Knowledge Center: Harvard Business Review

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Harvard Business Review is a general management magazine published since 1922 by Harvard Business School Publishing, owned by the Harvard Business School. A monthly research-based magazine written for business practitioners, it claims a high ranking business readership among academics, executives, and management consultants. It has been the frequent publishing home for scholars and management thinkers such as Clayton M. Christensen, Peter F. Drucker, Michael E. Porter, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, John Hagel III, Thomas H. Davenport, Gary Hamel, C.K. Prahalad, Vijay Govindarajan, Robert S. Kaplan, Robert H. Schaffer and others. Management and business concepts and terms such as "Balanced scorecard," "Core competence," "Strategic intent," "Reengineering," "Globalization," "Marketing myopia," and "Glass ceiling" were first given prominence in HBR's pages.

Its worldwide English-language circulation is 250,000, and there are 11 licensed editions of the magazine, including two Chinese-language editions, an Italian, a German edition, a Polish edition, a Hungarian edition, a Brazilian (Portuguese-language) edition, and an English-language South Asia edition. The magazine is editorially independent of Harvard Business School. It is not peer reviewed.

History and organization

Harvard Business Review began in 1922 as a shopping magazine of Harvard Business School's faculty and students. In the first issue, Harvard Business School Dean Wallace B. Donham described the aims of the magazine in the article "An Essential Groundwork for a Broad Executive Theory." " The theory of business must develop to such a point that the executive may learn from the experiences of others in the past how to act under the conditions of the present," he wrote. "Otherwise, business will continue to be unsystematic, haphazard, and for many men a pathetic gamble."

Dean Donham and the editors believed that the magazine would serve as a natural complement to the school. In its early years, the magazine focused on macroeconomic trends and developments and published industry-specific articles like "Are Railroad Freight Rate Structures Obsolete?" It also contained a section of student contributions, which was discontinued in 1939.

Harvard Business Review began switching its editorial focus toward general management after World War II, as a growing number of executives became interested in the management techniques pioneered at General Motors and other large companies. Over the next three decades, the magazine continued to refine its focus on general management issues that affect business leaders, billing itself as the "magazine for decision makers." Prominent articles published during this period included "Marketing Myopia," "Barriers and Gateways to Communication," and "How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy."

A notable period in the magazine's history was during the late 1980s, during Theodore Levitt's tenure as editor. Levitt, a professor at HBS, implemented editorial and design changes geared toward making the magazine accessible to a more general business audience, with shorter articles covering a broader range of topics and the introduction of New Yorker-style cartoons.

Originally published by HBS, HBR has since 1993 been published by Harvard Business School Publishing, a non-profit subsidiary of Harvard that also publishes cases, books (through the HBS Press), newsletters, and corporate learning programs and materials. In 2001, the magazine increased its frequency from bimonthly to monthly.

Since 1959, the magazine's annual McKinsey Award has recognized the two most significant HBR articles published each year, as determined by a group of independent judges. Past winners have included the late management guru Peter Drucker, who was honored seven times; Clayton M. Christensen; Theodore Levitt; Michael Porter; Rosabeth Moss Kanter; John Hagel III and C.K. Prahalad.