IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jocebs/v19y2021i4p359-385.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Connection issues: a study on the limitations of knowledge transfer in Huawei’s African training centres

Author

Listed:
  • Henry Tugendhat

Abstract

Huawei has built several training centres across Africa. This study establishes the purpose of these centres in Kenya and Nigeria and presents original data on their success based on their objectives. Fieldwork was conducted in 2018 and follow-up interviews continued by phone until 2021. I find that Huawe’s investments offer no significant opportunities for knowledge transfers that could foster technological or industrial upgrading in Kenya or Nigeria’s telecommunications sectors. In part, this is due to domestic obstacles in the host countries. But, like other international equipment vendors operating in the region, knowledge transfers are also hindered by the limited scope of Huawei’s investments and the boundaries on the knowledge it is willing to share with domestic employees. I conclude that Kenya and Nigeria’s governments may underestimate the leverage they have over international equipment vendors to induce more meaningful opportunities for knowledge transfer.

Suggested Citation

  • Henry Tugendhat, 2021. "Connection issues: a study on the limitations of knowledge transfer in Huawei’s African training centres," Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 359-385, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jocebs:v:19:y:2021:i:4:p:359-385
    DOI: 10.1080/14765284.2021.1943194
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14765284.2021.1943194
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/14765284.2021.1943194?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Linda Calabrese & Xiaoyang Tang, 2023. "Economic transformation in Africa: What is the role of Chinese firms?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(1), pages 43-64, January.
    2. El Kadi, Tin, 2024. "Learning along the Digital Silk Road? Technology transfer, power, and Chinese ICT corporations in North Africa," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 122001, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jocebs:v:19:y:2021:i:4:p:359-385. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RCEA20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.