These two leadership styles shaped Tencent's markethierarchy orientation culture and teamwork\innovation orientation culture respectively. Jack Ma, the cofounder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, is said be in Hong Kong to meet friends and finance executives, the Hong Kong Economic Times (HKET) reported on Friday, citing anonymous sources. For a while, Ma went back to his former job as a public servant, but then, in 1999, Ma persuaded his team at the ministry to go to Hangzhou and found the Alibaba Group [91]. Corrections? [39] However Forbes has not decreased his net worth as the shares are still listed under his name. Tencent also offers web portals, e-commerce, and multiplayer online gaming, among other things. No product starts perfect. He reportedly owns property in Hong Kong and art pieces worth US$150 million. Edisons role on the development of these technologies and later commercialization of them clearly qualifies him as visionary, innovator, and pioneer [18]. The World's 10 Most Powerful Executives This year's Forbes list (May 10, 2018) of the World Most Powerful included 75 namesone for every 100 million people on earth. But theyre allergic to rules. Unlike Western app constellations, Tencent combines as many features into one app as possible. Feature comparison between studied firms and founders. While the leadership style of Westerners haven't evolved much in the last decade, the new generation of Chinese leaders have made a great leap forward by . Hum. The evidences all seem to point to a conclusion that Jack Ma is an effective leader who has a seemingly well-developed emotional intelligence and flexible leadership style. Ma Chenshu, his father, acquired a position as a port manager in Shenzhen, and the young Ma went with him. April 6, 2021. 2022 The Author(s). Six years later, in 2005, Alibaba attracted the attention of Yahoo!, which bought a 40 percent stake. Its business roughly splits into three. This chapter reviews relevant literature in order to identify the leadership framework and profile that may better characterize entrepreneurs and business leaders that eventually founded or developed disruptively successful firmspopularly known as unicorns. Next, the chapter describes a conducted multi-case study that demonstrates a strong correlation between the positive checkmarks in the selected leadership frameworkvisionary leadershipand the profile of the leaders of nine different international corporations that became industry leaders in less than 20years (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, General Electrics, Toyota, Alibaba, Tencent, and Inditex). Established Western platforms such as Facebook are embedded in peoples crystal-screen portable friends. Over the years, Tencent has quietly bought stakes in major players such as Activision Blizzard, which puts out Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush. . The key leadership style of Ma Huateng is transformational, as he has been able to inspire his employees to achieve great things Autocratic leaders make all the decisions without consulting their followers. There is some dispute among scholars regarding the quality of Pages leadership strength, especially during his early tenure [56]. However, less work has been done in terms of determining which frameworks would suit better some particular organizational outputs. At an internal leadership conference, its creator, Xiaolong Zhang, put the products success down to simplicity and agility. As of January 2021, Ma is worth $46.8 billion which places him . Tencent has 85,858 employees, of which 46 are in a leadership position. (TIE) Zhao Changpeng (Canada) Bloomberg. The three most common leadership styles include skill based, trait based, and behavior based approaches. The rm supports a mind-bending number of apps directed at improving peoples everyday digital lives, including its own version of Uber, Didi Dache. 2.0Leadership Style of Pony Ma Huateng When starting-up of Tencent Company, Pony Ma was a transactional leader who leads his subordinates through transactions which is more emphasize on quality of product and the relationship with employees is more like in contract form. Formative years and academics The birthplace of Ma is Chaoyang, Shantou, Guangdong province. Therefore, the framework that appeared to suit the best in terms of analyzing environments that combine entrepreneurship and innovation is that of visionary leadership [20, 21, 22]. Ma quickly embraced open-source software. QQ and Facebook reigned supreme in the PC era and were modied to suit mobile. Ma led research and development of Internet paging system development at China Motion Telecom Development before starting Tencent in 1998. He started off by improving his communication skills and also learned English. Agility was their ability to do it. Because of his alternative approach to leadership, which BK is all about, we took a deep dive into what makes Nadella so special and why he's a leader to look . Tencent. There are few companiessimilar to Apple, Microsoft, or Googlethat are really disruptively successful over the span of, for instance, a decade, so it is not possible to collect enough samples as to conduct a statistical study. Apple Inc., a multinational technology company, was founded by Steven Paul Jobsknown as Steve Jobsin 1977, in Los Altos, California, USA [38]. The idea was a watershed moment for Chinas mobile market, bringing more than eight million users to Tencents WeChat Payment platform in the rst eight days after the New Year. [33], Since Tencent's prized service OICQ was offered free of charge, the company looked to venture capitalists to finance its growing operational costs. 2. Taobao did not charge a fee but made money from online services and advertising. Tencent's market hierarchy and teamwork innovation orientation cultures were shaped by these two leadership styles, respectively. Tencent made over $56 billion in revenue in 2019, alone. Larry Page met Sergey Brin when Larry entered the doctorate program at Stanford. Bill Gates clearly fits in the description of an innovator, a pioneer, and a supporter of organized learning and growth [45, 67, 71, 72, 73]. He didnt want to lead, he said. It can be observed that, in 89% of the cases, the leaders either outperform their already outperforming firms, in terms of value rankingsBill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Amancio Ortega or enjoy even more prestige and recognition than the companies that they started up. In 1859, Edison quit school and began working as a train boy on the railroad between Detroit and Port Huron. Best known as the brains behind the WeChat messaging app and Player Unknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), Pony Ma is a man who knows how to turn an idea into hard cash. [32], Talking about the founding of Tencent, he told China Daily in a 2009 interview that "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants", paraphrasing a quote attributed to Isaac Newton and referencing the similarities between ICQ and OICQ. Leadership. Ma now sits atop the world's fth most valuable public rm, worth US$556 billion (402 billion). [Google Scholar] Vera, D.; Crossan, M. Strategic leadership and organizational learning. With this high score, he would have been able to attend Tsinghua University in Beijing, or Fudan University in Shanghai. Google was started in 1998 in Menlo ParkCalifornia, USA. Thats why we allow those who understand the needs of younger users to do the job, said Ma. The company's first product came after Ma participated in a presentation for ICQ, the world's first Internet instant messaging service, founded in 1996 by an Israeli company. Ideas are not important in China execution is [95]. This is related to our culture. Home > Ma has been compared to American investor Warren Buffett for their similar investment approaches, and often described as an "aggressive acquisitor". Employees share insights, software and entire bodies of code from other parts of the business. Steve Jobs leadership style & personality. (with Q and QQ used to stand for the word cute). London Business School takes your privacy seriously. Employees become disengaged. The only large-enough Western European disruptively successful company that also met the criteria was the Spanish firm Inditexnumber 67 as per market capitalization [29]. Its not about money. Ma changed the softwares name to QQ in December 2000. By 1980, Gates managed to convince a large computer manufacturing multinational, IBM, to depend on Microsoft for every software related to personal computers (PCs). In terms of actively supporting internal growth: When you go out into the workplace, you should be looking for things that you can do for your people there. Ma Huateng is a business tycoon, an entrepreneur, an engineer, a philanthropist, and an investor. He is the son of Ma Chenshu and Huang Huiqing. If you havent registered yet, please register and log in. In May 2005, Facebook received additional money from a venture capital firm (US$12.7 million) [74]. China, Tencent Holdings Limited; Ma Huateng. Tencent subsequently gained the backing of two overseas venture-capital firms, and in June 2004 the firm raised nearly $200 million when it went public on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Next, the chapter describes a conducted multi-case study that tested the actual possible correlation between the chosen leadership framework and the profile of the leaders of their disruptively successful corporations. In the case of entrepreneurial leadership, Gupta, MacMillan, and Surie came up with a list of 19 leadership attributes that appeared to be the most relevant [17]. Ma led his company's leadership committee on a two-day hike through the Gobi Desert for their off-site retreat last year, according to Bloomberg. Googles innovation model is based on a hubGoogleplexthat attracts talent; this is the same model than Edisons [50, 52, 53]. As Steve Jobs, Mas idol, once quipped, If you dont cannibalise yourself, someone else will. Yet few, in the West at least, have heard of it. The rm also invested US$1.8 billion (1.3 billion) in Tesla. (26.8 billion). BAT Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent are Chinas power gang. Ma sensed this threat: Some say that mobile internet just means adding mobile in front of the internet as an adjective, but I felt it was more than an extension. According to Ma, "giving up is the greatest failure. He summarised seven deadly sins of product managers, saying that developers undermine their products by convoluting them beyond recognition: Spending core resources and time repeatedly on the optimisation of the obvious characteristics is basically the mania of novice internet entrepreneurs.. Alibabas business model bets a revolutionary innovation: Mas belief that the small-business-to-small-business online market offered much greater opportunity than the consumer-to-consumer one, the reason being that, unlike consumers, small businesses are willing to pay a membership fee [91]. Not in China. Ma himself was hailed by Time magazine in 2014 as one of the world's most influential people. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. Ayahnya bekerja sebagai manajer di pelabuhan Shenzen. Later, the company provided users with a range of innovative online lifestyle services. These services included online media outlets, e-commerce outlets, gaming options, social media sites, online advertising, and an online payment option [94]. IntechOpen Limited 4. As PhD students, we found it difficult to access the research we needed, so we decided to create a new Open Access publisher that levels the playing field for scientists across the world. Liqing Zeng looked like a boss and thats why we asked him to take care of sales and marketing. Ma Huateng is the Chinese Billionaire Co-Founder, CEO, and Chairman of Tencent, one of Asia's largest technology companies. Ma Huateng. 2.2.2. Jack Mas decline in net worth to $20.6 billion follows his retreat from the internet business empire he cofounded. On the opposite, transactional leaders, which frequently are less successful in terms of outcomes [5], usually adopt four possible approaches which are (1) contingency rewardrewards in exchange of support, (2) management by exception (active)monitoring and just acting when a corrective deed is necessary, (3) management by exception (passive)no monitoring and just acting when a corrective deed is necessary, and (4) laissez faireleadership avoidance [6, 7]. During the last two decades, there is an increasing number of leadership theories and frameworks. Inditex produces a significant amount of its production in-house and makes sure that its own factories reserve 85% of their capacity for in-season adjustments [77]. He considered the next generation better positioned to dream up the next big product idea. By giving the project the green light, Ma, in eect, gave Zhang full licence to cannibalise the existing QQ product. And with Tencent, thats what they get. Ultimately, though, the combination of Onhos leadership and revolutionary innovation transformed Toyota from being an average car maker in Japan to becoming the number one global leader. We hope you enjoy our thought leadership. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. His proposal was based on reducing production costs by using less expensive materials and more efficient manufacturing systems. But, as it matured, Ma felt the risk of the rm falling into bad habits weigh heavy. Zhang emailed Ma asking for permission to create a competitor to Kik Messenger, founded in 2009 by a group of students from the University of Waterloo in Canada. Finally, Ortega saw an opportunity of appealing to a much broader audience by selling garment at extremely competitive prices. Part of WeChats early success was its likeness to WhatsApp and Kik, designed for the smartphone. Inditexs supply chain operations focus on three aspects: maximizing resources used, minimizing inventory, and minimizing lead times [78]. An overwhelming percentage of the disruptively successful companies in the top 100 as per market capitalization are American and, mostly, they are located in Silicon Valley. Under Mas leadership Tencent greatly expanded its offerings to provide users with a range of what the company described as online lifestyle services. In addition to instant messaging, those services included e-commerce sites, online media outlets, gaming and other interactive entertainment, social networking sites, online advertising, and online payment processing. Following the AOL lawsuit, Ma wanted to broaden Tencents business portfolio. Ma Huateng better known as Pony Ma is the elusive founder, chairman and chief executive of Chinas titan tech rm Tencent. Reflects change since 5 pm ET of prior trading day. The Oxford Dictionary defines agility as the ability to move quickly and easily, which is the foundation on which Ma built the business. Table 1 summarizes the findings on rankings associated with the four above-mentioned features. He then worked as a researcher for China Motion Telecom Development Ltd. before founding Tencent in 1998. Shares of Ma Huateng's internet gaming giant rose 14% so far this year to the highest in two years, thanks to strong demand for its mobile games during coronavirus lockdowns. Pony Ma, the low-profile founder of tech giant Tencent Holdings, created a social media stir over the weekend by reposting an article on China's economy, an unusual breaking of silence by a . Ma is China's richest man, with a net . Many other tech rms, such as Facebook when it acquired WhatsApp and Instagram, have legitimised internal competition. Alternatively, Call of Duty or Candy Crush might be the vehicle that realises the global ambitions. Ma is a member of the 5th Shenzhen Municipal Peoples Congress and the 12th National Peoples Congress, according to the official Tencent website. [19] Ma Huateng ranks fourth in the list of Forbes's China's 100 Richest, with a net worth of US$23.4 billion in December 2022. First, they adopted BASIC, a programming language used at the time on larger computers, as the core of their work. The power of cross-cultural collaboration, Leading digital transformation: what you must know, Discover fresh perspectives and research insights from LBS. Some quotes from Ma that also proves his talent as an inspirator and team builder are as follows: A good boss is better than a good company; If we are a good team and know what we want to do, one of us can defeat ten of them; We never lack money. UNITED KINGDOM, Leadership - Advancing Great Leadership Practices and Good Leaders, Leadership - Advancing Great Leadership Practices and Good Leaders [Working Title], Ranked in the list of the 20 most influential Americans of all times [, Ranked in the top of the greatest innovators of all times according to the Lemelson-Mit Invention Index [, Lean manufacturing, Just-In-Time (JIT), and derivative approaches created by Ohno are still currently used by a large percentage of manufacturing firms [, Industria de Diseo Textil, S.A. (Inditex). Ma Huateng dilahirkan di provinsi Guangdong, China pada 29 oktober 1971 dengan nama . Tencent launched its own portal (QQ.com) in 2003 and entered the online games sector. As a world, were doing a better job of that. In 1976, back in Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs and his former friend, Stephen Wozniak, worked on a computer design of their own, the Apple I [39]. China is home to the world's second-largest number of billionaires after the United States. 2004, 29, 222-240. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Tencent, which is China's most valuable company. Tencent Holdings Ltd., also known as Tencent, is a Chinese multinational technology conglomerate holding company founded by Ma Huateng in 1998. Please enter a keyword and click the arrow to search the site, How the man behind the Chinese goliath keeps innovating. The other most plausible alternative option, direct interviews or direct surveys, would not have been doable, given the challenge of obtaining response from a large number of highly profiled business leaders. [27] He received a Bachelor of Science in computer and applied engineering from Shenzhen University in 1993. Chairman and CEO, Tencent Holdings. In 1999, Alibaba Group, an online trading company, was established by Jack Ma, a former English teacher, in Hangzhou City, China [90]. 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