2020
Li, Lanhua; Guo, Bin; Murmann, Johann Peter; Wu, Dong
Huawei’s R&D Management Transformation Book Chapter
In: Wu, Xiaobo; Murmann, Johann Peter; Huang, Can; Guo, Bin (Ed.): The Management Transformation of Huawei: From Humble Beginnings to Global Leadership, Chapter 8, pp. 292–346, Cambridge University Press, 2020.
@inbook{li_guo_murmann_wu_wu_murmann_huang_guo_2020,
title = {Huawei’s R&D Management Transformation},
author = {Lanhua Li and Bin Guo and Johann Peter Murmann and Dong Wu },
editor = { Xiaobo Wu and Johann Peter Murmann and Can Huang and Bin Guo},
doi = {10.1017/9781108550987.009},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-01-01},
urldate = {2020-01-01},
booktitle = {The Management Transformation of Huawei: From Humble Beginnings to Global Leadership},
pages = {292–346},
publisher = {Cambridge University Press},
chapter = {8},
abstract = {Although Huawei started its business as a small agent in 1987, the firm began the independent development of telecommunications equipment in its fouth year of operation and then gradually increased its R&D investments over the years. As the scale of R&D efforts increased, Huawei encountered significant problems with its organization of R&D and felt that it was necessary to transform how it conducts R&D several times over its thirty-year history. In this chapter, we develop a four-step model to analyze three major R&D management transformations in Huawei’s long history of R&D activities. The first transformation, from 1991 to 1995, helped Huawei to establish an informal R&D system; the second transformation, from 1995 to 1998, changed the informal R&D management system into a formal system with clear structures and processes; and finally, the third transformation built up a process-oriented, high-performing R&D organization. We find that although the transformations shifted Huawei’s focus from making structural changes to process changes, all of them were closely aligned with the firm’s market position and with its strategic re-orientation.},
keywords = {Change, Dynamic Capabilities, Huawei, Innovation, R&D, Routines},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}
Although Huawei started its business as a small agent in 1987, the firm began the independent development of telecommunications equipment in its fouth year of operation and then gradually increased its R&D investments over the years. As the scale of R&D efforts increased, Huawei encountered significant problems with its organization of R&D and felt that it was necessary to transform how it conducts R&D several times over its thirty-year history. In this chapter, we develop a four-step model to analyze three major R&D management transformations in Huawei’s long history of R&D activities. The first transformation, from 1991 to 1995, helped Huawei to establish an informal R&D system; the second transformation, from 1995 to 1998, changed the informal R&D management system into a formal system with clear structures and processes; and finally, the third transformation built up a process-oriented, high-performing R&D organization. We find that although the transformations shifted Huawei’s focus from making structural changes to process changes, all of them were closely aligned with the firm’s market position and with its strategic re-orientation.