The Management Transformation of Huawei: From Humble Beginnings to Global Leadership

Huawei has become China's most prominent multinational company and a leader in the ICT sector. Given unprecedented access to the company, the authors of this book examine the management transformation of Huawei from its inception in 1987 until 2019, observing in detail not only the creation of its organizational routines but also the breaking of routines across most major functional areas: Management, Product Development, HR, Supply Chain, Finance, R&D, Intellectual Property, and International Business. 'Dynamic capabilities' are central to theories of competitive advantage and this book highlights Huawei as an ideal case study for the successful implementation of change routines and change-supporting values. The chapters cover all the major change initiatives the firm has undertaken since 1996 to import best practices from the West, with the help of consultants. The insights presented in the book will be particularly interesting for academics in the field of strategy, management, and business history.

About the Author

Xiaobo Wu is Professor of Innovation and Strategic Management, School of Management, Zhejiang University, China. He has received the title of Chang Jiang Scholar Professor from the Ministry of Education, China, for his outstanding achievements in innovation and entrepreneurship research and education.

Johann Peter Murmann is Professor of Strategic Management and Director of the Institute for Management and Strategy, University of St. Gallen. He is the author of Knowledge and Competitive Advantage: The Coevolution of Firms, Technology and National Institutions (Cambridge, 2003), which won the International Schumpeter Prize, and co-editor of China's Innovation Challenge (Cambridge, 2016). He is a deputy editor of Management and Organization.

Can Huang is Professor, Head of the Department of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Strategy, and Co-Director of the Institute for Intellectual Property Management at the School of Management, Zhejiang University, China. He is also a member of the advisory boards for the Research Center for Technological Innovation at Tsinghua University, the CIPRUN Intellectual Property Management Research Center at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, and the Asia Pacific Innovation Conference. He is a Senior Editor of Management and Organization Review and a member of the editorial boards of several other academic journals.

Bin Guo is Professor of Innovation Management and Strategy, and vice-chairman of the Professor Committee, at the School of Management, Zhejiang University, China. He is the deputy director of the Joint Research Center for Global Manufacturing and Innovation Management, at the University of Cambridge and Zhejiang University.