Transactions of the Academic Association for Organizational Science
Online ISSN : 2186-8530
ISSN-L : 2186-8530
Huawei’s Employee Shareholding Scheme:
Who Owns Huawei?
Toshio GOTO
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JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

2021 Volume 10 Issue 1 Pages 237-243

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Abstract

This paper aims at empirically analyzing Huawei’s employee shareholding scheme behind its rapid growth to make it the leading Chinese communication manufacturer, with a particular focus on its governance aspect, which the literature has not revealed in depth. With a research question as “Who owns Huawei?”, it sheds light on the background and mechanism of the firm’s scheme and its role in the firm’s governance, drawing on publicly available sources, the preceding literature, and information provided by Huawei upon request. This paper contributes to the literature with following findings: Huawei Technologies is wholly owned by its holding company named Huawei Investment & Holding, which implements an employee shareholding scheme through its trade union, and it is owned approximately 99 % of the share by employees. Under the restriction from issuing regular stock to its employees, the shares held by the employees are designed as phantom stocks, which come with shareholder rights, including dividends, voting and property rights, as articulated in the Company Law. With Employee Shareholders' Representative Commission as the firm’s highest decision-making body, Huawei is employee-owned and controlled, with the founder having veto and its trade union, which is legally independent from the scheme, as the nominal shareholder.

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