Name George Smith, | ||
Died 1969, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States | ||
George Albert Smith Jr. (1905–1969) was a professor at Harvard Business School who wrote several books on management practice and other issues.
Smith was the son 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.
As a young man, Smith was a missionary for the LDS Church in Switzerland and Germany.
Smith received his bachelor's degree from the University of Utah and a graduate degree in business administration from Harvard University. From 1934, he was a professor at the Harvard Business School. During the 1950s, he was one of the main proponents of sizing a businesses competitive strategy in light of the general trends in its specific market. Smith is also credited as one of the principal developers of SWOT analysis.
In July 1935, Smith married Ruth Nowell in the Salt Lake Temple.
Smith wrote three books: Policy Formulation and Administration (1951), Managing Geographically Decentralized Companies (1958), and Business, Society, and the Individual (1962).