Business and management referencing in Harvard and APA 7

Business and management referencing puts an organisation where most subjects put a person: the company for an annual report, the research firm for a market report, the standards body for a standard. Business school referencing is also less settled than it looks. The UK schools we read teach Harvard, often their own version; the US ones teach APA 7, adapted by their librarians because APA gives no example for Bloomberg or a Harvard Business School case.

This guide, published by EdCitation, is the business student's reference list: every source type below in Harvard and APA 7, as named business schools' library guides set it, read on 27 September 2026, with the places they disagree. How to write the report itself is in how to write a business report, and the Tesco and Nike examples, press releases and World Bank data are in citing sources in a business report.

We ran EdCitation's free Cite a source on a real 10-K, annual report, Harvard Business Review article, case, Statista chart and two statistics releases, and quote what came back, faults included. It looks sources up and writes nothing: the analysis stays yours.

Which referencing style do business schools use?

Harvard in the UK, APA 7 in North America, and in both a local version.

UK schools: Harvard, several versions

The University of Warwick Library (2026) bases its Harvard (Warwick Business School) guide on the 13th edition of Cite Them Right, published in 2025, but uses "et al." from three authors. The University of Liverpool Library (2026) teaches Cite Them Right Harvard to the Management School. The University of Bath Library (2026) has its own Harvard Bath and warns that Cite Them Right's examples need adapting to it. Birmingham City University's (n.d.) version writes "Available through:" for subscription reports, with the access date in square brackets.

EdCitation's Harvard follows Cite Them Right's 12th edition. The 13th dropped the place of publication (University of the West of Scotland Library, 2026), which none of the entries below needs.

North American schools: APA 7, adapted

Notre Dame's Mahaffey Business Library says APA offers no specific example for many business resources and fits them to a general format (Hesburgh Libraries, 2026). The University of Alberta Library (2026) says its business adaptation is for use at Alberta only. Your module handbook outranks all of them.

How do I reference a company annual report or a 10-K?

Make the company the author, date it by the year it was published, and give the title exactly as the cover has it.

An annual report

Unilever Annual Report and Accounts 2025 covers the calendar year 2025, but its auditor signed on 4 March 2026, so it is Unilever PLC (2026). Quote its figures with the page: turnover was €50.5 billion, down 3.8% (p. 11).

Given the report's web page, Cite a source found no author and dated it 27 February 2024, which cannot be right for a 2025 report, giving "Annual report and accounts 2025. (2024, February 27). Unilever." Correct the author and year in the page details before building the entry.

A 10-K, a 20-F and the annual report are different documents

Microsoft filed its 10-K for the year to 30 June 2026 on 29 July 2026, reporting revenue of $331,839 million against $281,724 million a year before (Microsoft Corporation, 2026). On 27 September its investor page still listed the 2025 annual report as the latest. Unilever, a UK company, files a Form 20-F in the United States instead. Cite the document you read.

Given the 10-K's EDGAR address, whose page title is just "10-K", Cite a source returned:

10-K. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2026, from https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/000119312526323660/msft-20260630.htm

With the company as organisation author, the full title and the filing date entered, it gave the entry in the table below.

How do I cite Statista, Mintel, Passport and IBISWorld?

Name who wrote the report or collected the figures, the report's title and date, and the database; APA uses the database's home page when the report's address works only for subscribers.

APA leaves database names out of most references but keeps them for databases publishing original, proprietary content, which readers can only get there, and swaps a session-specific URL for the home page (American Psychological Association, 2021).

The database or the firm as author?

Guides split here. Notre Dame makes Euromonitor International the author of a Passport report; Birmingham City University makes it "Passport (2024)". Robert Gordon University's templates start a FAME report with "FAME (2024)" (Robert Gordon University Library, 2026); Bath starts one with Bureau van Dijk, the database's owner. Our view: name whoever wrote the content, the database as where it sits, unless your school's guide says otherwise.

For Mintel and IBISWorld, Notre Dame and Robert Gordon agree: a named analyst is the author, and the company only when no one is named. Robert Gordon's Mintel example is "Finnegan, C. (2024) Attitudes towards healthy eating - UK - 2024", with the report's address and an access date.

Statista

Statista gathers other organisations' figures, so the source it names is the author. Notre Dame calls Statista's citation button one of the better ones but asks you to check its author, often not Statista. Its own example writes the date "(July 23, 2026)" where APA puts the year first.

Given a chart's address, Cite a source returned "U.S.: M2 money stock 2000-2025. (n.d.). Statista.", with no author or date, though the page shows 23 July 2026 and the heading "Value of M2 money supply in the U.S. 2000-2025". Corrected, it built the table's Harvard entry; add "[Graph]" to the APA by hand.

How do I cite a Harvard Business School case study?

Give the case writers, the year, the case title, the HBS number and where you got it. APA has no case example, so the forms come from libraries: Alberta's is "Smith, S. (2003). Leadership. HBS No. 7-806-122." followed by the publisher's case site.

The University of Washington Libraries (2026) give "Groysberg, B., & Connolly, K. (2015). BlackRock: Diversity as a Driver for Success. HBS No. 415-047. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing." The place "Boston, MA" is a sixth-edition habit: APA 7 no longer names a publisher's location (American Psychological Association, 2020a). The store dates the case 5 February 2015 (Groysberg & Connolly, 2015). In UK Harvard, Liverpool references a case by where it was published: a journal, a website or a database.

Given the case's store page, Cite a source returned "BlackRock: Diversity as a driver for success ^ 415047. (n.d.). HBR Store.", the store's page title with no authors or date. With both authors and the year entered, it built the table's entries. Type the HBS number after the title yourself: put in the title box, it came back as "HBS no." in APA.

How do I cite a Harvard Business Review article?

As a magazine article: author, date, title, Harvard Business Review in italics with volume, issue and pages. APA includes a DOI if there is one; an article from a research database ends after the pages; one from the open web ends with its address (American Psychological Association, 2020c). Harvard Business Review articles generally have no DOI (University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, 2026).

The date is a small disagreement. APA's own magazine examples give the issue's date, as in "(2009, June 15)"; the Notre Dame and Boulder examples give the year alone.

Porter's five forces, three ways

Michael E. Porter's "The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy" appeared in the January 2008 issue. Given its hbr.org address, Cite a source read the page as a web page with no author, dated 1 January 2008, a day the page does not give. Given its PubMed ID, 18271320 (PubMed indexes the magazine), it returned the record in full:

Porter, M. E. (2008). The five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard Business Review, 86(1), 78–93, 137.

Its Harvard version, in the table, also stands as given.

How do I reference an ISO standard?

The standards body is the author, the year is when the standard took effect, and the number follows the title in brackets in APA (American Psychological Association, 2020b). In Harvard, Birmingham City University cites a standard as if in print, even one read online.

Check the edition first. ISO 9001:2015 is withdrawn: the sixth edition, ISO 9001:2026, was published on 16 September 2026 (International Organization for Standardization, 2026). Cite a source could not open iso.org ("That page could not be read. Some sites block automated readers."), so this entry is typed by hand.

How do I cite Bloomberg, FAME and government data?

Name the provider as author, describe the data so someone could find it again, and give the database and date you retrieved it.

Financial databases

Notre Dame's Bloomberg example is "Bloomberg L.P. (2026). Stock prices for Apple, Inc. 1/1/2012–12/31/2017. [Data set]. Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved August 20, 2026 from Bloomberg Terminal." In Harvard, Brunel University London Library (2024) adds that Bloomberg sometimes carries another organisation's data or an analyst's, who is then the author, and that with no heading on screen a title such as "Search results for…" lets a reader repeat the search. For data from Wharton Research Data Services, Notre Dame usually names the provider, such as CRSP, rather than WRDS.

ONS and BLS releases

Given the Office for National Statistics' August 2026 inflation bulletin, which put CPI at 3.1% and CPIH at 3.3% for the year to August (Office for National Statistics, 2026), Cite a source read the author, date and title correctly, in both styles. Given the Bureau of Labor Statistics' August release, which put the 12-month rise at 3.4% (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026), it found no author and titled it "Consumer Price Index News Release". Corrected, its APA entry lowered "Consumer Price Index", the name of the index, to "Consumer price index"; we restored the capitals. The dated addresses matter, as the social work statistics guide explains.

Harvard and APA 7 examples side by side

Harvard is EdCitation's output (Cite Them Right) unless marked; APA is ours, corrected as above.

Every row except the library examples and the ISO standard can start in Cite a source, which gives both styles at once.

Which EdCitation tools build and check a business reference list?

EdCitation's Cite a source is the best tool for this list because it reads a record rather than composing one: from a PubMed ID it returned Porter's volume, issue and pages, which the article's web page does not show and a chatbot would guess. From a web page it shows what it read, so a file name posing as a title is caught early. It takes a DOI, title, PubMed ID, ISBN or web address, gives APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver, screens for retraction, and is free with no account.

What to fix by hand

1. Author. Company and agency pages rarely name one: enter the organisation.
2. Date. Use the publication year, not the financial year, and check any date the page's code supplied.
3. Title. Replace file names and browser titles with the document's own title.
4. Numbers and labels. Add the HBS number, "[Graph]" or "[Data set]", and restore capitals in names.

Checking the list

We pasted five APA entries into Verify references, free, dating Unilever's report 2025 on purpose. The ONS and BLS entries came back verified. Microsoft's 10-K came back "check this": "The address works, but the page there has a different title." Porter's article came back "check this": "A work with this title is recorded in Readings in Strategic Management (1989), not in the source your entry names." That is his chapter "How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy", a different work. Unilever's PDF came back verified: "The address opens a PDF whose first pages carry the entry's title." The title was right, so the wrong year passed: check a PDF entry's date yourself. Nothing was shown as not found.

Check your paper, also free, reads your brief into a checklist, including the style and how many sources. References from a file, in Pro at $8 a month (pricing), matches every in-text citation to the list. EdCitation finds and formats the evidence and never writes a word of your assignment. Set books, business cases and careers have guides of their own: business and management books, how to write a business case and what to do with a business degree.

Quick questions

How do I reference an annual report in Harvard?

Company as author, year published, title in italics, "Available at:" the address and the access date: Unilever PLC (2026) Annual Report and Accounts 2025.

How do I cite Statista in APA 7?

Name the source Statista credits, the chart's date and title, "[Graph]", then Statista and the address.

How do I cite a Harvard Business School case study in APA?

Case writers, year, italic title, the HBS number in brackets, Harvard Business School and the address. APA has no case example, so check your school's.

How do I cite a Harvard Business Review article?

As a magazine article, with volume, issue and pages. EdCitation's Cite a source fills them in from the article's PubMed ID.

Can EdCitation write my business assignment?

No. EdCitation finds, cites and verifies sources and reads a brief into a checklist; the writing stays yours.

References

• American Psychological Association. (2020a). Book/ebook references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/book-references
• American Psychological Association. (2020b). ISO standard references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/iso-standard-references
• American Psychological Association. (2020c). Magazine article references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/magazine-article-references
• American Psychological Association. (2021). Database information in references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/database-information
• Birmingham City University. (n.d.). Reports and other textual sources. BCU Harvard referencing. https://www.bcu.ac.uk/library/services-and-support/referencing/harvard/textual-sources
• Brunel University London Library. (2024, January 24). How can I cite and reference data found in a financial database search? LibAnswers. https://libanswers.brunel.ac.uk/faq/49262
• Groysberg, B., & Connolly, K. (2015). BlackRock: Diversity as a driver for success (HBS No. 415-047). Harvard Business School. https://store.hbr.org/product/blackrock-diversity-as-a-driver-for-success/415047
• Hesburgh Libraries. (2026, August 25). Mahaffey Business Library citation style guide. University of Notre Dame. https://libguides.library.nd.edu/mahaffey-business-library-citation-style-guide
• International Organization for Standardization. (2026). Quality management systems – Requirements (ISO Standard No. 9001:2026). https://www.iso.org/standard/9001
• Microsoft Corporation. (2026, July 29). Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2026. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/000119312526323660/msft-20260630.htm
• Office for National Statistics. (2026, September 16). Consumer price inflation, UK: August 2026. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/consumerpriceinflation/august2026
• Porter, M. E. (2008). The five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard Business Review, 86(1), 78–93, 137. https://hbr.org/2008/01/the-five-competitive-forces-that-shape-strategy
• Robert Gordon University Library. (2026, April 15). Databases. Cite Them Right Harvard templates. https://library.rgu.ac.uk/harvard-referencing-templates/databases
• Unilever PLC. (2026). Annual report and accounts 2025. https://www.unilever.com/files/unilever-annual-report-and-accounts-2025.pdf
• University of Alberta Library. (2026, September 11). Case studies. APA citation style (7th edition). https://guides.library.ualberta.ca/apa-citation-style/case-studies
• University of Bath Library. (2026, August 18). Harvard Bath. https://library.bath.ac.uk/referencing/harvard-bath
• University of Colorado Boulder Libraries. (2026, January 14). Articles. Citing business information. https://libguides.colorado.edu/c.php?g=372804&p=2533492
• University of Liverpool Library. (2026, September 23). Referencing for ULMS. https://libguides.liverpool.ac.uk/management-school/ULMSreferencing
• University of the West of Scotland Library. (2026, February 24). Cite Them Right Harvard referencing examples. https://uws-uk.libguides.com/c.php?g=727692&p=5297185
• University of Warwick Library. (2026). Quick guide to referencing: Harvard (Warwick Business School) [Word document]. https://warwick.ac.uk/services/library/students/referencing/referencingstyles/harvard_warwick_wbs_quick_guide_2026_v3.docx
• University of Washington Libraries. (2026, April 21). Case studies. Citing business information. https://guides.lib.uw.edu/c.php?g=776308&p=5568902
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2026, September 11). Consumer Price Index: August 2026 (USDL-26-1496). https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/cpi_09112026.htm