Reverse Outsourcing, Knowledge Base Reconfiguration, and Technological Autonomy of Latecomer Firms: A Case Study of Huawei

Abstract

Against the backdrop of core technology blockades and intensified global competition for innovation resources, how latecomer firms can break through technological barriers to achieve technological autonomy is an important question that demands both theoretical and practical answers. Traditional technology introduction pathways are constrained by blockades from developed countries, while "reverse outsourcing" offers a viable pathway for latecomer firms to achieve technological autonomy. Drawing on the knowledge-based view, this paper defines reverse outsourcing as an innovation model in which latecomer firms proactively integrate global high-end innovation resources, reversely acquire frontier knowledge, and achieve autonomous internalization. Its core mechanism lies in reconfiguring the firm’s knowledge base through the importation, internalization, and recombination of external knowledge, thereby driving a qualitative transformation from “output capability” to “innovation capability.” This paper constructs a five-stage operation mechanism model, revealing the intrinsic mechanism through which reverse outsourcing empowers technological autonomy in latecomer firms via knowledge base reconfiguration. The findings reveal that reverse outsourcing, by substituting “talent embedding” for “technology introduction,” enables latecomer firms to directly capture frontier knowledge at the source of technology, and to bridge domestic innovation capability gaps through systematic reverse technology transfer. Using Huawei as a typical case, this paper validates the theoretical logic that reverse outsourcing reconfigures the knowledge base to drive technological autonomy in latecomer firms, providing a new theoretical explanation and practical reference for latecomer firms pursuing technological autonomy under technology blockade conditions.