Improving the Practice of Management — Then and Now

As HBR turns 100, we look back on our original mission, how we’ve changed, and what the future holds.

September 19, 2022 · Long read The Big Idea Series / 100 Years of HBR

Improving the Practice of Management — Then and Now

What Makes a Great Leader?

What Defines a Successful Organization?

Visualizing a Century of Management Ideas

What Is a Good Job?

What Role Should Business Play in Society?

How HBR Has Covered Women and Business

What Will Management Look Like in the Next 100 Years?

The Most Popular — and Impactful — HBR Articles of All Time

It’s been a full century since the first issue of Harvard Business Review was released. What can we learn from the most pressing issues facing leaders then — and what’s changed? In this essay, two HBR editors outline the original purpose of the magazine and explore how “a proper theory of business” has evolved to include a broader definition of management — and of who a leader can be. They also introduce components of the Big Idea series that this piece is part of, including articles on what makes great leaders, organizations, and jobs.

Buy Copies

In October 1922, the very first essay in volume 1, number 1 of Harvard Business Review laid out the purpose of the brand-new journal. “It is pertinent to inquire how the representative practises [sic] of business men generally may be made available…and how a proper theory of business is to be obtained,” wrote Harvard Business School dean Wallace B. Donham. Without such a theory, “business will continue unsystematic, haphazard, and for many men a pathetic gamble.” To remedy that situation, HBR would seek to provide “a better theoretical basis for executive action.”

Read more on Leadership or related topics Business history and Management philosophy

Mastering the ABCs of innovation at scale.