HBR is a good read there is no question. It has a history of ground breaking articles published, granted. I thoroughly enjoy it, when I can get it in Poland. Every graduate from a reputable management school should receive a free year's subscription. Most of these readers would renew at the regular price, IMHO.

That acknowledged, I am a public relations practitioner and I have a gripe with HBR. There is not a whole lot representing my profession besides culture change and some interesting HR cases, which I could audit at any university if I so wanted. This makes HBR a soft read for my needs.

I teach public relations to 5th year students at the state university, link MBO and financial results with PR management same as any department would be required. In my capacity as an instructor, I encourage my students to offer counsel and read through P&L's. I encourage them to look at problems with detailed financials and prepare their proposed programs with an understanding of the corporate audience. I encourage research, not only polling publics outside the company but also to take a pulse of the company itself: much like a professional doctor would do with a patient when diagnosing a problem before beginning a procedure.

Granted, there are very few case studies I can use to promote sound PR management thinking rather than the over-predominant "technical" thinking of PR as an extension of a creative communications artform. (O, how I wish for a case with figures like something in Marketing Logistics or Financial Management!) For my money, in PR, there is nothing but artistry and the name of the HBR. I concur with another reviewer, mnetzley, who suggests that the level of presentation between the covers has fallen to the level of a Harlequin romance for business managers: dumbed-down anecdotes, and stories masquerading as case studies, IMO.

For illustration, there was a communications case a couple of years ago dealing with Crisis and the corporate need for good communication. One of the reviewers assessed it right in the post mortem: trouble began before the problem arrived. But this begs two questions: Why wasn't the problem identified before the crisis appeared; and why wasn't THAT tool presented for learning rather than the case itself? It was a nice case as far as it went but it was for the coffee table and not the boardroom.

And that seems to be the level of the HBR these days. Of course, I expect more from the HBR so your mileage may vary. But isn't the cachet of HBR the avant-garde? For me to rate it higher than a three at this stage, I feel I would be doing a disservice to the old magazine that published ground-breaking articles while humouring a brand equity that has lost its vision to its own magnificence.

I'm buying this for my son for Christmas, but I should have been a better businessman. The Harvard Review web site is selling subscriptions for [...], so I paid [...] more than I should have.
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