School Profile
Harvard Business School
School Overview
We educate leaders who make a difference in the world. Each element of the School’s mission is infused with meaning.
“LEADERS”
When we talk about leaders, we mean people who embody a certain type of competence and character—both the competence that comes from the general manager’s perspective the School cultivates and the character to understand the difference between being self-interested and self-centered. It involves recognizing that you are a true leader only when you have earned the trust of others, and when others, whether in your organizations or your communities, recognize you as such.
“MAKE A DIFFERENCE”
Making a difference means people who create real value for society, and who create value before claiming value. There are many ways of making a positive difference: as an investor, as a general manager, as an entrepreneur, as an active citizen of your community. Indeed, what distinguishes Harvard Business School is that our graduates provide leadership in all walks of life.
“IN THE WORLD”
In the world reflects our understanding of a rapidly changing, dynamic environment, and the fact that many of the world’s most challenging issues will require a global perspective. Moreover, it involves embracing the view that the world desperately needs more leaders to address its most urgent and challenging problems, and that virtually none of these problems can be addressed without business leaders playing a vital role.
And, of course, the first component of the mission is educating, which we do in many ways—through our educational programs, through the ideas our faculty produce and disseminate, and through the influence we achieve by being close to leaders of all types, and of organizations all across the world. Here, I would encourage us to recognize that the impact of what we do extends far beyond the people who come to our campus. Although we can touch only a few thousand directly each year, we can indirectly influence many more by remaining a trusted and admired leader in business education.
For more information please see our web page: www.hbs.edu
School History
We see our history as a challenge—a legacy of energy and innovation we strive to equal every day as we redefine the nature of management education and invent the future of business. Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration established the world's first MBA program in 1908 with a faculty of 15, 33 regular students, and 47 special students. In 1922 the Doctoral Program was established and Harvard Business Review was founded. Two years later the case method was established as the primary method of instruction and ground was broken for a business school campus. In 1945 a group of sixty executives and recently demobilized veterans became the first executive education Advanced Management Program. Women graduates of the Harvard-Radcliffe Program in Business Administration were admitted to the second year of the MBA program in 1959. In 1993 Harvard Business Publishing was formed as a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard University. And from 1997-2013 Global Research Centers opened in Silicon Valley, Asia-Pacific (1999), Latin America (2000), Japan (2002), Europe (2003), India (2006) and Istanbul (2013).