SWOT 19/19b 14/19
Number of pages covering SWOT Mean ¼ 1.5 Mean ¼ 2.2
Range 0.33 to 3.3 Range 0.25 to 6.25
Background underlying SWOT
Covers benefits of SWOT 2/19 4/19
Covers drawbacks of SWOT 1/19 2/19
Covers the purpose of SWOT 13/19 13/19
Covers SWOT after discussing internal and external analysis 15/18 14
Executing a SWOT
Explains how to complete a SWOT 11/19 7/19
SWOT output explained 10/19 7/19
Describes how SWOT output is used 10/19 6/19
SWOT example is provided 11/19 6/19
Explains information sources for SWOT 4/19 3/19
SWOT as integrative tool
Considers SWOT to be lists or set of interactions Text silent on this ¼ 10/19 Text silent on this ¼ 6/19
Lists ¼ 7/19 Lists ¼ 6/19
Interactions ¼ 2/19 Interactions ¼ 7/19
a
When we say that a textbook “covers” SWOT, we mean that it mentions the term specifically using the term “SWOT.” The actual coverage (in terms of
depth, thoroughness, accuracy, etc.) may vary considerably. For example, coverage varies in length from about one-quarter page in one textbook to more
than six pages in another.
b
In this table, the numbers are to be interpreted as follows. The first number refers to the number of textbooks that meet the requirements of the item
mentioned, and the second refers to the total number of textbooks. So for example, 19 of 19 IM textbooks and 13 of 19 S M textbooks specifically cover the
SWOT concept.

(the RBV) separately, and may come to see them as distinct and unrelated concepts (separated by chapter boundaries). A
proper SWOT may help integrate them together in students’ minds.
Students perceive troublesome constructs as alien (Meyer & Land, 2006b; Wright & Gilmore, 2012). Trouble arises when
concepts integrate other core concepts that learners have previously regarded as self-contained, and learners struggle to see
how those other key concepts fit together (Davies, 2006; Wright & Gilmore, 2012). Moreover, before students can integrate
knowledge, they need to acquire the bits to be integrated, and after they have acquired those bits, they need to see them in a
new way (Meyer & Land, 2006b). With SWOT, part of the problem is that internal and external analyses are normally pre-
sented discretely rather than being integrated, which leads students to see the idea of integration as alien.

4. Overall assessment of SWOT

Our reflection on the criticism of SWOT in light of threshold concepts suggests that problems may not lie entirely in either
the application of SWOT (Koch, 2000) or its inherent usefulness (Haberberg, 2000), but rather that the integrative nature of
SWOT is rarely acknowledged, producing trouble for learners (Indeed, it appears as though Weihrich, 1982 introduced the
TOWS matrix as an attempt to reintroduce integration into SWOT analysis.).2 Consequently, unless SWOT is presented
carefully to learners at appropriate times during their studies (that is, only after they have learned the underlying “bits” of
knowledge, c.f., Meyer & Land, 2006b) such as is done by Rothaermel (2015), it is unlikely they will fully understand or use
SWOT in an integrative fashion realizing its full potential.

5. The SWOT studies

We conducted a two-phase study examining how SWOT is presented in textbooks and classes. In the first phase, we
examined textbook treatments of SWOT. Then in the second phase, we surveyed faculty on their teaching and use of SWOT.
We do not argue whether these two pedagogical methods (classroom and textbook) are complements or substitutes.
However, students who lack rigorous exposure to SWOT in either place are unlikely to understand it fully.

2
The relationship between SWOT and TOWS seems anything but straightforward. Some researchers use the concepts almost interchangeably (French,
2009; Knott, 2006). However, the original intent of TOWS (Weihrich (1982: 54) appears to be to re-integrate internal and external analysis by having the
analyst consider sequentially pairs of variables (S and O, S and T, etc.) to then determine possible strategies emerging from those pairings. TOWS, like SWOT,
was introduced before much of the modern “technology” of strategy analysis like the Porter’s 5-force model and the RBV) and therefore suffers from the
same weaknesses as SWOTs.
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6. How do textbooks treat SWOT?

In the management curriculum, students are most likely to learn about SWOT in their introduction to management (IM)
and strategic management (SM) courses. Therefore, we examined textbook coverage of SWOT in those two courses.

6.1. Method

We contacted major textbook publishers to obtain IM and SM textbooks. We received and evaluated 19 IM texts and
19 S M texts. We created a text content analysis instrument (available on request) that allowed us to systematically assess
the content of each textbook. The two authors served as the judges who read and rated texts. We independently rated all
the textbooks and then met to reconcile any discrepancies. This resulted in our final analysis for each textbook, shown in
Table 1.

6.2. Results

All IM textbooks formally introduced SWOT, while almost three quarters of SM books did so. The total number of pages
devoted to explaining SWOT ranged from a quarter of a page to 6.25 pages. The mean coverage varied from 1.5 pages in the IM
texts to 2.2 pages in the SM texts. If SWOT is an integrative and troublesome concept as our review and the literature suggests,
it will be very difficult to explain it adequately with this brief coverage.

6.2.1. The background underlying SWOT

To understand SWOT, students need basic background material, particularly the purpose, benefits, and drawbacks of
SWOT. Only 13 of 19 of both the IM and SM texts mention the purpose of SWOT, two IM and four SM texts mention its benefits,
while only one IM and two SM texts discuss drawbacks.
Most of the texts that describe SWOT characterize it as a tool for analyzing the organization’s internal and external en-
vironments and/or as part of strategy formulation. A few present SWOT as an organizing or integrative framework. The IM
texts predominantly view the goal of SWOT as contributing to strategy formulation, while SM texts primarily view SWOT as
contributing to strategy formulation, secondarily to situation analysis, and a few SM texts view it as an organizing framework
contributing to planning.

6.2.2. Executing a SWOT

For students to fully understand SWOT, they should receive detailed instructions in completing one. Details on executing a
SWOT were also limited. While 11 of 19 IM texts discussed how to complete a SWOT and 10 of them explained the output from
SWOT and how the output should be used, only 7 of 19 S M texts discussed how to complete a SWOT and use its output, and 7
described the output of a SWOT analysis.

6.2.3. SWOT as an integrative tool

We find little mention of the integrative nature of SWOT in the textbooks. In both the IM and SM books, over half of them
were silent on whether or not SWOT is integrative. In the IM texts, seven of the remaining nine presented SWOT as a set of
lists, while two presented it as an integrative model. In the SM texts, six presented SWOT as a set of lists and seven as an
integrative model. Therefore, only two of 19 IM texts formally highlight the integrative nature of SWOT, while seven of 19 SM
texts do so.

6.2.4. Summary
While most textbooks mention SWOT, the coverage is limited. Few texts provide a background to SWOT. They do a better
job e although not unanimously so e covering the “nuts and bolts” of executing a SWOT analysis. Finally, very few (roughly
17%) discuss the integrative nature of SWOT. Because of the limited textual coverage of SWOT as an integrative concept, it
becomes incumbent on faculty to do so. We now turn to consider how faculty covers SWOT in their classes.

7. Faculty coverage of SWOT

We also investigated whether and how faculty covers SWOT in their courses. We developed a survey instrument that we
administered in the Fall of 2009.

7.1. Method

To develop our survey sample, we compiled a list of all AACSB International accredited universities in the upper Mid-
western United States (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin). Using this
 G.G. Bell, L. Rochford / The International Journal of Management Education 14 (2016) 310e326 315

list of schools, we identified the names and email addresses of faculty who were listed as teaching the introductory man-
agement and strategic management courses. This generated a list of 409 faculty names. We found that several faculty taught
neither of these courses and, therefore, were excluded from the study.
We developed an on-line survey using the Qualtrics® survey tool to probe faculty attitudes toward, experience with, use
of, and approaches to teaching SWOT (See Appendix 1 for our survey questions.). We sent the survey to our faculty panel in
mid-September 2009 and then sent follow-up emails two and four weeks after the initial mailing encouraging survey
response. We received a total of 95 responses, of which 83 provided usable data, giving us an overall survey response rate of
20.3%.
We assessed for the potential non-response bias based on the schools’ primary orientation.3 While we have somewhat
more non-respondents among teaching-oriented schools than among balanced schools, we find no evidence of significant
non-response bias. With a response from 45 of 54 schools in our sample (86.5% of all the schools contacted), we believe we
have captured a representative picture of these schools.
Additionally, we sought to assess whether there was any systematic difference between early and late respondents (i.e.,
those who responded before the first email reminder compared to those who responded afterwards). To assess this potential
bias, we assessed their responses to six questions for which we could determine variance, and there were no significant
differences (t < 1.64, a ¼ 0.05) between early and late respondents.

7.2. Results

We began by asking a variety of questions regarding how faculty use and teach SWOT. First, we asked our respondents
whether or not they use SWOT in their classes. About 63% of IM faculty use SWOT in their classes, as do 75% of SM faculty.
We then asked respondents who indicated they did use SWOT in their classes to describe their teaching behavior. We gave
them four options: (1) They teach students how to develop a SWOT analysis, but not how to interpret it, (2) They teach
students how to interpret SWOT, but not how to develop it, (3) They teach students both how to develop and interpret a
SWOT analysis, or (4) They provide students no instruction on how to use or interpret SWOT, although they expect
students to do so.
Overwhelmingly, respondents indicate they provide instruction on both development and interpretation of SWOT. Of the
58 respondents who answered this question, 40 (almost 69%) indicate they teach students to develop and interpret SWOT. Of
the total of 8 (almost 14%) respondents who indicated they did not provide instructions on SWOT, the most dominant reason
given is that they expect students to learn it elsewhere (6), closely followed by they expect students to figure it out by
themselves (4), including by reading their textbook. No respondents indicated that they lack time or skills to teach SWOT.
Unfortunately, we only had a few respondents who do not use SWOT in class tell us why they do not do so. Those who did
stated that SWOT was too simplistic or other tools have supplanted it. The picture that emerges is that while SWOT is still a
dominant classroom tool, over 37% of faculty do not teach it.
To develop a more thorough understanding of faculty perceptions regarding SWOT, we asked two open-ended questions:
(a) What do they perceive to be the benefits of SWOT? and (b) What do they perceive to be the drawbacks of SWOT? These
responses allow us to evaluate faculty perceptions about SWOT. Specifically, we looked for comments about the integrative
nature of SWOT, and we highlighted comments discussing the troublesome nature of SWOT. To do so, each of the two co-
authors classified and categorized the responses into each of the relevant dimensions of threshold concepts. We then met
and reconciled our results.
Nineteen comments referenced the integrative nature of SWOT. For example, one said, “it provides an elementary way of
considering the fit between the resources and capabilities of the firm and the characteristics of the external environment” and
“very helpful if done correctly by integrating/comparing Ss, Ws, Os and Ts.” Therefore, many faculty perceive the integrative
nature of SWOT. We also received multiple comments about the troublesome nature of SWOT, including:

“While SWOT is a good tool, I believe it is seriously misused. Students don’t realize what is internal versus external, and
they have difficulties distinguishing strengths and opportunities, weaknesses and threats”.

“The primary benefit is its simplicity. The biggest drawback is its simplicity … it triggers surface evaluation of internal and
external factors.”

“It’s a simple and easy-to-teach device for thinking about strategic issues. It’s almost TOO simple and seems like common
sense.”

We also found exemplars of the other characteristics of threshold concepts in our respondents’ comments. For
example, one respondent stated that SWOT “can potentially help prevent tunnel vision,” while another asserted SWOT
“gets students thinking systematically and in a more holistic manner,” both indicative of the potentially transformative
nature of SWOT. Another respondent noted that students often “categorize O and T stuff as S and W and vice versa,” and

3
From the AACSB web site, we classified each of the schools in our sample based on “general orientation”. AACSB asks their member schools to identify
their general orientations, indicating the relative importance of teaching, research, and service to the school’s mission.
316 G.G. Bell, L. Rochford / The International Journal of Management Education 14 (2016) 310e326

Table 2
Faculty thoughts on SWOT Categorized by threshold concept characteristics.a

Trans Integ Bound Trouble Build on core

concept
Can potentially help prevent tunnel vision, long-range planning ✓
In a classroom, SWOT takes a very long time to explain properly to the students. If it is done well, it provides ✓ ✓
them a useful tool; however, the time commitment is intense.
In the classroom, it is a useful tool in helping students understand a systems perspective to managing. ✓ ✓ ✓
It gets the students thinking systematically and in a more holistic manner. ✓
The SWOT analysis is one of the first steps of convergence after initial environmental scanning. ✓ ✓ ✓
The primary benefit is its simplicity. The biggest drawback is its simplicity. By that, I mean that it triggers ✓ ✓
surface evaluation of internal and external factors. If used as a tool to summarize the findings of deeper
analyses, I’m fine with it.
SWOT is a very basic way of considering the strategic position of the firm. The benefit is that it provides an ✓ ✓
elementary way of considering the fit between the resources and capabilities of the firm and the
characteristics of the external environment. The drawback is that it provides no specific guidance to
management but is merely a way of framing internal vs external considerations.
SWOT has a hard time dealing with context. What is a strength for one company could also be a weakness, ✓ ✓
and many times threats are actually opportunities.
Very helpful if done correctly by integrating/comparing Ss, Ws, Os & Ts. Unhelpful if just a list. ✓
It provides an analytical framework that integrates firm capabilities and external business opportunities ✓ ✓
and challenges. A1 The analysis of strength and weakness are only meaningful in comparable sense. That
is, if competitive environment and industry environment were not considered, one would not be able to
evaluate the strength and weakness of a business.
It acquaints students with a tool to think about what the firm does well and not internally (S and W) and ✓
what broader market advantages and disadvantages are (O and T).
Pros/Combines internal analysis (S/W) and external analysis (O/T) ✓ ✓
Fit analysis associated with matching of Strengths to Opp’s and Threats along with Weaknesses to Opp’s ✓
and Threats.
Structured way to consider both internal and external factors that influence an organization’s success/ ✓ ✓
Drawbacks – oversimplifies dynamism of competitive advantage.
SWOT is a weak analytical tool … doesn’t really provide much guidance because whether something is a ✓
strength or weakness depends on the environmental context.
I think the primary benefit is its integrative nature. It provides the ability to integrate external environment ✓
factors with an organization’s resources and capabilities. It affords students the opportunity to evaluate
the level of correspondence or match between the external environment’s constraints or opportunities
and the organization’s ability to respond to those conditions.//For me, one of the drawbacks is the level of
subjectivity involved in doing the analysis. Often I think it’s a manager’s perceptions that are reflected in
the framework rather then hard quantitative evidence.
Makes you think of all external forces, internal strengths and weakness, and how they impact each other. ✓
Good frame to teach the interaction of opportunities and strengths as well as threats and weaknesses. ✓ ✓
Students often consider capabilities that are normal to be strengths … hard to teach what it really means
to be “strong”, same for other dimensions … what is a threat versus a difficulty in the market?
There are tools that offer more depth (e.g. Porters 5 forces and VRIN/O analysis). Students tend to do a broad ✓ ✓
sweep with a SWOT analysis and miss some theoretical underpinnings. I briefly discuss SWOT and its
limitations in the course because students tend to use SWOT in functional courses.
All it does is put your issues into four buckets. ✓
It is not an analytical tool. So, in my view S&W represent the RBV and O&T represent industry analysis. ✓
How do we distinguish S from W or O from T?/You need a perspective, which the framework does not ✓ ✓
provide! You should be familiar with the SWOT model, but we need more specific analytical frameworks
and theories to evaluate the environment and organization.
There may be other essential elements of decision making that may not arise out of the analyses. ✓
External factors such as opportunities are often stated as internal and controllable. ✓
It’s a simple and easy-to-teach device for thinking about strategic issues. It almost TOO simple and seems ✓
like common sense.
SWOT is very subjective and context specific in that what would be classified as a strength in one context ✓
may be a weakness in another. I also find most people who attempt to apply the SWOT model confuse
the internal and external, i.e., they categorize O and T stuff as S and W and vice versa.
While SWOT is a good tool, I believe it is seriously misused. Students don’t realize what is internal versus ✓
external and they have difficulties distinguishing strengths and opportunities; weaknesses and threats.
What I see in the capstone course is that students think that putting garbage phrases into one of four boxes ✓
is what SWOT is about. They take this into the business setting, diluting the power of the tool.”
Disadvantage - SWOT provides an excuse to avoid the hard work of thinking. ✓
I believe that SWOT analysis is too generic, giving little guidance as to how students or managers can ✓
distinguish strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats. I believe other tools like industry
analysis and the RBV achieve essentially the same outcome but in a much more specific and actionable
way.
Simplistic model, needs other frameworks (i.e., Porter) to make it complex enough for real world scenarios ✓
SWOT works as a framework for organizing various analytical tools, but it tends to encourage a kind of ✓
“laundry list” approach to strategy which is not very relevant
Nice introductory tool to get students/managers thinking about internal and external issues. However, if ✓
the level of analysis stops there, limited insight is gained.
 G.G. Bell, L. Rochford / The International Journal of Management Education 14 (2016) 310e326 317

Key to table.
“Trans” ¼ transformational nature of SWOT; “Integ” ¼ integrative nature of SWOT; “Bound” ¼ bounded nature of SWOT; “Trouble” ¼ evidence of trou-
blesome nature of SWOT; “Build on core concept” ¼ indication that SWOT builds on other core management/strategic management concepts.
There were no comments that could be classified as irreversible.
a
While we are primarily interested in the integrative nature of SWOT, we attempted to classify faculty comments into any of the appropriate threshold
concept characteristic categories.

another asserted that SWOT is “almost TOO simple and seems like common sense,” both indicating that at its root, SWOT
is alien to students.
The full summary of relevant comments is presented in Table 2.
When we read and categorized the responses, we found another aspect not captured by the existing threshold concept
categories. We labeled this category as “Build on Core Concept,” an indication that SWOT builds on the bits of other core
concepts (Meyer & Land, 2006b). Examples of these comments included “Simplistic model, needs other frameworks (e.g.,
Porter) to make it complex enough for real world scenarios” and “you should be familiar with the SWOT model, but we need
more specific analytical frameworks and theories to evaluate the environment and organization.”
Therefore, our survey results find that many faculty are aware of and consider the integrative nature of SWOT. Moreover,
they see that SWOT should properly build on other core concepts in management and strategic management, notably internal
and external analysis.

8. Insights from the two studies

Examining both the textbook review as well as the faculty survey, there are several important conclusions. First, while
most textbooks do mention SWOT, the coverage is far from complete and few authors mention the integrative nature of
SWOT. Moreover, several texts present SWOT prior to introducing its constituent parts, impeding student understanding of
the integrative nature of SWOT. On the other hand, most faculty seem to perceive the integrative nature of SWOT. However,
they clearly cannot rely upon textbooks to convey this aspect to students. If faculty are teaching students the integrative
nature of the concept, it is normally beyond the scope of the text. Also, many faculty recognize that conveying the integrative
nature of SWOT will be a time consuming process. Perhaps most troubling is that while many faculty recognize the integrative
nature of SWOT, fully 37% of those responding to our survey do not teach SWOT at all. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that
students will understand SWOT as an integrative concept.

9. Building an integrated SWOT framework on internal and external bits

What steps can be taken to provide faculty and students with a framework that reintroduces the integrated nature of
SWOT? The approach should address criticisms expressed in the literature about the circularity of the concept and the need to
move beyond unprioritized checklists as well as recognizing characteristics of threshold concepts in SWOT that make it
challenging to teach.
We believe that part of the reason SWOT failed to fulfill its integrative goal is that it was developed prior to either external
analysis (such as PEST analysis originally developed by Aguilar, 1967; or the five force analysis created by Porter, 1980)4 or the
RBV (Barney, 1991a; Wernerfeld 1984). Because of this temporal sequencing issue (Albert, 1995, 2013), students and prac-
titioners were left to fend for themselves about how to identify the elements of SWOT. As a result, confusion exists about
those elements (Morris, 2005; Valentin, 2005). Were SWOT developed subsequent to those later tools, it seems likely that it
would have encompassed them and served to integrate them to generate a coherent understanding of the firm and its
environment (Priem & Butler, 2001a).
Not realizing SWOT’s integrative potential is unfortunate, as integration of the external and internal environment remains
a critical issue in strategy (Priem & Butler, 2001a). SWOT could perform this integrative function by using the RBV to provide
the SW and PESTEL and five force analyses to provide the OT. This may fundamentally transform our students’ understanding
(Wright & Gilmore, 2012), moving them from seeing internal and external analyses as discrete and unrelated concepts to
perceiving them as interrelated and interactive, such that they must be understood jointly.
Using a revised SWOT analysis to integrate internal and external analysis also solves another problem: external and in-
ternal analyses often take each other as exogenous and so provide no assistance in determining the full model. For example,
while Porter states that the “broadest guidance for formulation of strategy is stated in terms of matching a firm’s strengths
and weaknesses, particularly its distinctive competence, to the opportunities and risks in its environment” (Porter, 1980, p.
149), his five forces model illuminates the external environment, but does not identify strengths and weaknesses. Similarly,
while Barney (1991a, p. 106) defines valuable resources as ones that “exploit opportunities or neutralize threats in a firm’s
environment,” he provides no guidance identifying opportunities and threats.

4
Aguilar’s (1967) original framework consisted of Political, Economic, Socio-cultural, and Technological forces (PEST). Subsequent works extended the
framework to include Ecological and Legal forces (e.g., Rothaermel, 2013). Herein, we refer to this as PESTEL.
318 G.G. Bell, L. Rochford / The International Journal of Management Education 14 (2016) 310e326

Fig. 1. A: OT building block, high probability Events. B: OT building block, low-probability events.

SWOT can integrate these analyses. Doing so helps identify the boundary conditions of SWOT: It is suited to integration but
not generating detailed information needed for assessing the fit. Recognizing the boundary of SWOT’s domain will help
ensure it ceases to be used blindly across any and all situations.

10. Preparing the SWOT analysis

From a pedagogical perspective, how might we move forward on this? While Porter (1980) envisioned an endogenous
environment in which the firm both responds to and influences its external environment, in the short-run, it is much more
likely that firms will need to respond to, rather than influence, their external environment. Therefore, we may begin the
integrative journey with the external environment (Weihrich, 1982), overcoming some of the perceived circularity of SWOT.
 G.G. Bell, L. Rochford / The International Journal of Management Education 14 (2016) 310e326 319

The first task is identifying opportunities and threats using two sources: PESTEL analysis and five force analysis.5 Students
begin by assessing each PESTEL force on two dimensions: direction (positive or negative) and magnitude (strong or weak).
The results are placed on a 2  2 matrix (see Fig. 1A), forming the “OT Building Block.” Here, analysis focuses on high-
probability events in the external environment. Because students are relying on secondary data (either in the form of a
case or in data they themselves have gathered), they are likely to have access on only high probability events. Therefore,
Fig. 1A presents a typical analysis of opportunities and threats based on the high probability events that students are likely to
detect.
Weak PESTEL forces bear watching; these are ones the firm would monitor, searching for weak positive forces (positive
trends) that may mature into opportunities and avoiding negative weak forces (negative trends) that may strengthen into
threats. Strong PESTEL forces constitute opportunities to exploit (when the force is positive) and threats to confront or
mitigate (when the force is negative). Porter’s five forces model provides another source of opportunities and threats.
Relatively strong forces constitute a threat to firms (for example, if there is a high threat of entry, then firms need to consider
whether they have internal characteristics which help deter entry), while forces that the firm may exploit (Porter, 1980) to its
advantage form opportunities for that firm.
A key advantage of this approach is that it clearly highlights to students that opportunities and threats reside in the
external environment. This is important, because several of our survey respondents noted that students often confuse op-
portunities with strengths and threats with weaknesses.
Next, the student can look inside the firm to identify its strengths and weaknesses. Barney’s (1991a) definition of valuable
resources as those that help the firm respond to its opportunities and threats in its environment is foundational. Students
begin by developing an audit of the firm’s tangible and intangible resources and competencies. Then, students assess the
extent to which the resources and competencies allow the firm to respond to its opportunities and threats. Resources and
competencies that exploit opportunities and/or mitigate threats form the firm’s strengths.
The remaining task is to identify firm weaknesses, something the RBV does relatively poorly (Arend, 2004; West &
DeCastro, 2001). How should students proceed? First, a firm has a weakness when it lacks a valuable, common, resource
(West & DeCastro, 2001), what has elsewhere been termed a “key success factor” or “KSF” (Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, &
Strickland, 2014). The second way is to identify strategic liabilities, those resources and competencies controlled by the
firm that actually detract from its ability to respond to opportunities and threats (Arend, 2004). (For example, one might argue
that some firms have such poor brand images that the mere recall of the name will provoke a negative customer response.
That would be a weakness.) However, it seems doubtful that students will be able to find such strategic liabilities unless the
cases they study specifically mention them. Therefore, weaknesses take two potential forms: common, valuable resources
(industry KSFs) the firm lacks, or resources the firm has that detract from its ability to exploit opportunities or mitigate
threats.
Our recommendations thus far focus on high probability events that students are most likely to identify. However, we also
realize that low-probability, high-magnitude events may also occur, which Taleb (2007) termed “black swans.” It is important
that students e and certainly managers e at least think of possible black swan events. Fig. 1B illustrates a model for iden-
tifying different low probability events. It is analogous to Fig. 1A, except that whereas 1A considers high probability events, 1B
considers low-probability ones. Low-likelihood, low magnitude positive trends are “Flowers,” a trend that may blossom
producing pleasant but only modest outcomes. Low-likelihood, large magnitude positive trends are “Unicorns,” which
possibly could have major favorable impacts on the industry. Low-likelihood, small magnitude negative trends are annoying
“Gnats.” They have little real impact, but they should be monitored for developments. Finally, low-probability, large
magnitude negative trends are very serious and potentially dangerous “Tarantulas.” Students and managers alike should be
especially alert to the possibility of Unicorns and Tarantulas.

11. Putting it all together: the “Bits to Whole process.”

Fig. 2 illustrates the step-by-step process we term the “Bits to Whole” process to rediscover the integrative nature of
SWOT. There are four distinct steps in the process to ensure that the bits are in place before integration occurs. Step 1 is
External Analysis that identifies opportunities and threats. PESTEL and the five forces analysis identify opportunities and
threats, while common, valuable resources the firm lacks will later help identify firm weaknesses (Step 3). This first step
helps to mitigate the circularity issues inherent in SWOT by providing the context in which the internal analysis should be
evaluated. We begin with external analysis because, at least in the short-run, managers may take the external environ-
mental context as given (Porter, 1980). Step 2 is the Internal Strengths Analysis phase, drawing on the RBV to identify the
firm’s strengths through an audit of its resources and competencies. Step 3 is the Internal Weaknesses Analysis phase. In
all of these first three steps, efforts must be made both to prioritize the elements (which are most important, and why)
and consider the magnitude (which has the biggest impact, and why). Finally, Step 4 is Integration where the overall
picture is examined to capture the interactions among the constituent SWOT elements. This step is intended to help
address the troublesome nature of SWOT as an integrative tool by providing a template for identifying all of the

5
While we assume that PESTEL and the five force analysis will independently uncover opportunities and threats, it is possible that the five forces may
mediate the influence of PESTEL forces on the firms (Barney & Hesterley 2009, p. 33).
320 G.G. Bell, L. Rochford / The International Journal of Management Education 14 (2016) 310e326

Fig. 2. The “bits to whole” process for building the integrated SWOT model.

interactions. The result is a fully integrated SWOT analysis, highlighting the reciprocal nature of the SWOT elements and
clarifying the distinct nature and source of its components; hence, “Bits to Whole.”

12. Data constraints on managers and students

Before students begin to conduct a SWOT analysis, they need to be forewarned of the serious data constraints they face.
That is, they are approaching the task as outsiders, and consequently, will lack much information available to high-level
inside decision-makers (top executives). Thus, for example, in completing the “SW” portion of the assignment as part of a
case analysis, they will have access only to company information available publicly or revealed to the case writer.
Therefore, they need to realize that what they will be able to accomplish is perhaps a “best first approximation” of the
reality of the situation.
However, it is also helpful if they are also told about information constraints faced by “real” managers as well. Firm
managers may have superior access to information, but they also will have to interpret that information, and will likely do so
in manners consistent with their internal belief systems and mental models and frames (Mintzberg et al., 1998) based on the
tools they use (Knott, 2006). Indeed, Hussey (2002: 45) goes so far as to say, “It is a mistake to assume that managers always
have the information and knowledge that enables them to perceive a strategic strength or weakness.” Therefore, while
managers may have superior access to information, their ability to interpret it is also fallible, and it is important that in-
structors who use SWOT communicate those weaknesses to students as well.
 G.G. Bell, L. Rochford / The International Journal of Management Education 14 (2016) 310e326 321

13. Temporal sequencing issues

We now turn to the issue of temporal sequencing (Albert, 1995, 2013): when students should be introduced to the
SWOT framework and what they should be taught at each point. It is important to present SWOT to students after they
have learned the constituent bits of knowledge (Meyer & Land, 2006b) that underpin SWOT. Thus, SWOT should be
covered both in textbook material and in class only after the foundational material on PESTEL, the five forces, and the RBV
has been covered.
One approach to teaching SWOT is to introduce the concept of SWOT in the introduction to management course as a
series of checklists and then later on in the strategic management course to introduce its integrative nature. However,
there are at least three distinct problems with doing so. First, introducing SWOT as a simple set of checklists in the
introduction course is an example of using a “scaffold” approach where SWOT is presented naïvely (Meyer & Land, 2005)
as a set of lists (Valentin, 2005) early on, and then relearned later more fully. The concern with so doing is that students so
trained may learn SWOT in a ritualized manner (Meyer & Land, 2006b) which is hard to undo later. Second, students
might take other courses, such as a principles of marketing course, where they would be able to apply this naïve model
before they are taught the full model in strategic management. This would reinforce the naïve model as the “correct”
model, making amendment of their understanding that much more difficult. Third, doing so would require assurance that
students are taught the integrative nature of SWOT in the strategic management course. While that may be a reasonable
assumption in other disciplines such as economics, where concepts are taught in a “spiral” wherein students are intro-
duced to the concept in introductory classes and then revisit them in detail in advanced classes (Davies, 2006), the
introduction to management and strategic management courses are normally taught independently, with no systematic
revisiting of earlier concepts later on. Moreover, given that 25% of our respondents teaching strategic management
indicate that they do not teach SWOT, it seems likely that many students will not ever see SWOT taught integratively in a
later class.
Therefore, we propose that in introductory courses, students learn the fundamental elements underlying SWOT,
namely internal analysis and external analysis. Then, at the advanced (strategic management) level, we recommend that
curricula focus on formally introducing SWOT as a tool to integrate internal and external analysis. This should occur after
they have learned the details of internal analysis (i.e., the RBV) and external analysis (Porter’s five forces and PESTEL).
Thus, the focus of the introduction to management class will be on introducing the distinct “bits” of information (internal
and external analysis), and the focus of the strategic management class on showing the interrelationships among those
bits.
The primary advantages of this approach are two-fold. First, students will be learning from the beginning the inte-
grative nature of SWOT in tandem with the core concepts it integrates. Consequently, they will be less likely to view SWOT
as a naïve model (Meyer & Land, 2005) consisting of four disconnected lists or buckets (Valentin, 2005). Second, doing so
will introduce a “spiral” element to student learning wherein students relearn concepts more deeply in later courses
(Davies, 2006).

14. Discussion

14.1. Summary

One of the critical, yet unrealized, goals of strategic management is integration (Priem & Butler, 2001a). A deep grasp of
strategy requires that students understand both wholes and parts. According to Lampel (2005, p. 21), “Business schools are
ideal for understanding the parts, less so for the wholes, and not at all for the relationship between the two.” SWOT as an
integrative framework (Mintzberg, 1990) is well-positioned to help students understand parts and wholes. However, it has
often been reduced to a set of lists (Valentin, 2001). Losing the integrative nature of SWOT makes the concept troublesome for
students to understand. Unfortunately, few of the available textbooks present SWOT as an integrating framework, and a
sizeable proportion of faculty do not teach the concept at all. As a result, we should not be surprised that SWOT is misapplied
both in the classroom and in practice.
We redevelop SWOT to take advantage of subsequently developed knowledge (the RBV, five forces, and PESTEL) to reassert
its role as an integrative framework. We acknowledge that the RBV and industrial organizational economics are different and
potentially conflicting perspectives (Schneider & Lieb, 2004). However, we draw on Poole and Van de Ven’s (1989) concept of
paradox e in this case, the conflict between industrial/organizational economics and RBV e to build integrative strategy
theory in the form of SWOT as an integrator of industrial/organizational economics and RBV. As Poole & Van de Ven (1989)
would put it, we accept the paradox and use it constructively to build new theory.

14.2. Contributions to scholarship

While our paper is primarily directed toward pedagogy and thereby, management practice, it also makes important
contributions to scholarship. First, it recalls the roots of strategic management as an integrative field (Priem & Butler, 2001a),
and seeks to help scholars move beyond their reductionist roots to look at the integrative nature of internal and external
analysis. We need to build theory that helps us to integrate our disparate findings.
322 G.G. Bell, L. Rochford / The International Journal of Management Education 14 (2016) 310e326

Second, it draws attention to the importance of temporal sequencing (Albert, 1977, 1995). We often assume that our ac-
tions are relatively time-free, and yet here we see the importance of presenting the elements of SWOT analysis to students in a
particular order and sequence e it’s important to “learn the bits” before learning the wholes. This suggests that there may be
many other areas where we need to consider formally issues of temporal sequencing, in our research, our practice, and our
pedagogy.

14.3. Applied implications

While our paper focuses primarily on pedagogy, it also has important implications for practice. Our literature review found
that there are many difficulties with SWOT as practiced. This is perhaps not surprising given the problems we found in the
pedagogy of SWOT. This suggests first off that managers need to rethink their conception of SWOT. To the extent that it is
practiced merely as “a series of buckets,” then managers need to reconceptualize SWOT to capture its integrative nature.
Second, we outline a method for students to develop their SWOT analyses. This method should be equally appropriate for
managers to develop their SWOT analyses. Third, we outline the importance of searching for possible “black swan” events
(Taleb, 2007). Oftentimes, managers seem to see only those events of a high likelihood, and miss those rare events that are
perceived as unlikely to occur. It is important that they at least begin to consider their possibility, especially those we have
termed “Unicorns” (which they will want to be positioned to exploit) and “Tarantulas” (which they will want to overcome).

14.4. Limitations and future research

We limited our analysis to U.S. textbooks, and particularly those written in English. We could have included non-U.S.
textbooks and particularly non-English language textbooks, as other authors elsewhere may approach discussion of SWOT
differently than do American textbook authors. However, if the content for non-U.S. textbooks is derived substantially from
U.S. textbooks, SWOT coverage is likely to be just as limited. We also did not examine independent and/or self-published
material that faculty may use to teach SWOT in English or non-English languages. Therefore, an important extension to
our study would be to examine national differences in teaching SWOT analysis, particularly in non-English-speaking
countries.
This leads to the fundamental question of “how local or global is education?” There is no clear answer to this question, and
there is an ongoing tension between global and local influences (Crossley & Jarvis, 2001). There is some evidence that national
background and culture influences a teacher’s choice of teaching styles and methods (Cothran et al., 2005). There is also
evidence that teachers share some elements of teaching despite national boundaries (Anderson, Ryan, & Shapiro, 1989).
However, as Alexander (2001: 508) said, “Few countries remain hermetically sealed.” Forces of globalization may be leading
to a more “global” and uniform knowledge base in higher education, with English as the common language (Dodds, 2008).
However, comparative pedagogy itself remains understudied (Alexander, 2001). Therefore, another important extension to
our study would be to examine national differences in teaching SWOT analysis, particularly in non-English-speaking
countries.
Moreover, our faculty survey was limited to AACSB institutions in the Midwestern U.S. While we cannot generalize beyond
this sample, it is probable that the situation with respect to teaching SWOT is no different among non-AACSB accredited
schools and schools in other parts of the U.S.
To our knowledge, there has been no attempt to evaluate how the use of SWOT actually improves strategy formulation and
decision-making. An experiment comparing the use of the process we have outlined above to first include the bits with tools
for external and internal analysis followed by integration with SWOT could be compared to other strategy formulation tools
without SWOT integration to assess the type and quality of decisions made.

15. Conclusion

SWOT is ubiquitous in its use, both the classroom and the business world. However, its integrative nature is rarely
acknowledged. We need to understand SWOT as an integrative framework and help our students do so as well. Utilizing
analyses such as PESTEL, RBV, and five forces developed after the introduction of SWOT provides a more complete picture as
well as legitimate inputs while the OT Building Blocks for high and low probability events are in keeping with the original
intent of SWOT to anticipate circumstances that can affect the organization. The prospects for improving the quality of
strategy formulation and decision making by realizing the potential of SWOT is worthy of the effort.

Acknowledgements

We thank our editor and our two anonymous IJME reviewers for their insightful review of our paper. We also thank Drs.
Patricia Borchert and Xin Liang for their helpful and constructive comments on earlier versions of this paper. Finally, we thank
Ms. Laura Shearer Hensen for her assistance in data collection. Of course, all errors and emissions remain ours.
 G.G. Bell, L. Rochford / The International Journal of Management Education 14 (2016) 310e326 323

Appendix 1

Survey Instrument
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 G.G. Bell, L. Rochford / The International Journal of Management Education 14 (2016) 310e326 325

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