SubmissionFormat:
1. The submission is in the form of a 15-minute individual PowerPoint presentation and 5
minutes allocated for questions.
2. The presentation slides and speaker notes should be submitted as one copy and uploaded
to turnitin.
3. You are required to make effective use of PowerPoint headings, bullet points and
subsections as appropriate.
4. Your research should be referenced using the Harvard referencing system. Please also
provide a bibliography using the Harvard referencing system.
5. The recommended word limit is 1,500 to 2,000 words, including speaker notes, although
you will not be penalised for exceeding the total word limit.
6. The file must be saved in the format: student ID-ULC-Formative-A2, for formative
submission and student ID-ULC-Summative-A2, for summative assignment.
7. In case of extenuating situations, the relevant college policies apply
Unit Learning Outcomes:
LO3. Determine how barriers to change influence leadership decision-making
LO 4. Apply a range of leadership approaches to a change initiative.
2
AssignmentBrief andGuidance:
With reference to the case study given below you are required to prepare and present a power
point presentation critically evaluating the following
1. Force field analysis in the context of meeting organizational objectives.
2. The effectiveness of leadership approaches.
3. Models of change management.
CASE STUDY : FUTURE OF HUAWEI
Innovation is increasingly important to Chinese businesses – and will become even more as
service-oriented economy emerges. China is already one of the most prominent providers of R&D.
Recent research by Roland Berger shows that China’s share of R&D expenditure worldwide rose to
about 14 per cent in the period between 2007 and 2012. Among China’s innovation stars is Huawei.
Huawei Technologies, founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, is organized around three core business
segments: a carrier network business group, an enterprise business group, and a consumer
business group. With its main office in Shenzhen, Huawei is a private company in which the founder
owns about 1.4 per cent of the shares with the remainder owned by some 70,000 of the company’s
150,000 employees.
Huawei’s innovativeness is demonstrated by its industrious acquisition of patents. By the end of
2010, Huawei had fled 49,040 patent applications (31,869 patent applications in China, 8,892
international patent applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, and 8,279 overseas patent
applications). Of the 17,765 authorized patents granted, 3,060 were overseas patents.
As a result, the world has started to look at Huawei, with an increased interest but also with some
suspicion. For example, the US has pushed Huawei to the periphery of its telecom market, due to
fears of espionage and suspicion that the company’s products are subsidized by cheap loans from
Chinese banks. Other regions, including the UK, have been more accepting.
Innovation results It would be straightforward to observe that Huawei is innovative in nature
and, therefore, successful. Rather, innovation is a result of Huawei’s values, vision and procedures.
In the case of Huawei, innovation is an outcome. It is not innovation that drives Huawei’s success,
but the process that creates innovation which drives success. This process is grounded in valuedriven leadership; leadership that defines the company’s vision and direction.
Huawei’s Chairman and founder, Ren Zhengfei, is a unique personality who, for the last 25
years, has gained a reputation for leading his company like an army. Ren Zhengfei served in the
People’s Liberation Army and the outside world has mainly focused on the consequences of his
directive leadership style. One famous and widely shared story is that employees are obliged to
take a siesta by sleeping under their desk. This overlooks the role of values in his leadership.
Communication Zhengfei has emphasized that openness, competition and collaboration
complement each other. He strives for a company culture where people’s minds are the main asset
and resource. As such, the ideas of his people complement the company’s values to produce
innovation. Leadership achieves results through a desire to continuously improve and grow rather
than from a desire to simply beat the competition by being first.
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Relationships matter Zhengfei says: “I do not know anything about technology, but I can bring
people together to work for the collective.” This statement signals a strong belief that there is
infinite strength in organization and collective efforts. Great things, in his view, can only be realized
if everyone is aware that as individuals, they are not that significant. It is all about working
together. He claims that when he founded Huawei, he no longer acted as a technical expert, but
became an organizer.
Humble leadership Zhengfei emphasizes his strength in putting people together and his belief in
the value of talking from the core to do ‘good’ for the organization. His philosophy seems to be
best served by displaying humble leadership. Value-driven leadership Zhengfei argues that the core
value in business should be customers first. According to him, Huawei should always listen to
customers’ needs and expectations and this input should fuel the whole enterprise. It implies that
product development is not simply based on a reactive strategy towards what the competitors are
doing but, rather, on a belief that transformations happen with close collaboration between the
developer and the buyer. This means not simply producing to produce, but rather production based
on the recognition of true needs.
Having a vision – being proactive in the late 1990s, Huawei was doubling its revenue from year
to year. Most of its top managers concluded that they no longer needed much help from foreign
experts. Not Zhengfei. Even in such prosperous times, he did not hesitate to ask IBM to help in
developing and implementing better management systems. This example not only illustrates the
openness of the founder but also signals the proactive nature of his leadership.
When a follower becomes a leader All of this has contributed to the fact that Huawei is better
prepared than most Chinese companies to start thinking as a global rather than a local player, and
to act as an independent entity in a largely government-driven economy.
Huawei challenges:
Today, the challenge for Huawei is to act as a true leader of the industry. And the path to true
leadership is never easy nor smooth. The company faces several challenges in an ever more
complex and global industry.
The primary challenge: lies in maintaining the company’s global leading position while at the
same time trying to incorporate an international focus further into the management of the
company. Now, about two-thirds of the company’s revenue is generated internationally.
Furthermore, overseas offices of Huawei are increasingly localized. For example, the company’s
R&D centers in the US (Santa Clara, Austin, Texas), Canada, Japan, Sweden, Munich, UK and Russia
primarily help in recruiting local talent. Huawei is also faced with many Chinese expats coming back
home. These expats, however, do not think in terms of the old and traditional Chinese management
models.
Huawei must work on several management issues inside the company while at the same time
creating a more open company culture (ie. increased international market share will lead to
demands for greater transparency). These changes will be necessary to stay on top of the industry
without compromising the existence and effectiveness of its innovation strategies based on a
strong value driven culture.
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As Zhengfei prepares to pass on the leadership baton, it is imperative that leadership becomes
more shared without compromising the value that brought success and innovation. Huawei is
already known for employing a rotating system of CEOs, which fits with its belief that talent from
within the company can move through the ranks. Huawei is a big fan of the idea that anyone can be
transferred across different functions in order to prepare for a long-term career within the
company. The view is that the company will benefit in the long term when people are generalists
rather than specialists. It is unlikely that future leaders will embody the company’s values as
Zhengfei has done.
Huawei needs to work on making sure that its future leaders fully understand the values that
promote the company’s success and innovation. At the same time, they must also be given the
latitude and time to make the values their own. Values can only drive innovation and create a
supporting culture if the values are endorsed by leadership that is perceived as authentic and
sincere. The challenges faced by Huawei and its responses suggest that it is moving in the direction
of becoming a learning organization with shared leadership and management through values.
A learning organization is characterized by the presence of a learning climate that is
participative in nature. In this climate, senior managers and junior employees work and experiment
together to try out new ideas and failure is allowed in the pursuit of growth and progress. Across
different levels within the company, everyone can participate in the value-creation process. And
exactly, because of this reason, it is important that the values that make the company are widely
recognized and supported. Huawei is paving the way for a change, so that the change is embraced,
allowing innovation to follow. This idea is reflected in a proverb used by the company: “The only
thing unchanged is change”.
Source:
Cremer, David & Zhang, Jess. (2014). Huawei to the future. Business Strategy Review. 25, Available at:
http://www.jite.org/documents/DCVol03/v03-01-Huawei.pdf (Accessed: 20th September 2019)

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