On a correlative and evolutionary SWOT analysis
Journal of Strategy and Management
ISSN: 1755-425X
Article publication date: 14 May 2019
Issue publication date: 8 August 2019
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to counter-propose a new approach of SWOT analysis, which can be used in the strategic planning of the contemporary organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper, after presenting the conceptual context of the existing (conventional) SWOT analysis, presents the existing criticism within the international literature. Then, it articulates gradually the new evolutionary and correlative SWOT analysis, by using the approaches and the literature of evolutionary economics, and the Stra.Tech.Man approach in business dynamics. In conclusion, it presents the new conceptual framework on which a new correlative SWOT analysis can be based.
Findings
Main finding of this research is that the interpretation of the conventional SWOT analysis tends to study the strengths and the weaknesses of the business with an analytical dichotomy. The conventional SWOT analysis conceptualizes, usually implicitly, the opportunities and threats of the external environment as having the same impact to all the socioeconomic agents, without exception. However, by using a correlative interpretation of SWOT analysis, we understand that the opportunities and threats are always “potential,” depending on the organization’s strategic capability to exercise its comparative strengths and weaknesses.
Originality/value
In the existing literature of SWOT analysis, despite the growing criticism, there is no critique that can give systemic and correlative answers to the articulation of business strategy in SWOT terms. The Stra.Tech.Man approach, also, is a conceptual framework to study the evolutionary adaptation of all the kinds of socioeconomic organizations.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author would like to show gratitude to colleagues, first Dr Andreas Andrikopoulos, Assistant Professor at the Department of Business Administration of the University of the Aegean, who provided very useful comments during the writing of this manuscript and, second, Chatzinikolaou Dimos, Doctoral Student at the Department of Economics of Democritus University of Thrace, for his excellent work on translating, editing, and adding the citations, of this manuscript.
Citation
Vlados, C. (2019), "On a correlative and evolutionary SWOT analysis", Journal of Strategy and Management, Vol. 12 No. 3, pp. 347-363. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSMA-02-2019-0026
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited