MAN101 Principles of Management

Assessment B: Personal SWOT Analysis (15% of final grade)

Required Word Count: 2000 words (+ or – 5%; not including references, appendices etc.)

REQUIRED SECTIONS

(1) Famous Quote + How it inspires you + Practical examples (~ 200 words)
(2) Vision Statement (~ 100 words)
(3) Mission Statement (~ 100 words)
(4) Strengths (~ 400 words)
(5) Weaknesses (~ 400 words)
(6) Opportunities (~ 400 words)
(7) Threats (~ 400 words)
(8) References

 You should include about 3-4 examples for each of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities,
and Threats
o About 100-130 words per example (this document only contains 1 example for each
of the SWOT components; you will need to do 3-4 examples for EACH component).
o At least one scholarly reference (i.e. from an academic journal) to support each
example.

 REMEMBER: Strengths and opportunities, and weaknesses and threats, are not the same
thing. Strengths and weaknesses are about YOU. Opportunities and threats are about the
external business environment, marketplace, society, or culture that you must operate within.

EXAMPLE ESSAY SECTIONS (Note: THIS IS JUST A GUIDE! These are just short
examples for reference; your versions will need to be longer and more detailed)

Famous Quote + How it inspires you + Practical examples

“Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.” – Ayn Rand

This famous quote from the philosopher Ayn Rand epitomizes my belief about always having the
courage of my convictions, and being resolute in my beliefs about what I consider to be the best
course of action. In my life, I have often risked isolating myself from others because I sometimes
choose unpopular opinions or perspectives. During team projects, for example, I am very often
the lone voice on some issue, and sometimes I have to fight very hard to make my unique
perspective heard. But I always passionately defend my perspective, even if no-one else supports
it and I have to compromise for the sake of the project, because I believe that being true to what
one believes is a hallmark of integrity.

Vision Statement

“I will be a successful entrepreneur and start-up founder of a disruptive tech company. I will be a
generous and innovative boss who is kind and encouraging to my employees, and who
endeavours to develop an organizational and managerial culture based on openness, trust, and
embracing all perspectives. I will make enough money to provide for my family, travel all over
the world whenever I want, and live a healthy and fulfilled life…”

Mission Statement

“I will be a focused and disciplined student during my studies at ISB, who will maintain a
proactive and professional ethos. I will commit myself to working hard, consistently upgrading
my conceptual and practical knowledge, and optimizing my Emotional Intelligence and
interpersonal skills. I will take advantage of every internship opportunity available to me, and
eventually parlay my experience and business degree into early career opportunities, which will
then position me strongly to eventually pursue my own entrepreneurial ambitions.”

Strengths

I am a curious, open-minded, and adventurous individual, who enjoys experiencing new cultures,
working with people from different backgrounds, and learning about business in other social
contexts. Scholarly research has demonstrated that the Big-5 Personality Trait ‘Openness to
experience’ is a very strong predictor of innovative work behaviour (Javed et al., 2020).
Therefore, if I continue to nurture my curiosity and open-mindedness, I can transform this
personal trait into a significant professional advantage for my career.

Weaknesses

I am a very extroverted person, who likes to spend a lot of time in sustained social interaction.
This is closely related to my open-mindedness and adventurousness and, in general, my
extroversion is a good quality, which allows me to have a rich and fulfilling social life. However,
in the tech industry, evidence suggests that introverts may have an advantage, as they are able to
focus in solitude on work which is highly systemic in nature (Lalla, 2021); reflected in the fact
that fields like software engineering are dominated by introverts (Penzenstadler, 2020). In order
to mitigate this weakness, I need to consciously learn to adopt many behaviours more typical of
introverts. An example is learning to spend time in quiet reflection, which can be achieved
through frequent, dedicated mindfulness practice (Evans et al., 2009).

Opportunities

A considerable opportunity that I can target and leverage in my chosen career path is the
relatively under-developed state of the tech industry in Vietnam. Although continually growing
and expanding throughout the years, tech in Vietnam is still not robustly competitive relative to
other countries (Tri & Tam, 2020). This represents a sizeable niche which can be exploited, and
with a large and young population with increasingly disposable income (Phước, 2020), it could
be an opportunity to create my own professional impact within an exciting and burgeoning tech
market with huge untapped potential.

Threats

A significant obstacle to pursuing my vision is the historically bureaucratic nature of starting a

new business in Vietnam (Quang & Vuong, 2002). Particularly in disruptive industries which
shift paradigms quickly and fluidly, such as tech, the Vietnamese business model has proven
itself to be relatively inflexible, particularly for novel start-up initiatives (Nguyen & Luu, 2020).
In order to successfully navigate the difficulties of the market, I will need to remain at the
forefront of informedness about my industry; ensuring that I am always up-to-date on developing
industry trends, and keeping a close eye on changes in government policy and other factors
which might make successful implementation of my vision difficult.

References

Evans, A. M., Meyers, M. C., De Calseyde, P. P. V., & Stavrova, O. (2021). Extroversion and
Conscientiousness Predict Deteriorating Job Outcomes During the COVID-19 Transition to
Enforced Remote Work. Social Psychological and Personality Science,

Evans, D. R., Baer, R. A., & Segerstrom, S. C. (2009). The effects of mindfulness and self-
consciousness on persistence. Personality and Individual Differences, 47(4), 379-382.

Javed, B., Khan, A. K., Arjoon, S., Mashkoor, M., & Haque, A. U. (2020). Openness to
experience, ethical leadership, and innovative work behavior. The Journal of creative
behavior, 54(1), 211-223.

Lalla, R. (2021). Rise of the Introvert Leader. HR Future, 2021(4), 8-9.

Nguyen, X. T., & Luu, Q. K. (2020). Factors affecting adoption of industry 4.0 by small-and
medium-sized enterprises: A case in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. The Journal of Asian Finance,
Economics, and Business, 7(6), 255-264.

Penzenstadler, B. (2020). Where attention goes, energy flows: enhancing individual

sustainability in software engineering. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on
ICT for Sustainability (pp. 139-146).

Phước, N. H. (2020). Marketing in Vietnam. In The Economy and Business Environment of

Vietnam (pp. 93-109). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Quang, T., & Vuong, N. T. (2002). Management styles and organisational effectiveness in
Vietnam. Research and Practice in Human Resource Management, 10(2), 36-55.

Tri, N. M., & Tam, L. T. (2020). Science-Technology development in Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam: Problems and solutions. Science, 7(19), 2020.