Harvard Business Review’s Guidelines for Contributors

At Harvard Business Review, we equip ambitious senior leaders with evidence-backed insights that help them become smarter, more strategic, and more courageous in their work. To do that, we publish the insights of the foremost experts in management theory and practice.

HBR covers a wide range of topics of vital interest to senior leaders. Among those subjects: strategy, leadership, organizational culture, operations, technological change, innovation, communication, decision-making, talent retention, and career transitions. We publish articles of varying lengths as well as graphics, podcasts, videos, newsletters, and just about any other medium that might help us share an idea effectively.

We look for five qualities when evaluating what to publish:

1. Expertise: You don’t have to be well-known to be a contributor, but you must have demonstrated expertise in the subject you’re writing about.
2. Evidence: It’s not enough to know your subject deeply—you have to demonstrate the validity of your insights and recommendations to the reader. Referring to supporting research is one good way to do this; describing relevant examples is another. 
3. Originality: New ideas in management are rare—and encountering them is one of the primary reasons readers turn to HBR. If you’re writing about a well-worn topic, we’ll be looking for a unique argument or counterintuitive insight. We’ll also be examining how well it builds on what we’ve already published and whether it might help      our audience of senior leaders solve an urgent problem or make sense of global trends. The ideas should not be easily replicable by simply asking a large language model (LLM). One of the most common reasons we turn down proposals is because the findings or prescriptions aren’t surprising.
4. Usefulness: HBR readers come to us not only to stay on top of new developments in management thinking but also to improve the way they and their organizations actually do things. Although many of our ideas are based on theory, we aim to publish ideas that are being put into practice. If you can explain your thinking so that a senior leader understands how to apply it in a real situation, that will make it more powerful.

5. Good writing: The best HBR articles are persuasive and a pleasure to read. Our readers are smart, skeptical, and busy, so if you aren’t clear about the problem you’re solving or don’t otherwise capture their interest right away, they will move on to something else. We publish content first and foremost for senior leaders who are driving change in their organizations, so writing for that audience is essential.

Across all these dimensions, we strive to publish content that aligns with our organizational commitment to serve a diverse audience of leaders overseeing a diverse array of organizations. We look for pieces that are representative of that audience and their organizations in both the application of their ideas and in the examples that bring those ideas to life. We strive to ensure that our content avoids stereotypes, bias, and language that diminishes any particular group.

Notes on the Proposal Process

Individual authors and editors work differently, so there is no standard proposal process. Some authors prefer to start with a short pitch to determine whether an idea is a good fit, while others send a more detailed outline or a full draft. No matter what format you use, your pitch should answer the following questions, though it doesn’t need to be in a Q&A format.

1. What is the central message of the article you propose to write?
2. What is important, useful, or counterintuitive about your idea?
3. What is new about your idea?
4. Why do senior leaders need to know about it? How can your idea be applied today?
5. What is the source of your authority? On what previous work (either your own or others’) does this idea build?
6. What research and/or examples will you provide to back up your idea?
7. What academic, professional, or personal experience will you draw on?

Authors who’ve previously published with HBR or have a relationship with an HBR editor typically submit their pitches directly to the editor by email. If you don’t have a relationship with an HBR editor, you can send your pitch through Submittable.

We receive many more submissions than we can publish, and we often have to say no to good proposals due to time limitations, because they are not written for our target audience of senior leaders, or because they’re not distinct enough from other pieces we have published. For this reason, we are not able to respond to every unsolicited proposal. If we’ve turned down something you’ve submitted, please feel free to try again with another idea. If our editors have said no multiple times, it may mean your work isn’t a good fit for our audience.

How We Work with Authors

When we see a proposal that has promise, we’ll begin developing it with its author.

Authors say they find our editorial process to be rigorous, and you may be asked to do multiple rounds of revisions. Note that unlike academic journals, there is not a point in our process at which we formally “accept” an article or guarantee it will be published. In general, if we’re asking you to move to the next stage—from a short pitch to a full outline to a full draft or revision, for example—it’s because we’re optimistic it’s going to result in a publishable piece. But this is an art, not a science. Multiple editors must review each piece en route to publication, and sometimes we determine that a piece isn’t right for us during the development and editing process. If that happens, you are free to take your article to another outlet.

We retain final decision rights on headlines and art. If we rewrite your headline, it’s because we believe the revised version will help your idea reach the audience it deserves.

We also retain the right to decide whether the ideas will appear in both digital and print, in digital form only, or on another HBR platform.

We trust that the work you present to us is original. We don’t publish pieces that have appeared elsewhere, that don’t properly credit the ideas they present, that come across as promotional of your products or services, or that do not include rigorous citations (though these may not appear in the finished piece). We ask our authors to disclose any financial relationships they have with companies cited in the proposed article. We will ask you to sign a copyright form before we publish your final piece, but authors continue to own the underlying ideas in their articles.

On the use of generative AI, we understand our contributors may want to use these tools to brainstorm story ideas or pressure test their arguments. We believe in the transformative power of AI to change our business and many others, but the legal and ethical guardrails are constantly evolving. We ask our contributors to forthrightly share whether and how they’ve used these tools with their editor and on our copyright form. Critically, humans must always be responsible for the work we create. Our authors are accountable for the accuracy, integrity, sourcing, and originality of their content.

We appreciate your interest in HBR.

Amy Bernstein
 Editor in Chief, Harvard Business Review

Maureen Hoch
 Editor, HBR.org

Last updated: June 9, 2025