Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The school offers a large full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, HBX and many executive education programs. It owns Harvard Business School Publishing, which publishes business books, leadership articles, online management tools for corporate learning, case studies, and the monthly Harvard Business Review.
History
The school started in 1908 under the humanities faculty, received independent status in 1910, and became a separate administrative unit in 1913. The first dean was historian Edwin Francis Gay (1867â€"1946), who had no business background or indeed any previous connection to the business world.
Yogev (2001) explains the original concept:
- This school of business and public administration was originally conceived as a school for diplomacy and government service on the model of the French Ecole des Sciences Politiques. The goal was an institution of higher learning that would offer a master of arts degree in the humanities field, with a major in business. In discussions about the curriculum, the suggestion was made to concentrate on specific business topics such as banking, railroads, and so on....Professor Lowell said the school would train qualified public administrators whom the government would have no choice but to employ, thereby building a better public administration.... [Lowell] remarked that as the business world was developing and becoming increasingly professional, Harvard had to play a pioneering role. Harvard was blazing a new trail by educating young people for a career in business, just as its medical school trained doctors and its law faculty trained lawyers.
From the start the school enjoyed a close relationship with the corporate world. Within a few years of its founding many business leaders were its alumni and were hiring other alumni for starting positions in their firms.
MBA program
Rankings
HBS is consistently ranked among the foremost business schools in the world. It is ranked #2 in the U.S. News & World Report ranking, #1 by the QS Global 200 Business Schools Report, #8 by Bloomberg BusinessWeek, #3 by Forbes, and #14 by The Wall Street Journal. Internationally, HBS is ranked #2 in the world by América EconomÃa, #1 in the world by CNN Expansion, #1 in the world by the Financial Times, #5 in the world by The Economist, and #21 in the world by The Wall Street Journal. The 2014 Eduniversal Business School Ranking ranks Harvard Business School #3 in the world (after Copenhagen Business School and London Business School).
In the most recent aggregated "ranking of rankings" of US business schools, HBS ranked #1 in the Financial Times and #2 with Poets&Quants. Each of these rankings is a composite of five major MBA rankings published by Bloomberg BusinessWeek, The Economist, The Financial Times, Forbes, Wall Street Journal and/or U.S. News & World Report which is meant to eliminate anomalies and other statistical distortions that are often present in any single ranking.
Student life
Students can join one or more of the more than 80 clubs on campus. The clubs invite speakers to campus, organize trips, social events, and help forming bonds between students of similar interests. The Student Association (SA) is the main interface between the MBA student body and the faculty/administration. It is led by a four-person Executive Committee (two Co-Presidents, CFO and COO). The decision power rests with the Senate, which is composed of one senator from each section (a total of ten), the Executive Committee, and various committees made up of section officers. Intramurals are also a major part of the student life, especially in the first year. Sections form teams and compete with each other in basketball, flag football, volleyball, soccer and many other inter-mural sports.
The rigorous schedule of class work is often tempered by high energy social functions and perennial events such as the cross-dressing Priscilla Ball, the spring Newport Ball held at a Newport, RI, mansion, and the winter Hollidazzle Ball usually held in Boston, MA.
Initiatives
HBS has outlined several initiatives for developing MBAs, including business history, environmental sustainability, healthcare, globalization, leadership, and social enterprise.
SVMP
The Summer Venture in Management Program (SVMP) is a one week management training program for rising college seniors designed to increase diversity and opportunity in business education. Participants must be employed in a summer internship and be nominated by and have sponsorship from their company or organization to attend.
Academic units
The school's faculty are divided into ten academic units: Accounting and Management; Business, Government and the International Economy; Entrepreneurial Management; Finance; General Management; Marketing; Negotiation, Organizations & Markets; Organizational Behavior; Strategy; and Technology and Operations Management.
Donor programs
In fall 2010, the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, and the Tata Education and Development Trust, which are philanthropic arms of the Tata Group gave HBS its biggest ever international donation of $50 million. This donation is funding Tata Hall, named after Ratan Tata (AMP '75), the chairman of Tata Sons Ltd. The facility will be devoted to the Harvard Business School's mid-career Executive Education program. It will be seven or eight stories tall with about 150,000 gross square feet. It will house approximately 180 bedrooms in addition to academic and multi-purpose spaces.
Located in the northeast corner of the HBS campus, Tata Hall will complete the Executive Education quad, which currently includes McArthur, Baker, and Mellon Halls (residence), McCollum and Hawes (classroom), Kresge (dining), and Glass (administration). Its construction started in December 5, 2011 and its completion is scheduled for December 2013.
Notable alumni
See also
- Harvard/MIT Cooperative Society, campus bookstore
- List of Harvard University people
- List of Ivy League business schools
References
Sources
- Cruikshank, Jeffrey L. (1987). A Delicate Experiment: The Harvard Business School, 1908â€"1945. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. ISBN 0-87584-135-X.Â
Further reading
- Broughton, P.D. Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at the Harvard Business School. (Penguin Press, 2008), a memoir
- Cohen, Peter. The gospel according to the Harvard Business School. (Doubleday, 1973)
- Copeland, Melvin T. And Mark an Era: The Story of the Harvard Business School (1958)
- Cruikshank, Jeffrey. Shaping The Waves: A History Of Entrepreneurship At Harvard Business School . (Harvard Business Review Press, 2005)
- Smith, Robert M. The American Business System: The Theory and Practice of Social Science, the Case of the Harvard Business School, 1920â€"1945 (Garland Publishers, 1986)
- Yogev, Esther. "Corporate Hand in Academic Glove: The New Management's Struggle for Academic Recognitionâ€"The Case of the Harvard Group in the 1920's," American Studies International (2001) 39#1 online
External links
- Official HBS web site
- HBS alumni site
- Documentary film: "Inside the Harvard Business School Case Method"
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