Search

The Fintech and Industry 4.0 paradigms, and the combination of the two, have gained increasing attention from the scientific community in recent years. This paper aims to explore the convergence of these two research themes by framing their interplay through a systematic literature review covering the period of 2017 to August 2021 and involving 78 papers. The bibliometric approach made it possible to extract a large amount of useful information which was previously scattered and to present it in a systematic way. The analysis of the co-occurrence network of keywords identified four distinct clusters, corresponding to the dominant research themes in the area, which suggested the design of a research agenda. The agenda-driven questions indicated which current aspects of Fintech and Industry 4.0 need additional insight. In that regard, the environmental and social responsibility aspects of the firms in the sectors were found of particular importance. Theoretical and practical implications of this study as well as answers provided to a set of initially posed research questions were also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the barriers that impact operational excellence plans, when considering continuous improvement and Industry 4.0 practices. The paper is pioneering and transversal, considering organizations with different expertise, in 10 different countries. The study makes a joint quantitative and qualitative analysis and proposes a framework to show the impact on human resources and operations management. For this, it carries out a quali-quantitative study, carried out with the aid of a semi-structured questionnaire, sent to 91 organizations. The quantitative study was performed using interdependent multivariate analysis, resulting in an exploratory factorial study and exploration of principal components. The qualitative study evaluated propositions that impact operations management. The results show the variables that impact the operations management and human resources, in terms of quality, technologies and processes, when considering the implementation of an operational excellence plan and Industry 4.0 practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is paving the way for new and disruptive approaches to managing operations, innovation, and supply chains. Africa cannot ignore this revolution and afford to stand by while the rest of the world moves forward. In this paper, I invite scholars in the broader field of operations management and innovation to take part in the dialogue, undertake research to advance Africa in the 4IR era, publish their work to ensure that what happens in Africa does not remain in Africa, and inspire or be inspired by others around the world. Consequently, I provide an overview of four papers that were presented at the second African Operations Management Conference in 2019. The conference was hosted by the University of South Africa in partnership with the Africa Automation Fair. These papers focus on the readiness of academic institutions to produce graduates that possess 4IR skill sets, the options available to firms to manage their dependency on suppliers' supply chain innovation, the design dimensions that impact a supply chain network to perform effectively and operate with resilience while facing disruptions, and the individual components of contractor commitment to incorporate into the decision-making process to deliver road infrastructure projects in a sustainable and socially responsible manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a structured literature review (SLR) on knowledge management (KM), digital transformation (DT), and Industry 4.0, defining these new research streams' interactions, ties, and interdependencies. Playing an essential role in a progressive discipline, our research summarises the state of the art of the past literature using rigorous methodological approach. The researchers adopt the Scopus database in their analysis and use the Bibliometrix R package. The analysis reveals 761 peer-reviewed English articles. The study shows several research clusters: KM and DT; KM and innovation ecosystems; KM and frontier technologies; and KM, decision-making, and Industry 4.0. Additionally, our paper contributes to identifying a flourishing field of research that has uncovered a previously unknown and exciting link between KM, DT, and the public sector. Finally, the article emphasises the crucial role of DT in KM development, addressing future research perspectives as quantitative and joint academics and practitioners' analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unfolding of the digital transformation, often associated with the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, has been attracting increasing attention in diverse academic disciplines. The related research has already populated several special issues that represent important guideposts for future studies on the topic. However, a paper collection with an 'Industry and Innovation' perspective, dealing with how firms behave, innovate, and perform in the new industrial paradigm, is still missing. This special issue aims to fill this gap. The six research articles investigate how firms face digital transformation from three different angles, looking at its determinants, the patterns of its unfolding, and its techno-economic effects. The variety of the theoretical backgrounds, data sources, and empirical methodologies, along with the originality and managerial/policy relevance of their results, make the special issue a privileged point of view to investigate the new industrial paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at examining the role played by Industry 4.0 (I4.0) on the relationship between knowledge management (KM) practices (i.e., knowledge acquisition, knowledge dissemination, and responsiveness to knowledge) and innovation performance (represented by process and product innovation). For that, 153 practitioners from manufacturing firms in India and Brazil were surveyed. The data were analysed through multivariate data techniques. This study was grounded on the concepts from the socio-technical systems theory. Our findings indicated that I4.0 design principles positively moderate the relationship between KM practices and innovation performance. In particular, this moderation seems to be more prominent for product innovation performance, although it was also found for process innovation performance. I4.0 design principles determine the expected mindset and behaviours in companies undergoing digital transformation. Our research showed that the effect of KM practices on innovation performance may be boosted when I4.0 design principles are extensively integrated into organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of a Treasury department in a commercial bank has increased in recent decades. After the 2008 financial crisis the remit of a bank Treasury has expanded in terms of scope and strategic significance, evolving from a transactional cash manager to a balance sheet custodian. In order to meet this broader strategic mandate Treasurers must consider ways to become more efficient and streamlined. Adoption of digital technologies and related innovation that underpins the Fourth Industrial Revolution can address many of the traditional Treasury challenges and deliver a wide range of benefits. The adoption of digital technology in bank Treasuries tend to be lower than in other business areas within a bank. There are a number of reasons, but it often includes the lack of a well-articulated digital transformation roadmap. There is thus a need for researching a Treasury specific approach that can provide guidance on developing a digital implementation strategy and enable the transition towards a next generation 'smart' digital Treasury department. This paper focusses on a key component of digital transformation, namely performing a Digital Maturity Assessment. It is essential to determine the digital maturity level of a Treasury function, in order to ensure the appropriate Treasury activities and digital technologies are identified and prioritized for digitalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industry 4.0 (I.4.0) has a significant impact on firms, supply chains and in contexts where firms have built tight relations with high levels of interactions in a delimited geographical area. An industrial district (ID) represents an extraordinary field for empirical investigation to understand how the knowledge linked to the I.4.0 technological paradigm can be absorbed and disseminated. However, the current literature has focused its attention on the effect of I.4.0 on the IDs at an aggregate level, while little is known about the role of the firms within the IDs. This research aims to fill this gap by looking at two dimensions: absorption and dissemination. We focused our attention on 101 firms belonging to four Tuscan IDs: the Santa Croce tanning district, the Florentine leather district, the Prato textile district and the Arezzo jewellery district. This research broadens the literature about absorption and dissemination within IDs enlightening the behaviour of firms in IDs, where they can play different roles: 'traditionalist', 'bridge', 'isolated' and 'opportunist'. From a practical perspective, this paper shows firms their role played within IDs. From this research it comes out that competencies 4.0, culture 4.0 and collaboration are the key aspects for turning IDs into IDs 4.0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industry 4.0 requires that manufacturing firms not only innovate but also generate more radical and different varieties of innovation, often incorporating new types of knowledge. To advance such types of innovation, several studies in Innovation and Economic Geography foreground that firms need to combine knowledge in novel ways. The contribution of this paper is to investigate in-depth how manufacturing firms with traditional roots combine new generative knowledge in and beyond a local productive system (LPS), what enables them to access and integrate such knowledge from external sources, and how this relates to the firms' innovation performance, with a focus on radical and varied forms of innovation. Findings show that firms standing out in terms of innovation performances combine complementary types of knowledge through internal and external sources, particularly at national and international levels. Moreover, firms that have complementary knowledge internally are able to access new knowledge beyond the borders of the LPS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fourth Technological Revolution has become a reality and profound changes and restructuring in the markets for 4.0 technologies are taking place with important spatial consequences. The paper demonstrates this statement through an empirical analysis based on an original large-scale patent database covering the creation of all 4.0 technologies across all European NUTS-2 regions in the period 2000–15. Regions exist in Europe characterized by a 4.0 technological leadership achieved in the absence of a strong pre-existing 3.0 technological base. By scaling up the existing technological seeds, these islands of innovation can act as best-practice examples for areas that are still lagging behind from the technological point of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few decades, the role of institutions has received renewed attention as a key factor to foster regional growth and innovative performance, raising researchers' interest in assessing the mechanisms through which the institutional framework could affect innovation. This paper, by focusing attention to the Emilia-Romagna context, empirically investigates the effects on innovative capacity related to higher institutional quality and to its dimensions. This region, in fact, provides – due to the performance achieved in the new economic scenario (EMU, globalisation, Industry 4.0) – a relevant testing ground to verify the extent to which the evolution of regional institutions has favoured the creation of a fertile ecosystem able to promote innovative capacity. The main findings reveal a positive role associated with two fundamental institutional components: the quality of public services (government effectiveness) and the degree of association and social cooperation (voice and accountability), which represent the most important institutional dimensions in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industry 4.0 brings a revolution in using information and communication technologies within business activities. As such, Industry 4.0 enables important space for quality-related improvements but requires a sustained quality management system (QMS). The aim of this study is to predict the influence of ISO 9004:2018 QMS elements on Improvement, Learning, and Innovation achievements in Industry 4.0 using the SEM-ANN approach. The survey included 345 domestic and international companies of different types operating in Serbia. Conclusions demonstrate a direct positive influence between observed constructs (Leadership, Process Management, Resource Management, Performance Management) and Improvement, Learning, and Innovation. Only the Context and Identity of the organisation has a negative direction drawn from SEM analysis. Further, ANN verified SEM results, pointing out that all observed variables are seen as predictors of Improvement, Learning, and Innovation. The importance level corresponds to those elements' SEM ranking. The paper could provide a roadmap towards achieving sustainable results in quality improvement, learning, and innovation in Industry 4.0 era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the spread of Industry 4.0 technologies in two globalized, manufacturing industries. It then goes on to suggest ways in which the widespread adoption and integration of these technologies may impact upon their geographical distribution – not least engaging new regions and perhaps altering the significance of established ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New technologies make competitiveness very important issue for all social strata. Newly found autonomy, individual mobility and other freedoms generated by technologies may pose new challenges for interaction between the state and an individual. IT, including artificial intelligence, big data and machine learning may make the human value less important. These changes make governments search to improve nations' prospects. However, recipes useful before Third Industrial revolution may be counterproductive nowadays. In this paper, we explore in more detail some of the current tendencies and implications for national competitiveness and economic growth as well as offer possible venues for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages with debates in academic literatures over Industry 4.0 (i4.0) and the Future of Work (FoW), critiquing their development in practical isolation from each other despite i4.0 recently coming to resemble in policymaking a widely adopted narrative for the FoW in the digital age. We argue that beyond their own individual inadequacies, both approaches have common failings. We conceptualise the role of i4.0 in shaping the FoW in terms of the development of global value chains and i4.0's implications for their digitalisation, where there is an underdeveloped analysis of change. We argue that the clearest expression of i4.0 is in the impact of 'platform capitalism', which already has implications for workers in the Global South and which, via i4.0's digital integration with production, will potentially have significant implications for the quality of work in the Global North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digitization and its impact on regions and clusters remains overlooked in the literature, and constitute this present paper's goal. How does an industrial district transit collectively to the adoption of new radical changes brought about by Industry 4.0? This study explores the role of collective actors and innovation platforms during the early stages of a pilot policy to stimulate a collective transition of an entire MID (Marshallian Industrial District) into Industry 4.0. We posit that institutional isomorphism and the existent social capital in MIDs is a double-sword phenomenon that can also positively constitute an enabler for fostering change on a collective-basis. Technology transitions, such as Industry 4.0, can be supported and led by collective actors that are central in facilitating the adoption of Industry 4.0 in MIDs, enticing innovative firms to engage in that transition, establishing, legitimizing, and embedding a new set of processes, practices and inter-firm arrangements for digitizing and then promoting imitation: the positive leverage of isomorphism. Thus, MID transition is facilitated through capitalizing on the MID logic of cooperation-competition and isomorphism, by developing and promoting a collective understanding of the new paradigm, building a supportive infrastructure, educating in the new technology and avoiding cognitive inertia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper was to explore how small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) employ technology to integrate industrial supply chains and to participate in global supply chains in the context of the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0). This study chose four textile SMEs from Taiwan, using multiple case studies to explore their participation in global value chains. By focusing on the needs of the SME sector we also discuss why IoT as-a-Service (IoTaaS) might be an appropriate concept in the context of Industry 4.0. We found that textile SMEs can connect to global value chains through the following three roles: original equipment manufacturer of clothing, brand clothing manufacturer, and intermediate trader. They can also participate in global value chains by collaborating with supply chain partners. This participation occurs both vertically and horizontally through value creation models with one of the following four foci: (1) increasing production efficiency, (2) improving negotiation skills for larger and more orders from international suppliers, (3) grasping channel needs and management, and (4) creating novel customer service experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I demonstrate that China is building an Augmented National innovation system or ANIS, with semiconductor industry and AI at the core. There are two dimensions along which China's NIS has been augmented. One is to move toward a more egalitarian innovation system in accordance with the goal of creating a harmonious, moderately prosperous economy and society. And the other is to include the AI and semiconductor base for high technology for the 4th Industrial Revolution. The Chinese ANIS has important regional and geoeconomic implications for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In modern business, Industry 4.0 has brought in a technological transformation in which digital technologies provide improving quality in many aspects. Therefore, this research aims to explore the influence of leadership on quality achievements within Industry 4.0, connoting Quality 4.0. Accordingly, this research observes the mutual relations among all QMS elements encompassed in ISO 9004:2018 in the context of Quality 4.0. The developed research model consists of one independent variable: Leadership; and five dependent variables: Context and Identity; Resource Management; Process Management; Performance Management; Improvement, Learning, and Innovation. The survey is carried out through a questionnaire distributed among 345 companies of different types, ages, sizes, and industries. Gathered data are analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) to perceive relationships between the variables. Findings indicate a direct positive influence among all observed variables, except the influence of Process Management on Improvement, Learning, and Innovation as Quality 4.0 achievements. The findings could have significant implications on leaders' knowledge on investigating a roadmap to implement the well-based QMS to achieve sustainable results in Quality 4.0 improvement, learning, and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We stand on the brink of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, that will fundamentally change our world. Not only the main characteristics of the Industry 4.0 are presented, but the intended and unintended consequences of the digital revolution are also listed. This study examines some of the strongest sustainability indicators of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, applying a sustainability assessment model. Then employing the methodology provided by the Technology Foresight Programme (TFP), a comparison matrix is drawn with respect to values and processes. Results indicate that a comprehensive preliminary sustainability analysis is essential to minimize the negative impacts of Industry 4.0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of innovation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution euphoria are not mutually exclusive and require a focused assessment on the readiness of governments around the world. Such assessments are more compelling for developing countries to determine their level of preparedness regarding changing global technological innovations. This is essential since public institutions across the globe are usually faced with a challenge of providing quality goods and services to the citizens. Innovative public health management strategies and approaches are seen as mechanisms that may provide solutions towards service delivery improvement; this also include developing countries such as South Africa. However, as highlighted in this article, public institutions are often characterized by various innovative management impediments and lack of effective innovative management considerations. These challenges are often blamed for untenable approaches to service delivery improvements in the public sector. With a distinct focus on the Department of Health in Limpopo province, this article focuses on the innovative public health management measures necessary for improvement in the public service. This is a necessary sub-national government posture that requires customized interventions regarding the local health needs of Limpopo province. In order to pursue the aforementioned study objective, the current researchers opted for a qualitative research approach. Semi-structured interviews and focus group discussion were used in succession as data collection strategies. These were conducted on Provincial health managers and District councils as respondents who were considered informative on the utilization of modern innovations. Document analysis was also considered critical for this approach to consider the manner in which the Provincial Department of Health operationalizes its conception of innovation within its systems. The findings highlight a need for innovative interventions, necessary to enhance the provision of public health services within the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has the potential to transform emerging economies to another developmental echelon by increasing productivity and improving future fluidity of innovation across various industries. Predictively, 4IR in emerging economies will come with newest technologies that are disruptive. This technological innovation will cause changes not only in industries and business but also in societies in general. The current article is based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) of secondary data sources, mainly peer reviewed reputable journal articles. The purpose is to draw conclusions and to identify the research gaps. Results depicted that the key challenge is for the emerging economies to establish ways of engaging themselves into Global Value Chains (GVCs) that are dynamic in nature. Future researchers are encouraged to consider alternative methodologies to examine 4IR and GVCs nexus with emerging economies' within a longitudinal research design. Systematic literature review in the current article is based on a structural analysis methodology to frame the categories of the major analysis in combination with scientific rigour to a broad and complex problem. The current scientific research study contributes to theory, practice and future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]