eBooks: Harvard Business Review

The library is not able to purchase Harvard Business Review Case Studies or Harvard Business Review articles for use in courses. The Copyright Clearance Center does not have Harvard Business Review Case Studies available for use. 

Harvard Business Publishing has very strict guidelines for copyright. It is important to understand that general fair use practices do not apply to Harvard Business Review.

To avoid copyright infringement:

1. Harvard Business Review case studies and articles should not be distributed or shared. Do not create direct links, post a URL, share PDFs, or disseminate printed items.
2. Harvard Business Review case studies and articles may not be requested through Interlibrary loan.

Harvard Business Publishing has a usage policy that forbids the use of HBR articles in academic courses unless it is done by creating coursepacks through "Harvard Business Publishing for Educators."  While faculty can create coursepacks at no cost, students must pay to access them. 

Business Cases:

Business cases are published works licensed for use directly from the publishers and thus are treated differently than other content. Copyright permissions or licensing agreements need to be purchased for each individual who will be using a case. Cases can be purchased through Harvard Business School for the use of its cases.

Electronic Access

• Harvard Business School Cases - EBSCOHost's Business Source Complete provides abstracts only (not full-text) to HBS cases. Full text access is available for purchase directly from the Harvard Business School store.

• Harvard Business Review and Cases - EBSCOHost's Business Source Complete provides full-text access to the Harvard Business Review and the cases published therein, however, the terms of use of HBR content is very restrictive. The licensing only provides access for "private individual use" and "is not intended for use as assigned course material", nor can it appear on Blackboard or any other electronic reserve system. Please read the full notice of restrictions below:

Harvard Business Review Notice of Use Restrictions, May 2009

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.

Due to copyright restrictions, print copies of business cases cannot be:

• Placed on library reserve for students to access.
• Purchased by the library for its collection.
• Photocopied or digitized and disseminated to students. Each student must purchase a copy.
• Digitized and posted to Canvas.

Please note that the above information is for reference purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. It is advisable to always conduct a Fair Use Analysis whenever there is a question regarding the lawful use of copyrighted material. If, after careful evaluation, it is determined that the use of particular material would violate copyright law.