Huawei: Change Management Analysis Report - Business School

This report analyzes Huawei's change management strategies in response to trade blacklist issues and other external impacts. The report utilizes Greiner's Model and the TROPICS test to diagnose change opportunities and challenges faced by Huawei since 2018. It examines Huawei's organizational life cycle, leadership changes, and communication strategies, highlighting the company's attempts to adapt to a changing business environment. The report discusses creative and directional expansion, expansion through delegation, and expansion through coordination. The analysis also includes the impact of employee autonomy on core competencies and the challenges of uncertainty. The report aims to identify major change opportunities and learning goals, evaluating Huawei's responses to the challenges it faces. This report is valuable for students studying leadership management and business strategy.

Running head: HUAWEI: ANALYSIS
HUAWEI: ANALYSIS
Name of the student
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Author Note

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Introduction
Change management can be defined as the process of transitioning individuals, groups
and organizations from the current state to the desired future state. Change management is the
process by which the stakeholders and the members of the organization accept changes in order
to improve and enhance the organizational conditions into a better one (Tang, 2019). Change
management is typically conducted either to rectify the faults and fallacies the organizations
might be having or changing the structures of the management to make it more efficient and
effective. Huawei, which is a Chinese mobile company, has faced certain trade blacklist issues
while it traded with the United States of America which brought about certain statutory issues
regarding the trade between China and USA. Therefore, Huawei had also made certain attempts
to change the management system completely in order to meet and tackle the issues which it has
been facing lately. The respective paper is a report which talks about the change management
approaches taken by Huawei since the year 2018 with certain change management principles that
have been implemented in order to understand the change events the company has been going
through and their authenticity. The respective paper also provides a TROPICS test of the
company in order to understand the type of challenges faced by the company to find out the
major change opportunity and the leadership mindset of the company by using various leadership
approaches.
Discussion
Change management can be defined as the process of transitioning individuals, groups
and organizations from the current state to the desired future state. Change management is the
process by which the stakeholders and the members of the organization accept changes in order

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to improve and enhance the organizational conditions into a better one. Change management is
typically conducted either to rectify the faults and fallacies the organizations might be having or
changing the structures of the management to make it more efficient and effective. Change
management is often taken as an important part of an organization because the philosophy of
intrinsic and instrumental nature is that “change is inevitable”. Every aspects of nature will and
should change according to the law of nature where change is seen to be the only “permanent”
aspect of life and nature. A change in an organization, which means a change in the
organizational structure, dynamics, composition and hierarchy completely, rejuvenates the
organization with the hope to bring new prospects and opportunities to the organization.
Considering the change management dynamics, an organization tries to reach perfection in every
spheres of entrepreneurship in order to place itself in the premium position in the market as well
as in the global and local forum of the business world. Therefore, it has to be understood that
change management is important and an integral part of an organization which is a necessary
practice that has emerged in the contemporary times.
Overview of the event
Huawei, which is a Chinese mobile company, has faced certain trade blacklist issues
while it traded with the United States of America which brought about certain statutory issues
regarding the trade between China and USA. Therefore, Huawei had also made certain attempts
to change the management system completely in order to meet and tackle the issues which it has
been facing lately. Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is a private technology company which is
located in the province of Guangdong in China. The company owns and provides
telecommunication equipments as its products. The main business of Huawei are the providence
of wireless and data communication, switching and transmission and to produce

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telecommunication equipment and network for its customers throughout the world. Huawei has
been considered as one of the best performing global telecommunication equipment companies
and in the year 2011, Huawei had been given the designation of top 500 private enterprises of
China (Huawei.com., 2019).
Current challenges faced by Huawei
Huawei, which is a Chinese mobile company, has faced certain trade blacklist issues
while it traded with the United States of America which brought about certain statutory issues
regarding the trade between China and USA. Huawei has been alleged to have been acting as
espionage over the government of the United States. The allegations were so popular and grave
that the government of USA had began to deal statutorily with the respective Chinese company
and has made statutory restrictions with not only the company but also the Chinese government
regarding business and trade transactions. The restrictions posed by the government of the
United States of America have been preventing the Chinese tech giant to trade freely and
liberally in the soil of America. The license of utilizing the android application by Huawei was
cancelled by Google (Alphabet) because of the security and statutory reasons shown by the US
government. However, lately, in the month of May 2019, Google had announced that it has
already changed the way they are dealing with the company Huawei, which means that the
government of USA has again reshaped and redirected the trade talks and relationships between
USA and China and that the technological companies in USA, such as Google can once again
start selling its android to them. However, the main challenge that Huawei is facing is that of
“uncertainty”. As it is the image of Huawei has been tarnished for the allegations, Huawei has
been facing uncertain future on the soil of America. Even though the American government has

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given them their license back, there are still dubious behaviors that the American business world
exhibits that might be potentially harmful and risky for the company (Cnbc.com., 2019).
Change management of Huawei
The change management theory of Greiner’s Model “Organizational life cycle”, which describes
phases that organizations go through, namely, Creative expansion, directional expansion,
expansion through delegation, expansion through coordination and expansion through
collaboration are the five stages of change management an organization goes through in its life
cycle (Duobiene, 2013). With the help of the respective change management model, the change
occurring in the Huawei company has been enumerated hereafter.
1. Creative expansion: creative expansion, which is often epitomized as a revolutionary
change in the organization, often leads to leadership crisis. With the rotating CEO system
of Huawei, the company has been making different innovations in the paradigm of
leadership as well. The company has been changing CEOs (Chief Executive Officers) for
every six months, which is an experimental management strategy that the company has
revealed in the previous functioning year. It has been taken for consideration that Huawei
has been practicing the respective method in order to inculcate change in the
organizational hierarchy and leadership structure. Huawei, the company that has been in
highlight and limelight lately due to certain international security related allegations
might have been facing issues in operating itself into American or foreign paradigm.
Such situations might as well lead to obnoxious affairs. Therefore, to restructure the
leadership of the company, which meant introduction of new CEOS for a specific period
of time has been done to ensure whether the employees within the organizations are

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working well or not. There have been instances of rotational leadership being an integral
part of corporate talent engagement and management. With the help of rotational
leadership, the “objective” benefits of the organization are taken care of first, where
subjective benefits are kept aside, which means the immediate and the most current
pressing problems of the companies are met with and tackled with the new rotating and
changing CEOs. The meeting and tackling of the objective issues of the organization, the
company would be able to meet the short term needs and necessities which can enhance
the performance of the company (Tang, 2019).
2. Directional expansion: In the directional expansion, autonomy crisis is evident in the
organizations. In the case of Huawei, the directional expansion and autonomy is taken
care of where the middle managers in the management system have been removed from
the organizational leadership and hierarchy. The properties of lean management have
been exhibited in the organizational management structure of the company. With
transparent internal communication channels between the management and the
employees of Huawei, the company has been able to attain a particular autonomy in the
management. There is relatively high level of autonomy in management of the day to day
activities of the company by the respective managers which proves to be more helpful for
the organization in terms of its operational efficiencies. There has been research on the
fact that the middle management sometimes prove obnoxious and harmful for the
companies. The middle managers in the organizations, according to the research are the
least committed and the least successful employees of the respective organization. Middle
management brings excessive usage of financial and other resources and the middle
managers always seem to be overworked, which often leads to fatigue of the middle

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managers that may even escalate to lack of productivity and lack of commitment. The
lack of productivity and lack of commitment of the middle managers often leads to a
greater burden to the company and might as well lead to a complete loss of the company.
3. Expansion through delegation: The expansion through delegation, which is an
evolutionary change approach of a company, leads to crisis of control. the expansion
through delegation which is met by the company Huawei is multidimensional and
multifaceted. Huawei has taken up the discourses and practice of communication largely
in order to meet the crisis. They have also built their infrastructure in such a way that it
has made its communication processes better and reliable. The communication
techniques that Huawei has taken up have been commendable and the Huawei, with its
outstanding communication sources and techniques, has focused on the task of reassuring
the governments and partners that the technology is safe. The respective task has been
undertaken by a carefully planned communication portfolio and direct engagement
strategy that has also impressed the western journalists as well to tour the Huawei
headquarters and areas and understand the fact that Huawei was not espionage, rather, it
is an honest, diligent, dedicated and transparent global technological innovator. The
company, with the help of innovative interpersonal communication and relationship
techniques, has been able to do what was necessary, which is manipulating, influencing
and insisting the global business platform to understand them and get reassured of their
authenticity on every ground. The communication processes that had been taken down by
Huawei have been shrewd and political. The Huawei company has even the
administration official of the former American president Obama as well in order to

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romanticize, politicize and popularize its perspective and message which it has wanted to
say (Prweek.com., 2019).
4. Expansion through coordination: Huawei’s core values and principles of management if
self management and self coordination. Self organization and self coordination is a
cosmopolitan concept of organizational management which is largely based on self
government and self cooperation. Self coordination in an organization means the process
by which every individuals or an organization are controlled and guided by their own
(intrinsically as well as instrumentally) which means that every individual within the
organization is either responsible or accountable towards their behavior, mannerisms,
code of conduct and performance within the organization. Huawei employees have been
performing well when they have been given the autonomy of organizing and coordinating
themselves. The core competencies of the company have been growing day by day due to
the employee autonomy the workers of the company enjoy thereafter. It has been proved
that employee autonomy has given positive reactions on job satisfaction. In organizations
such as Huawei, autonomy means employees can decide how their work should be done.
No matter which concept is being applied, higher levels of autonomy tend to result in an
increase in job satisfaction. The employees feel self satiated and therefore, are prone to
deliver better form and quality of work to the organization. Huawei’s initiative of
employee autonomy has increased the core competency of the company (Hbr.org., 2015).
5. Expansion through collaboration: Growth through collaboration is often brought about by
introducing sophisticated collaborated information technology and other infrastructural
systems. Huawei’s openness, collaboration and shared success is the spell behind its
growth of the organizational life cycle. Collaboration with European organizations and

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entities along with strong ICT infrastructure has provided the company shield against any
obnoxious change (Huawei.com., 2019).
PEST
Political: The US government, in the year 2014, banned Huawei in America which led to a
massive downfall of the company. Australian government, in the year 2012, banned Huawei to
build national broadband network. With such political uprises, the company has threats in the
path of international trade.
Economic: With the growing economic crisis, the market of Huawei may fall prey to loss. In
such cases, Huawei might seek to postpone their investment in infrastructure to cut down the
cost.
Social: Huawei, even though shamed in America, has a huge fanbase in China and among the
Chinese anti-american Netizens. Huawei might as well take the opportunity to influence its
supporters against the allegations it has got.
Technological: Huawei must manage its technologies in the age of rapid product cycle, where
the technical products don’t last longer than 18 months in order to win the confidence of its
buyers and consumers (London.edu., 2019).
TROPICS

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1. Timescale clearly defined: medium to long term (since the allegations given to the
company is relatively grave, it would need sufficient time to implement the necessary
changes for restructure the organization)
2. Resources needed for the change: clearly identified (the resources that are needed for the
change are available in the business platforms and are clearly identified and eminent
resource management personnel needs to be recruited to find out the resources needed).
3. Objectives clearly stated: Shared by all (The objectives of the organization and the
change that would be inflicted thereupon is clearly stated by the media and would be
needed to be met and tackled by collaboration and cooperation)
4. Perception of the problem and its possible solution: Shared by all (the perception of the
problems are universally stated through media and digital portals and needs to be tackled
by collaboration and cooperation)
5. Interest in the problem: Limited and defined: The particular interest of the problem is
limited and defined clearly and the solution as well as its outcomes are also evaluated.
6. Sources of the problem: Originates outside the organization: the political allegation that
Huawei went through is not intrinsic rather instrumental of the organization and
depended on the external environmental factors.
Kotter Model of change management
According to Kotter’s 8 step change management model, the change strategies the company can
take are:

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1. Create Urgency: the company can hold meetings and conferences regarding the problem
it is going through in order to create urgencies among the employees so that they are
compelled to think about the future of the organization.
2. Form a powerful coalition: The company can make coalitions with the other Chinese as
well as established European companies and investors who would be ready to provide
financial funds to the company during emergencies and other managerial and
organizational help.
3. Create a vision for change: Excellent interpersonal communication techniques must be
utilized in order to make the employees inculcate a vision of change within themselves.
4. Communicate the vision: The vision that the company wants to show the employees must
be well communicated among the employees so that they are able to understand the
dynamics of the problem, change and speculate for a perfect solution.
5. Remove obstacles: the barriers such as middle management, miscommunication and
inflexible statutory legislature of the company should be removed and made lenient in
order to make the company flexible and adaptable to change.
6. Create short term wins: Short term targets such as hiring of the rotational CEOs of the
company who would fulfill the short term and objective targets of the company must be
implanted.
7. Build on change: The company should keep on setting realistic as well as adventurous
goals for the employees who are already self coordinated so that the changes may be
gradually built upon and is successful.
8. Anchor the changes in corporate culture: the corporate culture of the company should be
influenced and manipulated in the way that the changes become a part of the core values

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and goals of the organization. Every employee should be motivated to accept and
inculcate the changes within the organization.
Leadership
According to Carol Dweck’s leadership theory, leaders with a growth mindset place a
high value on learning, open to feedback, less narcissistic, confident of their ability to cultivate
their own and other’s abilities (Dweck, 2010). The leadership of Huawei, on the other hand, is
unique, where the concept of rotational leadership comes into account (Theverge.com., 2013).
The leadership of Huawei is transparent and it does not provide any undue advantage or privilege
to any employee who is in a motive to impress his/ her superiors on any ground. The leadership
culture of Huawei is highly democratic, transparent and egalitarian with no forms of nepotism or
favor”ism” or unethical practice. The leadership strategy of Huawei is unique, but at the same
time, it has to be remembered that the leaders and CEOs of Huawei should inculcate the virtues
such as making room for higher learning, taking feedback and being confident of the capabilities
of amalgamating their own capabilities with that of the subordinates. By practicing such virtues
and qualities, the leaders of Huawei would be able to deliver their best performance and extract
the best from the employees to synergize them with the organizational goals.
Conclusion
The respective paper concludes to be a report which talks about the change management
approaches taken by Huawei since the year 2018 with certain change management principles that
have been implemented in order to understand the change events the company has been going
through and their authenticity. The respective paper also concludes to provide a TROPICS test of
the company in order to understand the type of challenges faced by the company to find out the

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major change opportunity and the leadership mindset of the company by using various leadership
approaches.

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References:
Cnbc.com.,(2019). Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/21/huaweis-biggest-problem-is-
now-uncertainty-analysts-say.html
Duobiene, J. (2013). Corporate entrepreneurship in organisational life-cycle. Economics and
management, 18(3), 584-595.
Dweck, C. S. (2010). Mind-sets. Principal leadership, 10(5), 26-29.
Hbr.org.,(2015). Available at: https://hbr.org/2015/06/huaweis-culture-is-the-key-to-its-success
Huawei.com.,(2019). Available at: https://www.huawei.com/en/about-huawei/corporate-
information/openness-collaboration-and-shared-success
London.edu.,(2019). Available at: https://www.london.edu/lbsr/lessons-from-huawei-when-
chinese-companies-go-global
Prweek.com.,(2019) Available at: https://www.prweek.com/article/1586260/pr-pros-huawei-
handling-crisis-well-target-customers-charm-offensive
Tang, K. N. (2019). Change management. In Leadership and Change Management (pp. 47-55).
Springer, Singapore.
Theverge.com.,(2013). Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2013/9/30/4786824/huawei-is-
rotating-its-ceo-every-six-months-to-stay-fresh