To prepare:

· Review the Learning Resources on external factor evaluation.

· Review the Learning Resource on Social Responsibility.

· Closely examine the external SWOT analysis you completed last week. You will use the opportunities and threats you identified in your external SWOT analysis to develop an external factor evaluation, which organizes and ranks the opportunities and threats to help leaders identify priority issues for strategic planning. Pay attention to any feedback your Instructor provided, and then make corrections to your external SWOT as needed.

· Review your list of opportunities and threats, and then consider which stand out as great opportunities and which seem like particularly urgent or severe threats. Think about how your HSO’s management currently responds to each opportunity or threat you identified. Your external factor evaluation will transform each opportunity and each threat into a numeric score that reflects the gravity of the issue combined with the current management response. You may need to conduct additional research on your HSO to develop a comprehensive understanding of your HSO management’s current response to each opportunity and threat before you develop your set of weights and ratings.

· Chapter 10 of your textbook explains how to create an external factor evaluation table and provides an example. Be sure to review the textbook guidance closely, and then use the Module 2 External Factor Evaluation Template to complete the analysis and associated interpretation questions.

The Assignment: SWOT External Factor Evaluation

Use the Module 2 External Factor Evaluation Template to complete the external factor evaluation table and answer the accompanying interpretation questions.