In the course of the School's history, faculty members have conducted pathbreaking research affecting organizations and economies on every continent. They have helped establish business schools across the globe, educated thousands of international business leaders, and written thousands of international cases. Today, at any given time, there are HBS researchers at work in more than 40 countries. As part of their training, doctoral students collaborate with faculty on research projects of mutual interest. With primary emphasis on field-based research, projects focus on the activities, disciplines, and issues that define the critical agenda for an enterprise.
Students study business in motion, with all the variables operating at once.
They are grounded in the phenomena they investigate and, like the companies they study, are not limited by traditional academic boundaries. Students acquire knowledge and research skills leading to mastery of a field of study and learn through experience to design and execute a major piece of original scholarly work.