SWOT methodology: a state-of-the-art review for the past, a framework for the future/SSGG metodologija: praeities ir ateities analize?
Ghazinoory, Sepehr ; Abdi, Mansoureh ; Azadegan-Mehr, Mandana 等
1. Introduction
Among many fads and fashions emerging constantly in strategic
management field, during the recent decades, the SWOT framework has
enjoyed outstanding popularity among both researchers and practitioners.
This tool includes environmental analysis (the process of scanning the
business environment for threats and opportunities) and the
organizational analysis (the process of analyzing a firm's
strengths and weaknesses) (Fig. 1).
SWOT analysis is a widely used tool for analyzing internal and
external environments in order to attain a systematic approach and
support for decision situations.
The impressive ability of SWOT is the matching of specific internal
and external factors, which provides a strategic matrix that makes
sense. It is essential to note that the internal factors are within the
control of the organization, for instance, finance, operations,
marketing, and other areas. On the other hand, the external factors are
out of the organization>s control, such as the economic and political
factors, new technologies, and its competition. The SWOT matrix consists
of four combinations which are called the maxi-maxi (strengths /
opportunities), maxi-mini (strengths/ threats), mini-maxi
(weaknesses/opportunities), and mini-mini (weaknesses/threats) (Weihrich
1982).
Although the SWOT analysis dates back to 50's and 60's
(1), Weihrich (1982) that introduced SWOT matrix as a tool for situation
analysis, can be regarded as the most important reference in this field
that has provided some classic examples.
After that time, SWOT has been pointed in most of the references of
strategic planning. Although this analysis seems out of date in
comparison with recent approaches such as resource-based planning and
competency-based planning Dyson (2004) pointing out the relation between
SWOT and two above approaches could show that SWOT is such a flexible
framework which can combine with newer methods to offer novel methods.
Although strategic planning has a lot of instruments and many
approaches, thousands of researches and hundreds of papers have utilized
SWOT in recent years. So we will review those papers in section 2.
Papers of SWOT applications in different industries will be
mentioned in section 3. Also the numerous papers that have mentioned the
SWOT weaknesses and shortages and combining other instruments and
techniques, have tried to modify its methodology will be described in
section 4. Integrating SWOT with other methods is reviewed in section5.
Finally, concluding remarks on SWOT trends, methodology and applications
in published papers will be presented in section 6.
The aim of this paper is reviewing the literature of SWOT to answer
questions such as: "what research methods are most commonly
used?", "what topics and areas are treated most often in the
SWOT field?", "what is the scope of these studies?" and
"which journals or countries stand out with highest number of
papers using this technique?". Such questions have already been
raised with the objective: "to improve our knowledge in this
field".
It is hoped that this paper could serve the needs of interested
readers for references of SWOT studies and applications, and hence
promote the future development of SWOT.
2. Review of published SWOT papers
2.1. Data collection
We decided to focus our study on papers published in refereed
journals, not therefore including sources such as books or papers
presented at conferences. This was based on the belief that academics
and practitioners usually prefer using journals to acquire and
disseminate novel knowledge. Other resources, such as books, are
generally confined to the dissemination of previously established
knowledge.
Therefore the papers were checked that there was, SWOT' or,
TOWS' acronym in title, abstract or keywords of them.
To conduct this literature review, databases have been searched and
papers that have been published in indexed journals, up to the end of
2009, were recognized. These databases are:
--Web of Knowledge
--Science direct
--Blackwell
--IEEEXplore
--Oxford University Press
--ProQuest
--Springer
--Wiley
--SAGE
--SCOPUS
--IOS Press
--Beech tree publishing
--Project Muse
--Group Dynamic
--Emerald insight
In total, 557 papers on SWOT were found in related databases, which
have been evaluated in this literature review, however total number of
papers seemed to be more than 557 cases, due to the papers had been
found on more than one databases.
2.2. Trends & Classifications in SWOT papers
Based on our survey, papers on SWOT have been published for 28
years, the earliest dates back to 1982. No paper on SWOT was published
between 1982, when the earliest paper was released, and 1987.
SWOT analysis is not considered very long lasting method. Actually
it did not use to be common so much before 1993, but the number of its
publications has soared from 2000 and the largest number of papers (72)
was published in 2008 as was shown in Table 1.
In order to better analyze the growth, we divided the period under
study into six categories. Each category shows the number of published
papers every five years until 2009 as can be seen in Fig. 2. The growth
in the number of papers in recent years shows that interest in SWOT
analysis is increasing among researchers. It can be observed in Table 1
that 54% of whole papers on SWOT were published in 2005-2009 as was
shown in Fig. 2.
Among 425 papers which their origins are recognized, about forty
five percent (45%) of whole SWOT papers were provided by three
countries: UK, USA, and India (2). Top ten ranked countries in providing
SWOT papers were shown in Table 2.
'Marketing Intelligence & Planning' and "Health
Policy" are the journals which have published the highest number of
SWOT papers (9 papers). 'Long Range Planning' occupies the
third rank with 6 papers (Table 3).
Application variety of SWOT caused to publish 557 papers in 424
journals!
Table 4 ranks authors in order of the number of their papers. Also,
the number of papers on which the author was the first among
collaborators is seen as well in this table. If two authors had an equal
rank, then the number of papers on which their name appeared first was
compared. We should appreciate Weihrich, who was the initiator of the
method.
To assess SWOT papers based on citation frequency, we presented top
10 papers based on their citation counts (3). These papers have been
cited 24 or more times in data banks (Table 5). The largest number of
citation of a paper (114) is belonged to Jackson et al. (2003). Also
Rizzo and Kim paper (2005) and Weihrich (1982), with 67 and 64 times of
citation, occupied second and third rank.
2.3. Approaches in SWOT studies
The contents of SWOT papers could be divided into methodological,
case study and applied-methodological papers:
--Methodological papers provide a new idea on SWOT structure and
its concept.
--Case study papers guide the practice, offer the recommendations
for action and explain the stages to be fulfilled.
--Applied-methodological papers are mixture of methodological and
case study approaches, on the other hand, these papers have modified or
changed the SWOT method, so that they can provide an adaptive method and
adjust SWOT to their own problem.
--Major part of SWOT studies (91%) are case study in different
areas and industries. Meanwhile only 5% of whole papers are allocated to
methodological category and 4% of them is allocated to
applied-methodological (Table 6 and Fig. 3).
3. Application areas and scopes of SWOT papers
A review of most frequent areas and scopes which SWOT has been
applied in case studies or applied-methodological papers is presented in
Table 7. The main problem in making of this review is that there is no
classification on SWOT applications in previous papers. Therefore we
have classified them based on our reading of the papers.
According to Table 7, some of the most common fields of SWOT
applications (according to Table 7) are reviewed in below:
3.1. Agriculture
It is a bit surprising that the fields which SWOT is used the most,
is agriculture and its sidelong fields--while business fields and
industries may be more expected to be involved in strategy formulation
and implementation process.
The first work in this field is a paper by Faesel and Hill (1995),
though using SWOT in agriculture prevailed almost since 2002 and many
papers published since then. An interesting point is that these papers
are mostly belonging to developing countries (particularly India) and
them often assessing agriculture condition in a specific geographic
region rather than strategic positioning of a special organization. For
example, Wah and Merican (2009) released a paper which can be mentioned
here.
3.2. Health& health care
Regarding to the big amount of journals in health field, it is not
surprising that the number of papers in this field is big as well, so
one of the first applied SWOT papers (Lanzotti 1991) is related to this
field. The number of papers published in this field has reached its peak
within 2002 and 2003 but it has decreased in recent years.
In addition, the most common usage of SWOT in health field is
related to strategy formulation of research and treatment centers. A
paper by Lane et al. (2008) can be mentioned as an example.
3.3. Tourism
Using SWOT in tourism field has started later than other fields;
and the first article is Ravindranath (1997). But this trend has been
ascending so it has increased every year so the biggest number has
published in 2009.
The most of articles in this field assess tourism potentials in a
particular geographic area or a special city (mostly in developing
countries) and several papers have published assessing tourism in
provinces of China, as an example a paper by Gu ShiCheng et al. (2009)
can be mentioned.
3.4. General management of companies
Initial and predictable application of SWOT has been in the field
of companies management and strategy formulation for them in corporate
level or one of its functions (of course, SWOT application in marketing
will be separately described in the next section). After the advent of
SWOT, the published papers within the first years focused on strategy
formulation for companies. Even the first one which was Weihrich's
work, (1982) presented a real example for Volkswagen Company. In
addition, the most cited SWOT article (Jackson et al. 2003) belongs to
this field.
3.5. Marketing& market planning
Since the main application of strategy planning has been in
marketing, not surprisingly there are lots of articles in this field.
The first two (Giles 1989) (Piercy, Giles 1989) have been published in
Marketing Intelligence & Planning. As another example, Novicevic et
al. (2004) can be mentioned.
3.6. Environment
The first article in this field is belonging to Glasson (1999) and
no paper published up to 2002. Then, the significant number of papers,
published in this field mainly resulted from papers which have been
published in recent 3-4 years.
An interesting point here is most of the papers of environment
field have conducted in national level, for instance Ghazinoory and
Huisingh (2006). In addition Lozano and Valles (2007) article is one of
the good ones.
3.7. The rest
10 percent of whole categorized papers belong to "the
rest" category including Newsprint, service, banking, hydraulic
power generation, NIS, program development, legislation, gaming, foreign
policy, economic policy, national economic and etc. As it is seen, many
of these subjects are in macro level and topics such as policy making
(for example, Sharma et al. 2009), macroeconomics (for example, Diskiene
et al. 2008) and national innovation system (for example, Ghazinoury and
Ghazinoori 2006) have been conducted.
The number of these kinds of papers is increasing constantly; it
means that in many new fields, SWOT, as an analytical tool is being
used.
3.8. Levels of SWOT applications
SWOT is generally used for policy making, decision making and
strategy making (or planning). In the review of SWOT papers, we
identified that SWOT analysis has been used in three levels: corporate,
national and regional planning. 33% of case study and
applied-methodological papers were about national planning. 3% were
about regional planning, and 64% were in corporate level (Fig. 4).
4. Methodological development of SWOT
As SWOT framework does not have a strictly defined structure,
sometimes it becomes an art more than a science, which makes it
difficult for practitioners to use SWOT and extract strategies of it.
However, there have recently appeared many methodological works on SWOT
to make it more rigorous and operational. Most of these researchers have
pointed to SWOT difficulties and then proposed some solutions to modify
its shortcomings. These works are briefly summarized below for
practitioners to understand and to apply SWOT in a more objective and
precise way.
Weihrich (1982) introduced SWOT and pointed to two difficulties in
applying this method:
--Time dimension in SWOT matrix;
--Complexity of Interactions of Situational Factors.
He proposed preparing several SWOT Matrixes at different points of
time to solve the first and using interaction matrix to solve the second
(Fig. 5). None of them unfortunately was noticed in practice.
After 1982 for many years, no methodological modification in SWOT
happened, Even Hill and Westbrook (1997) said:
"It may be time to relinquish our fondness for SWOT analysis
which seems now to have passed its sell-by date, because of fundamental
concerns about the intrinsic nature of SWOT analysis such as:
--The length of the factors lists;
--No requirement to prioritize or weight the factors identified;
--Unclear and ambiguous words and phrases;
--No resolution of conflicts;
--No obligation to verify statements and opinions with data or
analyses;
--Single level of analysis is all that is required;
--No logical link with an implementation phase".
Also Pickton and Wright (1998) introduced the SWOT limitations
(Fig. 6).
Subsequent papers gradually in addition to pointing out SWOT
limitations, proposed the solutions to modify it:
Beeho and Prentice (1997) said that the major attractions of SWOT
analysis are: first, it is familiar and, second, it is,user
friendly', as it does not require the need for complex information
or computer systems. Indeed, SWOT analysis offers a simple structured
approach to identifying a company's strengths and weaknesses and
comparing these to opportunities and threats faced by the organization
due to its environment. But it has some of shortcomings, for example:
--SWOT analysis is global to a product (or attraction in this case)
and can be unfocused;
--Owing to its simplistic nature and ease of use, the technique has
been used in a slack manner and is susceptible to subjectivity and bias
from managers who can present an unrealistic appraisal of company
attributes.
To refinement of it, a new type of analysis has been proposed, ASEB
(activities, settings, experiences, benefits) grid analysis.
Ramos et al. (2000) solving the problem of non-weighting factors in
SWOT used a model which supersedes the opportunities and threats of SWOT
by the key issues in the environment when comparing their impact on the
identified strengths and weaknesses. This SWOT model scrutinizes the
main strengths and weaknesses against each key issue in the environment.
A score of "+" (or a weighted "++") is proposed when
there is a benefit to the organization such as a strength that allows
the sector to take advantage of or to counteract a problem arising from
a key environmental change or when a weakness would be offset by the
environmental change. A minus (or a double minus) is marked when there
is an opposed effect on the organization, when strength would be reduced
by the environmental change or a weakness would prevent the sector from
overcoming the problems associated with or accentuated by an
environmental change.
Hussey (2002) faced several flaws in SWOT exercises. For example:
--It is much harder for managers to identify strengths than things
that they see as wrong with the organization.
--The insight of many managers is operational rather than strategic
and consequently much of what ends up being listed is not particularly
useful.
--It is a mistake to assume that managers always have the
information and knowledge that enables them to perceive a strategic
strength or weakness.
--It is too easy for something positive to be perceived as better
than it is.
--The power and influence of managers involved in a SWOT process is
not equal.
--Some managers describe an effect as a weakness and do not get to
the causes.
He thinks: "SWOT can't ever become really useful unless
it is related to a more careful analytical underpinning".
So in the next section, we will mention some exercises in this
area.
5. Integrating SWOT with other methods
For improving the effectiveness of SWOT, many researchers have
integrated it with other methods (especially analytical and quantitative
methods).
Rudder and Louw (1998) proposed the SPACE matrix as a basis for
SWOT analysis this matrix determining the organization's strategic
posture in the industry makes use of two internal dimensions (financial
strength and competitive advantage) and two external dimensions
(industry strength and environmental stability). The firm's
strategic posture is then classifies broadly as: aggressive,
competitive, conservative or defensive. Also, Valentin (2005) introduced
Defensive/Offensive Evaluation (DOE) as an effective alternative to SWOT
analysis.
Houben et al. (1999) believed that "many companies often only
have vague ideas of their competitive strengths and weaknesses,
opportunities and threats". Then they used expert systems for
developing a knowledge-based system that can assist managers of small
and medium sized companies in performing a SWOT analysis.
Proctor (2000) suggested that executives can possess a powerful
tool for generating sustainable strategies and specifying objectives, by
combination the three techniques of cross-impact analysis, the TOWS
matrix and brainstorming,
One of the most important researches to complete SWOT is the papers
that have been presented by a Finnish team. They used Analytic Hierarchy
Process (AHP) at least in 7 papers and combined it with SWOT to innovate
a hybrid method4: AWOT. Kurttila et al. (2000) believe that when using
SWOT, the analysis lacks the possibility of comprehensively appraising
the strategic decision-making situation; merely pinpointing the number
of factors in strength, weakness, opportunity or threat groups does not
pinpoint the most significant group. In addition, SWOT includes no means
of analytically determining the importance of factors or of assessing
the fit between SWOT factors and decision alternatives.
For solving these problems, they proposed a hybrid method (AWOT)
with following steps:
--Step 1. SWOT analysis is carried out;
--Step 2. Pairwise comparisons between SWOT factors are carried out
within every SWOT group;
--Step 3. Pairwise comparisons are made between the four SWOT
groups;
--Step 4. The results are utilized in the strategy formulation and
evaluation process.
These researchers have utilized this algorithm with some changes
for a forest-certification case (Kurttila et al. 2000), for a
multinomial logit model analysis in forest management decisions of
private forest owners (Kurttila et al. 2001), assessing the priorities
among resource management strategies at the Finnish Forest and Park
Service (Pesonen et al. 2001), evaluating the management strategies of a
forestland estate (Kangas et al. 2003), using of value focused thinking
in tourism management (Kajanus et al. 2004) and adapting modern
strategic decision support tools in the participatory strategy process
in a forest research station (Leskinen et al. 2006). They have used
combination of SWOT with another techniques such as statistical
analysis, value focused thinking and Multiple Criteria Decision Support
(MCDS) methods.
Applying the combination of SWOT and AHP in forest industry is not
confined to Finnish researchers but Shrestha et al. (2004) have used
this method for exploring the potential for Silvopasture adoption.
Using structured methods of Multiple-Attribute Decision Making
(MADM) especially AHP to quantify SWOT has been continued by Chang and
Huang (2006) (Fig. 7). Also a review of integrated analytic hierarchy
process and its applications with SWOT has been done by Ho (2008).
[FIGURE 7 OMITTED]
Using Analytic Network Process (ANP) instead of AHP in a hybrid
method was the latest contribution to this area (Feglar et al. 2006;
Ytiksel, Dagdeviren 2007). In addition, Zaerpour et al. (2008) have
integrated Fuzzy AHP and SWOT method. So these modeling became more
realistic and at the same time they got more complicated. Let's
remember that the core of strategic management (linking technique to
worldview) is modeling, and SWOT is a tool for simplification of complex
elements of strategic thinking (Grandy, Mills 2004).
Using balanced scorecard and quality function deployment (QFD) to
combine with SWOT is one of the methods considered in recent years. This
algorithm that called BSQ (A hybrid of balanced scorecard, SWOT analysis
and quality function deployment) with a little difference has been used
by Hong Kong researchers (Lee, Ko 2000; Ko, Lee 2000; Ip, Koo 2004). Two
main stages of development within the proposed systematic and holistic
strategic management system are depicted in this method. The first stage
is conjoining the SWOT analysis with the BSC. The SWOT is accomplished
to develop the key performance indicators (KPI) with the four main
perspectives of the balanced scorecard (Financial goals, Customer
perspective, internal processes, Learning and growth). The second stage
is to make use of the QFD methodology with the BSC>s KPIs identified
as the "Whats" and the major strategies of Sun Tzu>s
philosophies as the "hows" within QFD. This system is
customizable for both profit and non-profit organizations to develop
holistic organizational strategic plans (Ko, Lee 2000).
There is an interesting point in that procedure: SWOT is a strategy
planning exercise, so it is not the kind of thing one does every month
or quarter. But BSC is a method designed for use in ongoing management,
and therefore it provides an opportunity for routine use at regular
intervals. Then, SWOT and BSC need the different periods of time in
planning process. For solving this paradox, Ko and Lee (2000) mentioned:
"Despite the fact that there are four perspectives (financial,
customer, internal processes, and learning and growth) as the key
elements of organizational strategies that must be measured, the BSC
remains a means of effectively measuring strategy rather than a means of
deciding strategy". This is the main reason that Ko and Lee (2000)
feel that "the SWOT analysis serves as a great "stepping
stone" to build the key performance indicators (KPI) of the
BSC". In the other words, The SWOT matrix precisely identifies the
critical success factors which can be implemented into the
identification of the different aspects toward the balanced scorecard.
Also Ishino and Kijima (2005) have used soft systems methodology
(SSM) instead of QFD to combine with SWOT and BSC. They have described a
systems-based methodology called soft systems methodology for strategy
communication (SSM-SC). SSM-SC employs SSM as well as SWOT and BSC maps
for integrating thoughts and languages of the participants (Fig. 8). As
can be seen in that Fig. 8, SWOT analysis and the BSC maps are served as
two strategy communication formats, but there is a gap between the
findings of the SWOT analysis and the BSC maps and there is no mechanism
for synthesizing the two in that paper. This point shows the difference
between two mentioned papers (Ko, Lee 2000; Ishino, Kijima 2005) in
integrating SWOT and BSC.
[FIGURE 8 OMITTED]
But in the last 4-5 years, several radical transitions in
approaching on SWOT have been occurred that each one can be regarded as
a radical innovation:
--Following Curry (1996) discussed knowledge-based modeling for
strategic decisions, Marti (2004) introduced an extended SWOT analysis
(Fig. 9) which takes into consideration the two main streams of modern
strategic thought: the resource-based view and the activity-based view.
This new approach used for a strategic knowledge benchmarking system
(SKBC) that is a knowledge-based strategic information system
framework.In addition, Dyson (2004) said: The application links SWOT
analysis to resource-based planning illustrates it as an iterative
rather than a linear process and embeds it within the overall planning
process.
--A paper by Coman and Ronen (2009) is the most recent work in this
field. That paper claims to present a straightforward methodology for
making a structured analysis of strengths and weaknesses, which is done
based on an analysis of important value-creating events and the
strengths and weaknesses that caused these events. This focused SWOT
methodology, using the core-competence tree and the current-reality
tree, distils the strengths and weaknesses into core competences and
core problems. These core competences and core problems are then linked
into a plan of action aimed at preserving and leveraging the
organization's core competences, while defending against exposure
to core problems.
--Novicevic et al. (2004) argue: despite the wide and enduring
popularity of SWOT, it has remained a theoretical framework with limited
prescriptive power for practice and minor significance for research
which makes both practitioners and researchers disappointed because from
Novicevic et al.'s point of view "although SWOT generates
interesting questions, it provides little guidance to managers".
They also argue that the functional overemphasis on SWOT "as a
matching tool" has eclipsed other useful aspects of the SWOT
framework and the focus of the standard SWOT framework on back-end
planning has diverted attention from adding new dimensions of front-end
intelligence. As they say planning requires primarily objective decision
making, whereas intelligence requires primarily subjective judgments, so
they conclude that practitioners and researchers need some formal
template to deal with logical inconsistencies in the process of matching
the four SWOT components. SWOT components need to be appropriately
configured for the development of this template. This paper adopts a
cognitive approach of integrating marketing and intelligence views into
a new "dual-perspective" SWOT framework. It tries to recognize
the difference in the underlying nature of planning and intelligence
perspectives so that it can reconfigure the traditional SWOT into the
dual-perspective form. The objective nature of the planning perspective
calls for the situation analysis in terms of controllable and
uncontrollable attributes (Fig. 10).
--Panagiotou and Wijnen (2005) believe that the SWOT's
seductive simplicity leads people to use it carelessly also this
analysis does not provide a sufficient context for adequate strategy
optimization. they claim this sloppiness combined with structural
simplicity create the fundamental failures of the SWOT analysis as a
tool which only produces short lists of non-prioritized and generalized
bullet points. Then they propose a composite "telescopic
observations strategic framework" that is built step-bystep by
integrating available conceptual frameworks and models in new
relationships. In that framework, all macro-environmental factors that
may affect an organization have been included in the form of an extended
political-economic-social-technological analysis. The extra letters in
PESTILE stand for International, to reflect competitive challenges in
global markets, Legal and regulatory, and Environmental and ecological.
The variables of industry analysis, cost structures, and portfolio
analysis have also been included. Equally, the industry's key
factors for success and the company's core resources, skills,
competencies and capabilities are also present. Cooperative undertakings
such as alliances, partnerships, networks and joint ventures have also
been included, since they have the potential to change the competitive
landscape of an organization. The user's attention is further
directed to total quality management (TQM) issues, organizational
cultural aspects, structural considerations, value systems needs and
e-commerce considerations.
--In the last step, Ghazinoory et al. (2007) introduced a new
point: SWOT usually reflects a person's existing position and
viewpoint, which can be misused to justify a previously decided course
of action rather than used as a means to open up new possibilities. It
is important to note that sometimes threats can also be viewed as
opportunities, depending on the people or groups involved (Morris 2005).
There is a saying, "A pessimist is a person who sees a calamity in
an opportunity, and an optimist is one who sees an opportunity in a
calamity". Therefore in such ambiguous cases (Emblemsvag, Kjolstad
2002) the use of fuzzy sets is justified to be applied. In fact a factor
with certain membership value belongs to one of the categories. For
example economic flourishing is an opportunity with 0.7 as membership
value and it is a threat with membership value 0.3. Then they proposed
an algorithm for rectifying the shortcomings and problems of the SWOT
matrix through the use of fuzzy sets. The steps taken for this algorithm
are as follows:
--Scaling the factors;
--Aggregation of membership functions of internal and external
factors;
--Evaluation, prioritization and extracting strategies.
[FIGURE 9 OMITTED]
[FIGURE 10 OMITTED]
In that algorithm, by quantifying the factors through the
definition of fuzzy membership functions, evaluation of the factors and
strategies is made possible and both qualitative and quantitative
aspects of the factors are considered. The major approach of the
presented algorithm was that in most cases the internal and external
factors can't be fully recognized as positive or negative, because
their impact on the organization could be observed within a wide spread
which may include both positive and negative effects. On the other hand,
the aggregation of internal and external factors which leads to extract
a strategy in a usual matrix would depend on the intensity and influence
of the factors in this algorithm. Hence, these fuzzy membership
functions and the extracted strategies can be well prioritized and it
may be possible to concentrate upon strategies with higher priority in
implementation stage.
An applied example of implementation of this approach is seen in
Kheirkhah et al. (2009).
6. Conclusion remarks
6.1. Remarks on trends in publishing SWOT papers
The diversity of SWOT scopes is an interesting issue (Table 7). In
fact, SWOT analysis has already been used in most of sectors at least in
one case. Also none of the planning tools has been generalized to this
extent. If someone wants to compare planning and mathematic knowledge,
he can consider SWOT as four basic arithmetic operations (i.e. addition,
subtraction, multiplication and division). However it is interesting
that the number of SWOT papers on "health"" and
"medicine" sectors is considerable.
The same diversity is observed in scientific journals. For example
557 papers from 424 journals have been published from different
disciplines. These papers are not limited to management field, SWOT
papers are found in different databases including papers on various
fields of science
The review of the papers shows that the authors are from different
disciplines and a lot of papers have two or more authors. Therefore team
working and interdisciplinary collaboration in SWOT papers is prevalent.
It is noticeable that the number of UK papers is the same as USA
papers (Table 2). Also another interesting point is about India which
occupies the third place. A search in Google trends
(www.google.com/trends) shows an interesting point: the most of the
search was done by Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. So we can
conclude that the number of submitted SWOT papers from these countries
will increase rapidly in the near future.
The limited number of authors who have more than one paper (Table
4) indicates that the specific research scope is not limited to a few
authors.
The position of Weihrich, H. as the pioneer of SWOT concept within
other authors is notable (Table 5), because we still see that a lot of
passages are cited from his paper (Weihrich 1982) by other authors. In
addition, team working of Finnish (Kangas, Kurttila, Kajanus, Pesonen,
etc.) and Jackson and his colleagues is remarkable.
The quick and exponential growth of SWOT papers in recent years
implies the idea that "SWOT does not need to be recalled"!
Most of the reviewed papers used SWOT in a case study and/or some
of them developed its methodology (Fig. 3). The papers personalized the
methodology of SWOT based on a special case is only 4%. So, more work
should be done in this area.
6.2. Some remarks on SWOT methodology
SWOT concerns can be divided into two categories:
--The first category deals with problems in implementation of SWOT
within organization. These concerns can be solved only by organizing and
training the panel of SWOT effectively. Unfortunately only a few papers
have paid attention to this area in order to solve these flaws and it
should get more attention than before.
--The second category deals with scientific concerns which we
discussed in details in section 4. Some of the trends in this area are:
1--Integration of SWOT with other scientific techniques specially
decision making and quantifying techniques;
2--Making intelligent SWOT by using corresponding techniques (which
is more ingenious and it is a more recent trend);
3--Time dynamism of SWOT needs more attention and usually gets
neglected by most of the authors. The most important question about this
trend is, how can today's management extract tomorrow strategies
based on S, W, O and T factors of yesterday?'. Although
Weihrich's paper in 1982 mentioned this problem and proposed its
solution but fellow researchers did not put any further effort to this
issue;
--It is clear that a lot of SWOT flaws have been rectified by
researches conducted so far, but those researchers overlooked the most
important advantage of SWOT: simplicity!
--It is obvious that integrating the empirical and mathematical
techniques within SWOT to fixing its flaws or malfunction makes its
application complex. This is a key issue when researchers use SWOT
technique.
6.3. General remarks
It is clear that the use of SWOT in papers and planning researches
will be continued in coming years. This argument is based on reviewing
the trend of papers have been published so far and its continuation and
reviewing the trend of SWOT evolution. However this conclusion is based
on the main advantage of SWOT approach in strategic planning:
Basically, SWOT is a logical approach on which every organization
should assess its external and internal environments to adopt its
strategy. On the other hand SWOT is located between the scenario
planning and resource base approaches.
Based on the above, we predict that the application and methodology
of SWOT will be developed in coming years, and therefore much research
will be done in this area.
6.4. Prerequisites for effective application of SWOT
In this stage, there is a question: What are the conditions under
which a SWOT analysis can create maximum value?
For answering this question, we can consider two general problems
of SWOT in the opinion of the most important criticizers of it (Hill,
Westbrook 1997):
1--SWOT was developed in an era of stable markets, however the
major of today's markets have a dramatically dynamic nature of
demand and the increasing proliferation of segments. Of course, in our
opinion, it's not always a correct rule.
2--"Much of SWOT usage rarely amounts to much more than a
poorly structured, very general, hastily conducted exercise that
produces unverified, vague and inconsistent inventories of factors
regarded by the proposing individuals as most important components of
their organization's strategic situation". It is clear that
imprecise or vague reference in such an analysis to factors external and
internal to an organization will always detrimentally affect
communication and verification of proposed factors and thus lead to
inferior outcomes of strategic analysis. It appears that this common
flaw in SWOT analysis is caused mainly by misconceived SWOT deployment,
insufficient levels of skills and diligence, and strategic information
gaps, no by the nature of SWOT!
[FIGURE 11 OMITTED]
For solving these problems, we suggest a model for the conditions
which a SWOT analysis can have maximum effectiveness under them (Fig.
11).
6.5. Two suggestions and one challenge on future researches (5)
In many cases, extracted strategies are not limited to ST, WT, SO
and WO and the strategies could be extracted from triple factors: WTO,
SOW, etc. So we propose creating a joint area between SO, ST, WO and WT
cells and considering the integrative strategies in this area.
In most of the strategic planning models, the objectives are
determined before SWOT analysis. Therefore the strategies should be
extracted to reach the objectives. In this regard, we suggest
considering objectives in an appropriate place in SWOT matrix (Fig. 12).
According to above figure, a key question comes to mind: whether
the strategies have to be extracted based on the determined objectives,
and then their validity gets evaluated in comparison with S, O, W and T
factors?
Or if the strategies have to be extracted based on four factors and
then their conformity should be assessed by the objectives? What can we
do if a contradiction occurs? Which one should be changed: the
objectives, the strategies or the factors?
If the answer to this critical question is not met and the link
between strategies and objectives is not established effectively, all
over strategic planning process will face to this challenge.
doi: 10.3846/16111699.2011.555358
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(1) SWOT analysis originated from efforts at Harvard Business
School to analyze case studies. In the early 1950s, two Harvard business
policy professors, George Albert Smith Jr. and C Roland Christensen,
started to investigate organizational strategies in relation to their
environment. In the late 1950s, another HBS business policy professor,
Kenneth Andrews, expanded on this thinking by stating that all
organizations must have clearly defined objectives and keep up with
them. In the early 1960s, classroom discussions in business schools were
focusing on organizational strengths and weaknesses in relation to the
opportunities and threats (or risks) in their business environments. In
1963, a business policy conference was held at Harvard, where SWOT
analysis was widely discussed and seen as a major advance in strategic
thinking (Panagiotou 2003).
(2) Notice: some of these articles were presented by two or more
countries.
(3) The information about cited times is exist in SCOPUS data bank
for each article.
(4) It should be noted that before them Yahya (1997) had used SWOT
for cross-checking the result of AHP method, but he had not integrated
the method.
(5) The authors express thanks to Professor Alireza Aliahmadi for
these suggestions.
Sepehr Ghazinoory [1], Mansoureh Abdi [2], Mandana Azadegan-Mehr
[3]
[1], [2] Department of Information Technology Management, Tarbiat
Modares University, Tehran, Iran [3] Department of Industrial
Engineering, Iran University of Science & Technology, Tehran, Iran
E-mails: [1]
[email protected] (corresponding author); [2]
[email protected]; [3]
[email protected]
Received 29 December 2009; accepted 05 November 2010
Sepehr GHAZINOORY is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Information Technology Management, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran,
Iran. He received his BSc, MSc and PhD in industrial engineering from
the Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST). He has authored
numerous books and articles about cleaner production, strategic planning
and management of technology in Persian and English. He was also
consultant to the Technology Cooperation Office (TCO) of the Iranian
President for four years and a senior consultant in formulating the
National Iranian Nanotechnology Initiative. He is currently a consultant
to different ministries and organizations.
Mansoureh ABDI is a PhD candidate of science & technology
policy making in the Department of Information Technology Management,
Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. She received her BSc in
industrial engineering from BuAli Sina University and her MSc in
industrial engineering from Tarbiat Modares University. Her thesis is
about policy extracting to promote NIS in Iran by theory of constraints.
She is working on innovation network in Iran and compare with other
countries in this case.
Mandana AZADEGAN-MEHR has received her BA in accounting (with
honors) from the School of Economic Sciences, Tehran, Iran and her MBA
from Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST). She currently
works as the Marketing manager of Iranian Congenial Mobile Co. (ICM
Co.). She is also interested in research on strategic management of new
technology-based firms and venture capital funds.
Table 1. Number of papers on SWOT in each year
Year Number Percent (%)
1982 1 0.2
1983 0 0.0
1984 0 0.0
1985 0 0.0
1986 0 0.0
1987 1 0.2
1988 1 0.2
1989 3 0.5
1990 0 0.0
1991 2 0.4
1992 2 0.4
1993 6 1.1
1994 8 1.4
1995 7 1.3
1996 11 2.0
1997 10 1.8
1998 15 2.7
1999 14 2.5
2000 28 5.0
2001 21 3.8
2002 35 6.3
2003 43 7.7
2004 48 8.6
2005 63 11.3
2006 50 9.0
2007 48 8.6
2008 72 12.9
2009 68 12.2
Total 557 100
Table 2. Top 10 countries on SWOT papers
Rank Country Number of paper
1-2 UK, USA 52
3 India 50
4 China 35
5 Turkey 15
6 Germany 13
7 Iran 12
8-9 Finland, Australia 11
10 Poland 10
Table 3. Top 10 journals on SWOT papers
Rank Journal Number of paper
1-2 Marketing Intelligence & Planning 9
Health Policy
3 Long Range Planning 6
4 Promet-Traffic & Transportation 5
5-10 Management Decision 4
Managerial Auditing Journal
Forest Policy and Economics
Journal of the Institution of Engineers
British Food Journal
Ekonomicky Casopis
Table 4. Top 10 authors on SWOT papers
Author Number of papers Number of Total
as first author other papers
Kajanus, M. 1 6 7
Ghazinoory, S. 5 1 6
Kangas, J. 2 4 6
Kurttila, M. 2 4 6
Arslan, O. 3 1 4
Lee, S. F. 3 1 4
Er, I. D. 0 4 4
Weihrich, H. 3 0 3
Kumar, S. 3 0 3
Lee, K. L. 3 0 3
Table 5. Top 10 cited papers on SWOT until July, 1th, 2010 in Scopus
Author Year Paper title Cited times
Jackson et al. 2003 Recent Research on Team and 114
Organizational Diversity: SWOT
Analysis and Implications
Rizzo and Kim 2005 A SWOT analysis of the field of 67
virtual reality rehabilitation
and therapy
Weihrich 1982 The TOWS Matrix A Tool for 64
Situational Analysis
Kurttila et al. 2000 Utilizing the analytic 64
hierarchy process AHP in SWOT
analysis--a hybrid method and
its application to a
forest-certification case
Hill and 1997 SWOT Analysis: It's Time for a 51
Westbrook Product Recall
Ho 2008 Integrated analytic hierarchy 39
process and its applications--A
literature review
Gordon et al. 2000 Strategic planning in medical 36
education: enhancing the
learning environment for
students in clinical settings
Hackbarth and 2000 Building an E-business strategy 32
Kettinger
Dyson 2004 Strategic development and SWOT 27
analysis at the University of
Warwick
Houben et al. 1999 A knowledge-based SWOT-analysis 24
system as an instrument for
strategic planning in small and
medium sized enterprises
Table 6. Approaches in SWOT papers in each year
1982-92 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998
Methodological 2 -- 1 -- 1 1 2
Case study 8 6 7 7 10 9 12
Applied- -- -- -- -- -- -- 1
methodological
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Methodological 1 2 2 1 1 5 1 1
Case study 13 22 16 33 41 40 61 48
Applied- -- 4 3 1 1 3 1 1
methodological
2007 2008 2009 total %
Methodological 2 2 2 27 5
Case study 43 68 64 508 91
Applied- 3 2 2 22 4
methodological
Table 7. Areas and scopes in case studies and Applied-methodological
papers on SWOT
Area Content number percentage
Health & healthcare life scenario planning, 67 12.6
elderly care, Primary
Care, hospital, public
health, nursing, mental
care, ...
General management Management and strategic 37 7.0
of companies planning in business,
companies, firms,
Offshore outsourcing, ...
Marketing & market Marketing and market 32 6.0
planning planning at local,
national, regional and
international levels
Learning & education Learning & education at 28 5.3
school, university &
organization
Agriculture Fishing, feed and food, 88 16.6
dairy, olive, farming,
...
Medicine & pharmacy clinical diagnosis, 25 4.7
surgery, dental,
pharmacy, ...
IT Internet, information, 22 4.2
computer, software, ...
Environment Cleaner production, 30 5.7
wastewater, solid waste,
...
Textile Textile, clothing, 16 3.0
garment, apparel, ...
Forestry research station, forest 25 4.7
management, forest and
Park, ...
Tourism Rural, urban, cruise, ... 39 7.4
Manufacturing Shipbuilding, machine 12 2.3
tools, Machinery, motor
vehicles, ...
Transportation Ports, airline, airport, 20 3.8
sea passenger, road, ...
Metal titanium alloys, metal 10 1.9
powder, foundry, ...
Electronic Cable TV, capacitor, ... 6 1.1
Library Library Fundraising, 4 0.8
library strategic
planning, ...
Construction Construction 7 1.3
Oil & gas Oil and natural gas 4 0.8
Military Military 2 0.4
Cosmetic Cosmetic 3 0.6
Financial Finance 3 0.6
The rest Newsprint, service, 53 10.0
banking, hydraulic power
generation, NIS, program
development, legislation,
gaming, foreign policy,
economic policy, national
economic, ...
Total 530 100
Fig. 1. SWOT matrix
Strengths Weaknesses
Opportunities SO strategies WO
Threats ST WT
Fig. 2. Number of papers on SWOT
1980-1984 1
1985-1989 5
1990-1994 18
1995-1999 57
2000-2004 175
2005-2009 301
Note: Table made from bar graph.
Fig. 3. Approaches in SWOT papers (percentage)
Case study 508; 91%
Methodologic 27; 5%
Case study and Methologic 22; 4%
Note: Table made from pie chart.
Fig. 4. Three levels that SWOT analysis
has been used for them
Corporate 64%
National 33%
Regional 3%
Note: Table made from pie chart.
Fig. 5. Interaction matrix (Weihrich 1982)
Opportunity Strenght 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 + 0 + 0 0 + + 0 0 0
2 + 0 0 + 0 0 0 + 0 0
3 0 0 0 + 0 0 0 0 0 +
4 + + + 0 0 + 0 + + +
5 + 0 + 0 0 0 + 0 0 0
6 + 0 0 0 + 0 0 0 + +
7 + + 0 + + 0 + + + +
8 0 0 0 0 0 + 0 0 + 0
9 + 0 0 + 0 0 0 0 0 0
10 + + 0 0 + 0 0 0 0 0
Fig. 6. Limitations of SWOT (Pickton and Wright 1998)
Inadequate definition Lack of Over-subjectivity in
of factors prioritization of the generation of
factors factors:compiler bias
* Factors which appear * Factors which arc * Factors missed out:
to fit into more than given too much lack of
one box/category emphasis comprehensiveness
* Factors which do not * Factors which are * Serendipity in the
appear to fit well given too little generation of factors
into any box/category emphasis
* Disagreement over
* Factors described * Factors which are factors and to which
broadly: lack of given equal box/category they
specificity importance belong
* Lack of information * Factors represent
to specify factors opinions not fact
accurately
Fig. 12. Proposed modifications on SWOT matrix
Objectives Opportunities Threats
Strengths SO strategies ST strategies
Integrative strategies
Weaknesses WO strategies WT strategies
