Table Of ContentPALGRAVE STUDIES OF
INTERNATIONALIZATION
IN EMERGING MARKETS
Huawei
Goes Global
Volume I:
Made in China for the World
Edited by Wenxian Zhang
Ilan Alon · Christoph Lattemann
Palgrave Studies of Internationalization in
Emerging Markets
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Aalborg University
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Aalborg University
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Wenxian Zhang • Ilan Alon
Christoph Lattemann
Editors
Huawei Goes Global
Volume I: Made in China
for the World
Editors
Wenxian Zhang Ilan Alon
Rollins College University of Agder
Winter Park, FL, USA Kristiansand, Norway
Christoph Lattemann
Jacobs University
Bremen, Germany
ISSN 2662-1185 ISSN 2662-1193 (electronic)
Palgrave Studies of Internationalization in Emerging Markets
ISBN 978-3-030-47563-5 ISBN 978-3-030-47564-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47564-2
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
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From Wenxian Zhang: To Karen, Michelle and Nathan.
From Ilan: To Anna, Kareen, Maya and Noa.
From Christoph Lattemann: To my parents Sieglind and Hermann.
Foreword
World-class companies by definition change the world in some ways. As
the Chinese economy becomes the second largest in the world, a small
number of Chinese companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi
have become world class. However, a few world-class companies around
the world—and none from China—have changed the world to the same
extent as Huawei has done.
What is Huawei? What does it do? How does it change the world?
These brief questions can strategically summarize these two excellent vol-
umes edited by Wenxian Zhang, Ilan Alon, and Christoph Lattemann.
To invite so many scholars around the world and to edit and make sense
of their research that deals with only one company are something I have
never seen in my three decades of research.
One of the most insightful ways to understand any company, in my
admittedly biased view, is to invoke a strategy tripod perspective, leverag-
ing the industry-based, resource-based, and institution-based views.
Huawei is an excellent example for a strategy tripod analysis.
From an industry-based view, Huawei’s rise from the telecom equip-
ment industry and its recent expansion into the consumer electronics
industry can be analyzed from the changing industry dynamics associated
with these industries. Some of the Vol. 1 chapters have focused on the
fascinating dynamics associated with these two fast-moving industries.
vii
viii Foreword
From a resource-based view, the key to Huawei’s global success is its
development of overwhelming resources and capabilities. Volume 1 has a
number of solid chapters on this crucial topic. In global competition,
being good enough is not good enough. Given the liability of foreign-
ness, how do world-class companies crack new foreign markets? The
answer is to deploy overwhelming resources and capabilities—keyword
being overwhelming. Imagine overwhelming resources and capabilities to
be a lot of value (like pluses + + + +), and liability of foreignness to be
some drawbacks (like minuses – – –). Then after offsetting the liability of
foreignness (taking out the minuses), there is still a significant number of
pluses centered on delivering superb value to customers. Although the
U.S. government has banned Huawei from working on installing 5G
telecom networks in the United States, governments from major allies
such as Britain and Germany defend their decisions of allowing Huawei
to do such work in their countries. While British and German govern-
ments have their own reservations about Huawei, the advantages that
Huawei brings are simply overwhelming. No other firm in the world—
and neither Ericsson nor Nokia, two European firms in their home mar-
kets (EU)—can deliver such an enviable combination of world-class
performance and cost competitiveness.
The debate about Huawei among Western allies is a great example to
invoke an institution-based view. From the early founding of The North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to the ongoing powwows of G7,
the Western allies are supposed to have a united front dealing with the
Eastern bloc. Both their formal alliance agreements and informal norms
over lasting several decades have nurtured such a united front. They gen-
erally can find common ground, and disagreements have been papered
over. However, it is amazing, surprising, or disturbing—depending on
your point of view—to see one company alone has threatened such a
united front. The United States has openly threatened Britain and
Germany that if they choose Huawei, Britain will no longer enjoy unlim-
ited privileges within the Five Eyes alliance (an intelligence-sharing alli-
ance whose three other members are Australia, Canada, and New Zealand)
and Germany within the Fourteen Eyes alliance (a more expansive ver-
sion of Five Eyes). Other sanctions may be imposed as well. Is the emer-
gence of Huawei worth undermining such precious and enduring allied
relationships?
Foreword ix
In its debate with allies concerning Huawei, the United States cannot
beat something with nothing. As no viable U.S. competitor that can rival
Huawei’s world-class combination of high capabilities and low prices cur-
rently exists, the U.S. government has started entertaining directly invest-
ing in and controlling the only two remaining rivals, Ericsson and Nokia,
and turning them into state-owned enterprises (SOEs) (like how General
Motors [GM] was turned into a state-owned enterprise in the 2009 bail-
out). The thinking goes, in future negotiations with allied governments,
it would be easier to push such U.S. SOEs (formerly Swedish-owned
Ericsson and Finnish-owned Nokia)—similar to the way of pushing
U.S.-made fighter jets—than to prevent allies governments from using
Huawei but to present no viable offerings. In the absence of any expres-
sion of interest by the private shareholders of Ericsson and Nokia, the
very thought of turning non-U.S. private firms into U.S. SOEs shows
both outside-the-box creativity and pulling-out-one’s-hair desperation—
all triggered by Huawei. Which company can trigger such changes?
Regardless of whether one likes or dislikes Huawei, everyone would agree
it is a respectable force to reckon with globally.
From an institution-based view, Vol. 2 is devoted to how Huawei has
changed—and will change—the rules of the game around the world.
Everybody already knows how Huawei is changing the economic (and
geopolitical) relationship between China and the United States. The
example I give here is about how Huawei is challenging the geopolitical
rules of the game governing intra-allied relationships among the Western
allies. This example is too new to be captured by any chapter. However,
this is unlikely to be Huawei’s last chapter.
It is cliché to say world-class companies change the world. Another
recent world-class disrupter that comes to mind is Uber. Again, a strategy
tripod can help us dissect Uber’s triumphs and frustrations. It is changing
the dynamics of the taxi industry, it certainly has some overwhelming
capabilities, and it is causing a lot of cities and countries around the
world to change their rules of the game that regulate this industry.
However, Uber probably will never be able to change the geopolitical
relationship between countries. For the same reason, perhaps that is why
I have not seen two volumes of penetrating chapters contributed by
scholars worldwide focusing on Uber—or any other company. But
x Foreword
Huawei is different. Even among world-class giants, Huawei seems head
and shoulders above the rest.
Lastly, I wish to congratulate Zhang, Alon, Lattemann, and their con-
tributors. Among countless scholarly and news pieces on Huawei, their
two volumes are head and shoulders above the rest in both breadth and
depth. I highly recommend such world-class scholarship embodied in
these two volumes.
Jindal Chair of Global Strategy, Mike W. Peng
University of Texas at Dallas
Author, Global Strategy, Global Business and Global
