George Albert Smith Jr.

George Albert Smith Jr. (1905–1969) was a professor at Harvard Business School who wrote several books on management practice and other issues.

For other people named George Albert Smith, see George Albert Smith (disambiguation).

Smith was the only son and third child of George Albert Smith, who would become the eighth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), and his wife Lucy Woodruff. Lucy was the daughter of Wilford Woodruff Jr., a son of Wilford Woodruff, who was the fourth president of the LDS Church. At the time of George Albert Smith Jr.'s birth his father was a member of the Quorum of the 12 apostles.

As a young man, Smith was a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Switzerland and Germany.[1]

Smith received his bachelor's degree from the University of Utah and a graduate degree in business administration from Harvard University. He served as student body president of the Harvard Business School Association from 1933 to 1934. In 1934 he was appointed a member of the editorial board of the Harvard Business Review.[2]

From 1934, he was a professor at Harvard Business School. During the 1950s, he was one of the main proponents of sizing a business's competitive strategy in light of the general trends in its specific market.[3] Smith is also credited as one of the principal developers of SWOT analysis.[4]

In July 1935, Smith married Ruth Nowell in the Salt Lake Temple. They had three sons, who all attended Harvard Business School.

Smith wrote three books: Policy Formulation and Administration (1951), Managing Geographically Decentralized Companies (1958), and Business, Society, and the Individual (1962).

Notes
  1. Merlo J. Pusey. Builders of the Kingdom. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1981) p. 280
  2. Against the Odds p. 168
  3. Article on business theories emanating from Harvard Business School
  4. Friesner, Tim. "History of SWOT analysis". Marketing Teacher. Archived from the original on 2009-02-25. Retrieved February 18, 2009.
gollark: As you go over that you probably have to keep adopting more and more norms and then guidelines and then rules and then laws to keep stuff coordinated.
gollark: Consider a silicon fab, which is used to make computer chips we need. That requires billions of $ in capital and thousands of people and probably millions more in supply chains.
gollark: Also, what do you mean "so what"? Technological progress directly affects standards of living.
gollark: ... that makes no sense that wouldn't even work.
gollark: Dunbar's number is 150 or so - humans can have meaningful social relationships with 150 or so people, apparently. Many systems require larger-scale coordination than this.

References
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