Constructing large multinational corporations from China: East meets West at Huawei, 1987-2017 Johann Peter Murmann Professor of Strategy Institute of Management University of St. Gallen, 9000 St. Gallen, Switzerland email:
[email protected] Can Huang Professor & Head of Department of Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Strategy, Co-Director of Institute for Intellectual Property Management School of Management, Zhejiang University, China Zhejiang University Hangzhou, 310058, P.R. China Email:
[email protected] Xiaobo Wu Cheung Kong Chair Professor honored by the Ministry of Education, China Qiushi Chair Professor of Innovation & Strategic Management Co-director Ruihua Institute for Innovation Management Zhejiang University Hangzhou, 310058, P.R. China email:
[email protected] Constructing large multinational corporations from China: East meets West at Huawei, 1987-2017 Abstract: The telecommunication enterprise Huawei, founded in 1987, is one of few multinational companies emerging from China to date. The development of the capabilities that allowed Huawei to become a formidable competitor on the global stage undoubtedly owes a great deal to importation of best practice routines from the West with the help of western consulting firms. But Huawei is also distinctly Chinese. In the West, a founder who relinquished all but a 1.4 percent of equity in the firm to give the remaining shares to employees would be an abnormality. Huawei’s collective ownership arrangement (88,000 people own the other 98.6 percent of the shares) enabled management actions that are unthinkable in the West. The top 6,687 managers in 2007, for example, agreed to collectively resign from the company and to be selectively rehired to avoid falling under new labor law restrictions.