Toward a “Proper Theory of Business”

The very first sentence of the very first issue of Harvard Business Review, published in the fall of 1922, signaled to readers that HBR would offer intelligent observation but might also be hard work: “Unless we admit that rules of thumb, the limited experience of the executives in each individual business, and the general sentiment of the street, are the sole possible guides for executive decisions of major importance, it is pertinent to inquire how the representative practises of business men generally may be made available as a broader foundation for such decisions, and how a proper theory of business is to be obtained.” The author, Wallace B. Donham, the second dean of Harvard Business School, went on to elaborate HBR’s mission: to develop “business theory,” on the basis of rigorous research, that could help executives manage more effectively. We’ve come a long way since then, and we’re now (I hope) less daunting to consume. But as we celebrate our 90th anniversary, we continue to honor Donham’s premise: Best practices in business don’t arise anecdotally but are the product of critical research. We’ll be addressing this and many other big ideas that have emerged over these 90 years—during what we call the Management Century—in a special report in our November issue. We’ll also look at what HBR has gotten right, or wrong, in nine decades of writing about how to lead companies. Our Spotlight on Strategy in this issue continues the effort to apply method to management. The lead piece asks, Why is it that strategic-planning processes always seem to perpetuate the status quo? A quartet of impressive authors—A.G. Lafley, Roger Martin, Jan Rivkin, and Nicolaj Siggelkow—say that the challenge is to bring science to the art of strategy, to marry empirical rigor with creative thinking. Dean Donham would surely approve. Adi Ignatius, Editor in Chief

Toward a “Proper Theory of Business”

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