Business Basics: Harvard Business Review

Brief introduction to library resources for general business questions.
Need Help?

Ask us!

Finding it

Quick and easy, here are the links to print and online-only content via the vendor Ebsco. 

Note: From the HBR website, it is NOT always clear whether an article is in the official print publication, or only in the online edition. If you don't find a known article in one, just try the other. (I cannot easily create a link that allows searching in both at once, sorry.) 

Limitations on select articles

Because buying online access to HBR directly from Harvard Business Publishing would be considerably more expensive, we get it from the vendor Ebsco instead.  But there are some limitations that Harvard Business Publishing imposes on Ebsco, and by extension, on us.

For about 500 HBR articles, those that are most frequently assigned as course readings in business schools around the world, Harvard Business Publishing limits what you can do with the articles. (They are quite open about the fact that they want to preserve their revenue stream from the articles.)  For these ~500 articles in Ebsco, there is:

  • No printing
  • No saving (in individual Ebsco accounts)
  • No direct linking in D2L (or in any course or learning management system!)

In the image below, you can see how Ebsco lets you know about this.  The text in the yellow box reads:

The publisher offers limited access to this article. The full text cannot be printed or saved.

Image of an example of Ebsco's notice that printing and saving for article are not permitted by the publisher

Limitations on ALL articles

Harvard Business Publishing prohibits the use of ALL HBR articles accessible through Ebsco in class reserves systems! 

Ebsco now includes a statement to that effect at the bottom of all HBR articles, as follows:

Harvard Business Review and Harvard Business Publishing Newsletter content on EBSCOhost is licensed for the private individual use of authorized EBSCOhost users. It is not intended for use as assigned course material in academic institutions nor as corporate learning or training materials in businesses. Academic licensees may not use this content in electronic reserves, electronic course packs, persistent linking from syllabi or by any other means of incorporating the content into course resources. Business licensees may not host this content on learning management systems or use persistent linking or other means to incorporate the content into learning management systems. Harvard Business Publishing will be pleased to grant permission to make this content available through such means. For rates and permission, contact permissions@harvardbusiness.org.