fourth industrial revolution research paper

Dwelling within the fourth industrial revolution: organizational learning for new competences, processes and work cultures

Journal of Workplace Learning

ISSN : 1366-5626

Article publication date: 24 July 2021

Issue publication date: 10 January 2022

This paper aims to address the relevance and impact of the fourth industrial revolution through a theoretical and practical perspective. The authors present both the results of a literature review, highlighting the new competences required in innovative workplaces and a pivotal case, which explores challenges and skill models diffused in industry 4.0, describing the role of proper organizational learning processes in shaping new work cultures.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper aims to enhance the discussion around the 4.0 industrial revolution addressing both a theoretical framework, valorizing the existing scientific contributes and the situated knowledge, embedded in a concrete organizational context in which the fourth industrial revolution is experienced and practiced.

The findings acquired through the case study endorse what the scientific literature highlights about the impact, the new competences and the organizational learning paths. The conclusions address the agile approach to work as the more suitable way to place humans at the center of technological progress.

Research limitations/implications

The paper explores a specific organizational context, related to a high-tech multinational company, whose results illustrate the empirical evidence sustaining transformations in the working, professional and organizational cultures necessary to face the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution. The research was conducted with the managers of an international company and this a specific and limited target, even though relevant and interesting.

Practical implications

The paper connects the case with the general scenario, this study currently faces, to suggest hints and coordinates for crossing the unfolding situation and finding suitable matching between technological evolution and the development of new work and professional cultures and competences.

Social implications

Due to the acceleration that the COVID-19 has impressed to the use of digital technologies and remote connexion, the paper highlights some ambivalences that the quick evolution of the new technologies entails in relation to work and social conditions.

Originality/value

The opportunity to match both a literature analysis and an in-depth situated case study enhances the possibility to achieve a more articulated and complex view of the viral changes generated in the current context by the digitalization process.

• Competences
• Organizational learning
• Fourth industrial revolution
• Technological innovation
• Work and organizational culture

Ivaldi, S. , Scaratti, G. and Fregnan, E. (2022), "Dwelling within the fourth industrial revolution: organizational learning for new competences, processes and work cultures", Journal of Workplace Learning , Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1108/JWL-07-2020-0127

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Silvia Ivaldi, Giuseppe Scaratti and Ezio Fregnan.

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

The world is facing huge changes in culture, society and economy which are direct consequences of the digital revolution, that is depicting a new dwelling place where we are challenged to live. Technologies play an essential role in the upcoming fourth industrial revolution, discussed on a global scale, as when the World Economic Forum (WEF) focused its attention on it in 2016 (WEF, 2016). This phenomenon is represented by an unprecedented level of automation and connectivity, based on artificial intelligence, big data, robotics and the internet of things (IoT). Such a modified scenario is changing our lives as social beings, citizens, consumers, professionals and practitioners inside the so-called Industry 4.0, characterized by a new conception of the manufacturing processes, decentralized and adopting systems based on the information and communications technologies ( Park, 2017 ).

Even though we are aware of the drivers of innovation (automation and connectivity), we are still far from a full understanding of the potential of this revolution in terms of both speed and extent. We can for instance take into consideration the almost unlimited possibilities of connecting billions of people by means of mobile devices, generating an unprecedented capacity for processing, archiving and accessing information ( Schwab, 2016 ).

As the first industrial revolution different phases changed our society, from rural/feudal to industrial/capitalist and then to industrial/tertiary. Automation and connectivity always played a crucial role in this process, along with the spasmodic search for increased productivity.

Many debates addressed the current situation, discussing its own features and highlighting both the advantages and risks it implies.

The first widely analyzed element is the very nature of this era and its orientation ( Park, 2017 ). Most of the worldwide economic community defines the current scenario as the fourth industrial revolution, but several established authors argue that just now we are living the first effects of the Third Industrial Revolution and soon we will experiment with its evolution ( Rifkin, 2016 ; Blinerd, 2006 ).

According to Klaus Schwab, we are going to experience a revolution and not just an evolution on the basis of three criteria: speed (due to today’s world, which is extremely heterogeneous and interconnected because of the increasingly performing technologies), range and intensity (combining different technologies the individual constantly changes at economic, corporate and social level); impact on the systems (whole systems can be transformed by such a radical change, including countries and the global society itself) ( Schwab, 2016 ).

A second element at the core of the debate on the fourth industrial revolution is the one between the so-called optimist and pessimist authors. The former group believes that in the long term the opportunities generated by new technologies will minimize the damages caused in the short term. Pessimists are convinced that we are facing a vertiginous free-fall toward the end of work and an undeniable consequent increase of inequalities at both global and intra-national levels ( MacCarthy, 2014 ).

Such first elements of discussion let many other issues emerge in the literature brings to light both concerns and opportunities related to the upcoming revolution. The main components resonating in this context include automation and connectivity again ( Schwab, 2016 ; Park, 2017 ; Prisecaru, 2016 ; Caravella and Menghini, 2018 ; Corazza, 2017 ; Blinerd, 2006 ), as well as all those technologies whose development is opening the way for progress and countless new possibilities, following an exponential growth model ( Caruso, 2017 ; Schwab, 2016 ).

The impact interests the physical area (e.g. autonomous vehicles, three-dimensional printers and advanced robotics), the digital area (e.g. IoT, platforms and IoS) and the biological area (e.g. artificial intelligence for genetics, biology and related applications).

Currently, technological innovations have strongly influenced every aspect of both economic and social life, impacting basic mechanisms as the development of the demand, as well as the accumulation of capital and the generation of employment ( Schwab, 2016 ).

Finally, the current scenario related to the COVID-19 pandemic has boosted the use and diffusion of technological devices (remote working, smart working, apps, analytics, etc.), answering the need to tackle the dramatic worldwide emergency we must face ( Carroll and Conboy, 2020 ).

Hence, the need for a deeper understanding of the challenges implied in becoming competent dwellers of the fourth industrial revolution’s scenario, specifically pointing out, in this contribution, the solicitations at stake in the organizational learning processes oriented to the achievement of new competences and work cultures.

What is the scientific contribution, moving from an interdisciplinary lens (socio-economic, managerial, work and organizational psychology fields), about the relevance and impact of the fourth industrial revolution?

What are the main implications for organizational learning processes?

What new approach to work, new competencies and cultural change need to be promoted due to the incoming technological and social scenario?

Seeking to face such questions, we will address both a theoretical framework, valorizing the existing scientific contributions through a literature review and the situated knowledge, embedded in the concrete organizational contexts, studying a specific workplace in which the fourth industrial revolution is experienced and practiced.

The paper unfolds as follows: first, we highlight the more relevant results of a literature review we made to provide a deeper exploration of the scientific contribution around the fourth industrial revolution, as a macro lens for reading the phenomenon from an interdisciplinary perspective in Section 2. Then we offer an account of the organizational learning implications that are required in this emerging work landscape, as a meso level viewpoint for acknowledging relevant shifting points in innovative workplaces in Section 3. After that we turn to a case study drawn from the field research, discussing its emblematic relevance in shaping new competences, processes and organizational cultures, as a micro-level stance for understanding the intertwined and embedded features of competence development in the emerging work environments in Section 4. We conclude by connecting the case with the general scenario we currently face, to suggest hints and coordinates for crossing the unfolding situation and finding suitable matching between technological evolution and pandemic emergency in Section 5.

2. Fourth industrial revolution in the scientific debate: a macro-level perspective

Taking into consideration the context illustrated in the introduction, a systematic literature review ( Tranfield et al. , 2003 ) has been conducted, following the Alvesson and Sandberg perspective ( Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013 ), to provide an overview of the available scientific contributions concerning the debate on the fourth industrial revolution, trying to understand orientations and relevant topics.

Mapping the contributions bringing to light the main focuses of the fourth industrial revolution;

Providing an exhaustive analysis of the selected contributions, distinguishing the main hypothesis at the basis of the current debate to investigate both its potential and challenges; and

Identifying the different perspectives adopted in literature and the different interpretations of the phenomenon.

The research process has been carried out using both databases and additional “open” sources. The considered time frame has been May 2008–May 2018. The used databases have been SCOPUS, ProQuest, JSTOR, Rivisteweb and Google Scholar, starting from some keywords to identify the potentially interesting articles for the study. The keywords used were: “fourth industrial revolution,” “industry 4.0,” “digital transformation,” “artificial intelligence” and “robot.”

A first selection phase was completed using as inclusive criteria: article peer-reviewed; with descriptions and interpretations of the fourth industrial revolution; with analysis of the impact of the digital transformation. Additional criteria to select the contributions have been that they had to belong to one of the following categories: scientific articles, documents of conferences about this issue, chapters of texts quoted more than once in the other articles. We identified the first sample of 117, among which 57 were excluded after abstract and title reading, while 60 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility as potentially interesting works, of which 29 articles have been the object of a deep qualitative analysis of their contents. A relevant turning point in this assessing process was the publication of Klaus Schwab’s book “The fourth industrial revolution” in 2016, which catalyzed the interest of the scientific community in all its implications (social, economic and organizational). The articles have been classified by year of publication, title, authors, focus and disciplinary field.

From the analysis of such contributions, we identified three leading topics : impact of the fourth industrial revolution on society as a whole; labor market and related technological unemployment; new competences for coping with the industrial revolution.

2.1 Impact on society

With relation to the impact on society, organizations and institutions, the literature analyzed tries to predict the future effects of the revolution on the different social systems. The awareness of the epochal change that we are going to live must serve to face its challenges, limiting the damage as much as possible and fully exploiting its potential ( Daemmrich, 2017 ; Makridakis, 2017 ; Schwab, 2016 ; Chung and Kim, 2016 ).

The literature review identifies both potentials [closeness and connection between people and institutions (hierarchies and bureaucracy will constitute a limit to production and diffusion of knowledge) and more aware and autonomous people and workers; more skilled and talented people] and risks [improvement of the gap due to the unequal distribution of resources and improvement of precariousness]. The potential of the new wave of technologies is to increase the level of productivity and growth but also to respond to global issues such as environmental sustainability. The risks concern the increase in social inequalities, the worsening of work conditions and technological unemployment ( Chung and Kim, 2016 ; Schwab, 2016 ; Park, 2017 ; Garrett, 2013 ).

Indeed, the continuous technological innovation takes place within a broader transformation of the economy as a whole, in an unfolding process of evolution from traditional models [global competition, mass customization, neo-liberalistic approaches in conceiving management and organizational processes ( Bondarouk and Brewster, 2016 ; Janssens and Steyaert, 2009 )], toward a development of services and new ways of sharing, circular and generative economy ( Stiegler, 2014 ; Butera, 2017 ), supported by digital technologies.

For what concerns the productive organizations, on the one hand, technologies such as artificial intelligence will most likely increase the number of automated jobs and consequently reduce the demand for work; on the other hand, the efficient functioning of new businesses will require highly qualified and talented employees. The management of talented individuals capable of implementing innovative ideas and strategies will become a real competitive advantage ( Makridakis, 2017 ). The centrality of talent requires a revision of organizational structures as flexible hierarchies, new ways to evaluate and reward performance and new strategies to attract and retain qualified personnel will become essential aspects for a successful business ( Schwab, 2016 ). Human capital and technological innovation will play the most important role in the success of companies ( Park, 2017 ), while the new employment contract will include continuing training as worker’s rights.

More in general, the digital transformation entails a revolution in the socio-cognitive models of our realities both in the individual and in the interactional and collective horizons. Regarding the social sphere, we are experiencing a real paradigm shift that involves the way we work, communicate and access information but also the way we express ourselves and spend our free time ( Schwab, 2016 ). We live perpetually connected to the network and this is paradoxically limiting communication and social relations. Hence, the need to acquire skills to dwell in a hybrid world in which it will not always be obvious to understand the nature of the interlocutors (human or artificial) and the environments (real or virtual) in which relationships are realized. Hence, also the need to rethink and redefine some typically social attitudes such as delegation, control, trust, autonomy, responsibility, dealing with the society of the future as “Internet society” ( Bakardjieva, 2005 ), “network society” ( Castells, 1996 ), “Knowledge-based society” ( Stehr, 1994 ), “cybersociety” ( Jones, 1998 ). Living in a knowledge-intensive society requires relevant learning processes at both individual and collective levels.

2.2 Labor market and technological unemployment

About the newly emerging work conditions, the great challenge we are going to face in the labor market requires an in-depth analysis of the employability of workers and the survival/growth of companies. This specific field of study focuses on the effects of the widespread implementation of new technologies on the labor market, aiming at evaluating possible consequences of the technological progress on the labor supply and demand, as well as on the workforce composition. The questions that the literature aims to answer are: will the new technologies generate widespread unemployment? Can they lead to the end of human labor? Are economic inequalities set to increase? What effect will the fourth industrial revolution have on the quality of human work that will survive it?

The publications by Brynjolfsson and McAfee “Race against the machine: how the digital revolution is accelerating innovation, driving productivity and irreversibly transforming employment and the economy” (2011) and “The second machine age” (2016), are particularly relevant as they provide valuable insights into the debate on future changes in the labor market. On the one hand, there are those who believe that the risk of computerization is overestimated (Berg et al. , 2018; Arntz et al. , 2017; David, 2015); on the other hand, there are those who state it is a realistic view of the decades to come and of the challenges we will experience ( Caravella and Menghini, 2018 ; Franzini, 2018 ; Schwab, 2016 ; Frey and Osborne, 2013 ). Many studies show that firms, which invest a lot of money in the development of their employees and in training activities incur big losses due to the lack of transfer of the new competences acquired in the workplace ( Caravella and Menghini, 2018 ; Park, 2017 ; Makridakis, 2017 ; Schwab, 2016 ; Prisecaru, 2016 ; Frey and Osborne, 2013 ).

We can highlight two opposite effects on employment described by literature: a disruptive effect, which leads to the replacement of the labor force by obliging workers to unemployment; a capitalization effect which, by increasing demand for new goods and services, leads to the creation of new jobs but also new companies and markets.

Digitized information has become the strategic resource par excellence and the network plays a crucial role in the organization of the economy and society as a whole;

The digital economy follows the double principle of increasing returns (because of positive network externalities) and marginal costs very close to zero;

New business models are emerging which, through collaboration and sharing, make it possible to take direct advantage of bilateral markets and the platform-based economy ( Schwab, 2016 ), accompanied by new competitive dynamics, dominated by the “winner takes all”;

Industry 4.0 allows “accelerated” production of customized mass goods because of the global fragmentation of value chains, the networking of production capacities and the overcoming of borders between producers, sellers and consumers on the one hand and between industry and services on the other; and

The cause-effect link between technological innovation and productivity has not yet been clearly established, as it is conditioned by the effective implementation of technological innovations at the social level and by organizational changes by companies.

From Caruso’s study, it emerges that all those transformations often referred to as the “fourth industrial revolution” have not so far satisfied any of the promises/hopes they have raised. Today the organization of work is no longer horizontal if not partially, workers do not seem to have obtained greater decision-making power and autonomy and work has only become more creative for a sub-fraction of highly skilled workers. On the other hand, work has become more precarious, linked to stricter standards and controls and with a significant weakening of the distinction between “working time” and “free time.” However, technological innovation is not something external to society, which is, on the contrary, its main generator and promoter. Today, due to the countless variables involved and the exponential rate of growth, it is very difficult to accurately predict the effects of the fourth industrial revolution ( Morrar et al. , 2017 ). Awareness of the epochal change that we are willing to experience must serve to face its challenges by limiting damage as much as possible and exploiting its potential to the full ( Daemmrich, 2017 ; Makridakis, 2017 ; Schwab, 2016 ; Chung and Kim, 2016 ). The technology that characterizes industry 4.0 can only reach its real potential in combination with social innovation. To seize the vast opportunities offered by the industrial revolution, technical and social innovations must coexist under the same “sustainability” roof ( Morrar et al. , 2017 ).

At stake is the focus on the development of transversal competences and the interaction between humans and machines to improve the sustainable dimensions of a production system. It is necessary that the implementation of new technologies is primarily oriented toward social and environmental sustainability ( Morrar et al. , 2017 ; Butera, 2017 ; Peters, 2017 ; Pak, 2017; Prisecaru, 2016 ; Romero et al. , 2016 ) and not to the economic interests of a few, who would lead to an increase in inequalities and/or further environmental damage. Linking new technologies and sustainability entails a relevant investment in organizational learning, seeking to shape the socio-material conditions suitable for such a key issue.

2.3 New competences to dwell within the digital revolution

Economic challenges: increasing globalization (intercultural skills, language skills, flexibility over time, networking skills and process understanding), increasing the need for innovation (entrepreneurial thinking, creativity, problem-solving, work under pressure, cutting-edge knowledge, technical skills, research skills and understanding of processes), demand for greater service orientation (conflict resolution, communication skills, knowing how to reach a compromise and networking skills), the need for cooperative and collaborative work (ability to work as a team, communication skills and networking skills);

Social challenges: demographic and social value change (ability to transfer knowledge, tolerance of ambiguity, flexibility in time and place of work and leadership skills), increased virtual work (flexibility related to time and place of work, technological skills, multimedia skills and understanding of IT security), the complexity of processes (technical skills, understanding of processes, motivation to learn, ambiguity tolerance, decision-making, problem-solving and analytical capabilities);

Technological challenges: exponential growth of technologies and data utilization (technical capabilities, analytical capabilities, efficiency in working with data, coding capabilities, understanding of IT security and compliance), creating collaborative work on platforms (ability to work in teams, virtual communication skills, media skills, understanding of IT security and ability to be collaborative);

Environmental challenges: climate change and resource scarcity (sustainable mentality, motivation to protect the environment and creativity to develop new sustainable solutions); and

Political and legal challenges: standardization (technical capabilities, coding and understanding of processes), data security and privacy (understanding of IT security and compliance).

Technical skills: state-of-the-art knowledge, technical skills, process understanding, media skills, coding skills and understanding of IT security.

Methodological skills: creativity, entrepreneurial thinking, problem-solving, conflict resolution skills, decision-making, analytical skills, research skills and efficiency orientation.

Social skills: intercultural skills, language skills, communication skills, networking skills, teamwork skills, ability to compromise and cooperate, knowledge transfer skills, leadership skills.

Personal skills: flexibility, ambiguity tolerance, motivation to learn, ability to work under pressure, sustainable mindset and compliance.

Within this framework, learning and growth of competences become two of the crucial and prior issues for enhancing educational policies and reforms such as those relating to the European Reference Framework of Key Competences for Lifelong Learning, ( https://ec.europa.eu/education/education-in-the-eu/council-recommendation-on-key-competences-for-lifelong-learning_en ) , which defines the competences of each European citizen needs to achieve personal fulfillment and development, employment, social inclusion and active citizenship. The lifelong learning perspective entails not only political initiatives at the macro level but also strategies and interventions to guarantee that individuals may access economic opportunities, being competitive in the new world of work, shifting the attention at both meso- and micro-level implications for their fulfillment. Global workforce needs to change its professional path because of the changes that digitalization, automation and artificial intelligence progress are bringing to the world of work. The type of skills required by companies has changed, with profound implications for the career paths that individuals will have to pursue. Therefore, it is spreading the need to develop processes of learning new skills (reskilling), so that you can do a different job or train people to do a job differently. The new scenario that emerges on the horizon is changing the contribution and the ways of creating value that human work will provide to organizations and the impact on workers is greater than ever before.

To sum up, the macro lens related to the three main analyzed topics, we can highlight as a transversal feature: the relevance of learning processes to cope with talented resources, the innovative approaches to managerial and organizational dimensions, the new competences and capabilities, the emerging digital challenges delivered by the fourth industrial revolution.

Hence, the need to acquire skills to dwell in a hybrid world, characterized as a knowledge-intensive society, linking new technological opportunities with a multifaceted concern for sustainability.

It becomes, therefore, evident how training and learning to develop innovative competences represent an essential response to the growing challenges impacting contemporary organizations, seizing the opportunities generated by technological innovation. In the next chapter, we address the organizational learning processes oriented to the achievement of new competences and work cultures.

3. Organizational learning for new competences: a meso level viewpoint

To face constantly transforming operative environments, a new approach is required in conceiving organizations, management and change, enhancing active learning paths and trajectories, as well as seeking higher levels of adaptive knowledge transfer.

Billett (2000 , 2001 , 2004, 2020 ) claims for making effective learning environments out of workplaces, developing guidelines for the acquisition of vocational knowledge through participation in everyday work activities.

Gherardi (2009a) argues that organizational practices have become the loci of knowing, organizing and learning, due to the practice turning point in studies on learning and knowing in organizations ( Schatzki et al. , 2001 ). The adoption of a practice lens ( Gherardi, 2009b ) entails a critical epistemological stance that pertains to an innovative cultural climate, encompassing a vast array of contributions on multiple issues such as activity system, a community of practice, knowledge, learning, situated practice, use of technologies ( Engeström,1987 ; Brown and Duguid, 1991 ; Lave and Wenger, 1991 ; Blackler, 1995 ; Easterby-Smith et al. , 1998 ; Clegg and Hardy, 1996 ; Suchman, 1987 ; Cook and Brown, 1999 ; Ciborra, 2006 ; Orlikowski, 2000 , 2002 , 2007 ).

In such a perspective of “practice as the site of learning” ( Nicolini, 2011 , 2013 ), organizational learning is conceived as an unfolding social process of becoming a competent member of a workgroup or community ( Wenger, 1998 ), acknowledging, negotiating and adopting rules, roles, languages, division of labor, tools, use of artifacts in a specific workplace context. Knowledge is conceived as socially shaped, collectively shared, distributed and circulating through socio-material dimensions (conversations, discourses, practices, doing), dealing with multiple ways of working, knowing, innovating and organizing: a texture ( Gherardi, 2006 ) of material and immaterial aspects, through which practitioners shape and reshape their system of activity every day, consolidating but also changing their practice and objects, facing internal and external pressures.

The transformation of work as an impact of the 4.0 industrial revolution, accelerated by the pandemic scenario, triggers and challenges organizations to learn with and from their members, developing a highly reactive culture to internal and external stimuli and recreating a suitable climate for the diffusion of knowledge. What is asked is the dare to leap a strict hierarchical structure of teaching and control (often seen and pursued as a managerial reassuring comfort zone), spreading the circulation of knowledge, and therefore the organizational learning. Inside what is known as the knowledge-intensive firm, it is important to grant more responsibility and autonomy to workers to generate continual learning and organizational improvement. Indeed, to unlock the potential of industry 4.0, organizations need to enhance their culture, integrated activities and structure ( Lu, 2017 ; Romero et al. , 2016 ), dealing with organizational learning processes oriented to the achievement of new competences and work cultures.

As historical theoretical models highlighted ( Lawrence and Lorsch, 1986 ; Hambrick, 1983 ; Lawrence and Dyer, 1983 ; Thompson, 1967 ; Barnard, 1938 ), in such a challenging context the organizations must survive and grow in the long term. To achieve this objective, contemporary organizations ask their employees to work in a more flexible and fast way, also due to the technological progress impacting on the complexity and dynamicity of their working activity ( Lu, 2017 ; Romero et al. , 2016 ; Salas and Cannon-Bowers, 2001 ; Ford and Fisher, 1996 ).

Learning, both individually and collectively, is, therefore, one of the most important leverages that organizations must use to obtain important competitive advantages. For an organization, it is essential to learn internally, by means of optimal management of the knowledge possessed by individuals or other resources, as well as from the external environment. Today, more than ever, it is strategic for an enterprise to adopt an effective culture of learning, facing the constant changes happening in social and business contexts, even anticipating them if possible: the issue of nurturing processes of organizational learning entails both initiatives of formal and institutional training and the valorization of available knowledge, embedded in innovative practices and developed day by day through the circulation, consolidation and change of habits, routines, new ways of coping with the internal and external solicitations. Communicating the crucial role of learning to their employees is essential for organizations, implementing adequate training activities to empower and guide its workforce toward objectives of competence development and transfer.

During the past decades, in the effort of providing the employees with the necessary knowledge and competences to face the modern context characterized by self-directed dynamic performances, it has become increasingly common to delegate responsibilities and decisions related to learning ( Warr and Bunce, 1995 ). Organizational learning becomes a learner-centered approach ( Bell et al. , 2017 ; American Society for Training Development, 2015 ), with a growing interest in active learning, whose aim is to transfer competences by means of experience instead of learning a set of top-down taught information ( Brown and Duguid, 1991 ). Hence, an emphasis on the potential of technology-based training, informal learning and community of practice for developing knowledge and skills of the employees.

Hardy et al. (2019) claim for managing exploration (knowledge expansion and innovation) – exploitation (knowledge refinement) trade-offs as a crucial point in modern, learner-centric, dynamic learning and development contexts.

The higher the information-knowledge gap, related to what learners want or need to know/be able to do (e.g. due to technological innovation pressure), the greater the attention that will be addressed to the explorative path of new knowledge; the lower the information-knowledge gap, the greater the investment that will be made to develop, consolidate and disseminate existing and already in use knowledge and competences.

Achieving a good balance between learning efforts for enhancing the use of the available knowledge (exploitation) and the investment in generating innovative knowledge (exploration), facing the uncertainty the organizations must cope with, is strongly related to organizational climate and cultural support to a proper and suitable learning environment.

In this sense, furthermore, the new technologies can become, if adequately implemented, an important tool for the active participation of learners in learning activities. The technological potential for learning has to be explored and taken into consideration seeking to activate organizational learning processes ( Sitzmann and Weinhardt, 2018 ).

In general, strategies that involve participants in a combination of exploration and exploitation lead to effective learning, while strategies that lack this type of involvement or excessively emphasize one activity over the other, are less effective.

All that said, organizational learning cannot be considered the sum of learning experiences of all workforce members; the challenge for dwelling in a competitive and evolving global context is to adopt a reactive and innovative culture, promoting effective paths for the shaping and sharing of knowledge.

Recruiting and gathering talented and competent individuals is not enough, neither it is just encouraging interaction.

a strong revision of the traditional approach in conceiving the managerial function and in achieving new competences and tools for changing and aligning strategies and activities to these new labor features ( Fregnan et al. , 2020 );

to identify and develop the skills necessary for the workforce of the future, as one of the greatest challenges for organizations in this transition phase;

a strong and diffused learning culture that allows constant updating of the skills of the employees, with specific regard to the impact of the fourth industrial revolution on workers’ activities;

exploring new learning opportunities and tools; and

developing the so-called “soft skills,” as peculiarly human abilities, which represent the great qualitative difference between man and machine, enhancing a sustainable hybrid production system.

As a consequence of the macro-level solicitations, at the meso level new organizational, professional and work cultures are the key object to be shaped, nurtured, developed and shared, dealing with disruptive changes, transforming them into opportunities for growth and positive evolution ( Brown and Duguid, 1991 ). The relevance attributed to situated, embedded and circulating knowledge, related to the way practitioners conceive and use new technologies ( Orlikowski, 2000 ), conveys the possibility of an organizational learning approach as a suitable and sustainable expansive learning process ( Engeström, 2001 ), going through and beyond resistances, turbulence, criticalities and existing contradictions.

However, the intention to create new knowledge practices and achieve a good balance between digital and physical, constraints and discretion, work and family life, is not straightforward: there is the need to get close to concrete organizational contexts, bridging theory and practice and seeking to understand how the reception of the 4.0 industrial revolution implications is rooted in practice. In the next paragraph, we address a micro-level analysis of how a high-tech company is tackling the problem to prompt new competences through organizational learning leverage.

4. The Comau HUMANufacturing: a micro-level analysis

The impact of the fourth industrial revolution on organizations and social systems, on the labor market and on workers’ skills, highlights the importance of facing the continuous changes enabled by new technologies. Research and studies point out the connection between effective learning cultures ( Plummans et al. , 2017 ; Choi and Jacobs, 2011 ; Yoon et al. , 2010 ), knowledge management and dissemination (Davenport, 2015), as well as an active approach to training paths ( Bell and Kozlowski, 2008 ; Sitzmann and Weinhardt, 2018 ).

Hence, the opportunity to explore a concrete organizational context for deepening the tensions between opportunities and risks, willingness to learn and fear of technologies unemployment, new connections between subjects and work, with the purpose to enhance our understanding of the relationship between human beings and machines based on nowadays technologies.

The choice of assuming a pivotal case, albeit not exclusive, to explore approaches, practices, skills and strategies, allows to point out how a company concretely embraces the potential of the fourth industrial revolution, also highlighting criticalities and problems of such a change. Studying the situational uniqueness of a specific context may provide analytical refinement of what is currently known, addressing the epistemic significance of the particular ( Tsoukas, 1989 , 2009 ) and enhancing the possibility to enrich the general concepts related to the issue at hand ( Scaratti and Ivaldi, 2021 ).

The research project has been conducted within Comau, an important Italian multinational company integrated with 20 subsidiaries, based in Turin and part of the FCA Group. Comau develops and implements automation processes, solutions, production services and it is specialized in welding robots. The company is working in 32 locations around the world, divided into 4 main geographic regions: North America, South America, Asia and Europe. Crossed to these regions there are three main business units: robotics, which deals with the design and production of robots traditionally for industrial use; the automation system, which deals with the design of the production lines within which robots are typically inserted; and the powertrain, which is the unit dedicated to the production of machine tools.

Comau is made up of 12,600 employees and has started important international training collaborations (10 international training partners). All the company’s activities are strictly connected to innovation.

Because of the combination of advanced technological know-how and its long-term experience, the organization is stimulated to undertake a process of constant innovation that gives life to new products, advanced technologies and an innovative factory concept that optimizes the automation oriented to man and machine.

The company’s vision, facing the challenges of a constantly evolving market, is summarized by the concept of HUMANufacturing, like a weave between the fourth industrial revolution and the possibility to place humans at the center, as well as to remark the role of technology as a useful tool to help satisfy human needs. Comau is in fact committed to implementing technology-enabled solutions for Industry 4.0 such as innovative real-time data transfer techniques, virtual reality and the latest generation of wearable devices.

being engaged in continuous research and open innovation, today Comau seeks to integrate the 4.0 paradigm into its organizational culture;

learning has a central role within the company, as the numerous international training partnerships demonstrate;

the company faces an important global presence that allows being highly reactive to the different environments in which it is inserted;

the corporate vision aims to develop the human-machine relationship as a core value of the HUMANufacturing approach (declined in the adoption of Cobots and exoskeletons); and

finally, the company commitment is strongly oriented to promote knowledge transfer, transmitting the 4.0 culture to new generations.

Two were the principal aims in studying the Comau case: the first refers to the actual experience of the organizational members facing the changes and the challenges they have to cope with; the second is related to the company approach seeking to promote organizational learning.

The professional history of employees, their interpretation of their role in the company and the changes observed in their working activities;

The new approaches to work, the role of technology and the main technologies adopted today within the company;

The fundamental skills within the company;

The role of learning, as well as the knowledge diffusion and management to face the stimuli and continuous changes in the operating environment; and

The organizational culture and the changes needed to effectively exploit the potential of the fourth industrial revolution.

Dealing with the actual experience and facing the meaning people give to their personal and professional trajectory, we adopted a qualitative methodological approach, following the “grounded theory” guidelines ( Glaser and Strauss, 1967 ; Charmaz and Belgrave, 2007 ). The research was carried out through six semi-structured individual interviews and two focus groups, involving company employees. The interviewees were identified on the basis of the availability of respondents, among a sample proposed by the human resource (HR) management function on the basis of their key role within the business change process (agents of change) and the time spent working for the company (changes observation); the focus groups’ participants were invited asking to confirm via e-mail their availability, on the basis of their participation to the company specializing master, their young age (Generation Y) and their recent entry into the company. Each participant received an informative sheet concerning the respect of both their privacy and anonymity.

The intention was to detect knowledge about the organizational learning process both from senior staff, involving internal managers as carriers of project purposes and from the target of the learning process, considering their interpretation of the learning path experienced to achieve new competences. Dealing with the former, we gathered knowledge about the learning projects at stake, while the latter pointed out their involvement in a two-year executive master (with a pause of one week per month). The first year of the masters was related to academic disciplinary fields, the second one was focused on a learning path immersion within the Comau organization, acknowledging the emerging innovative culture through situated project works with other employees.

For both the interviews and the focus group activities, being semi-structured, it was provided a draft containing the general questions to be asked to the interlocutors, assuming a conversational orientation giving space to unfolding, discourse, comments, considerations. The draft was mainly used to identify the topics considered essential for the purposes of the research.

Can you tell me who are you? What is your role within Comau? (when you arrived, why, with what objectives). If you have been working as a manager or you have been with Comau for a few years, have you been able to observe changes in your job or role?

Nowadays we talk about the fourth industrial revolution, in your opinion, what are the most significant changes it is generating in the world of work?

Thinking about the Comau context, what are the knowledge, skills and activities most requested to workers?

How could organizations help workers to be prepared for today’s world of work? What does Comau do in this sense?

How is the fourth industrial revolution being carried out internally? What do you think are the drivers for the spread of an innovative culture capable of integrating the profound changes we are experiencing?

What are the learning processes that are recommended/proposed to your employees and on which skills do they focus in particular?

What does it mean to be a worker today? What do you think they need most? What are the required skills and knowledge and how should learning paths be structured? According to which drivers?

What is the role of technology today? How is technology changing the way people relate to work?

1 st Step: Presentation

Round table presentation of the participants in the focus group (who they are, how long they have been with Comau, what role they play).

2 nd Step: Investigation of the changes of the fourth industrial revolution

Nowadays we talk about the fourth industrial revolution, what are the most significant changes it is generating in the world of work?

What does it mean to you being a manager today? What differences do you find, if compared to the past?

What do you think are the most important knowledge and skills for workers and managers today?

What should an organization do to encourage learning and promotion of the culture of the fourth industrial revolution? What role should managers play?

3 rd Step: Focus on the specializing master experience

What adjectives/words would you use to describe the specializing master experience?

What are the drivers that were transmitted to you within the specializing master organized by the Comau Academy?

What were the situations of the specializing master that most favored your learning?

If we were to do a Comau SWOT analysis about the promotion of learning, what do you think are its strengths, weaknesses, constraints and opportunities?

The following six employees were interviewed: A- head of HR recruiting and of the “digital initiatives platform” cross-sector entity (20 years within the group); B- digital team manager (33 years within the group); C- digital team manager and head of funded projects (22 years within the group); D- innovation manager (7 years within the group); E- training and e-service manager (18 years within the group); F- business development manager at the corporate level and in the robotics business unit (30 years within the group).

For the focus groups, 16 people were randomly invited among the participants at the specializing master, focusing on their belonging to the generation Y (born between 1980 and 1999) and seeking to explore their learning experience as young workers who have joined the company a little time before.

Having recently participated in a learning path and having recently joined the company (as well as the world of work), their contribution could have been particularly useful in understanding the learning needs perceived by workers and the alignment of the activities offered by the company to the needs of its own employees. The focus groups were, therefore, essential to understanding how workers were involved in the company and to discuss their expectations with them.

4.1 Findings

The interviews and group discussions have been audio-recorded, transcribed and carefully analyzed, adopting both a phenomenological and semiotic perspective ( Mininni and Manuti, 2017 ), as well as a ricoeurian hermeneutic orientation ( Bartunek and Louis, 1996 ; Cunliffe and Locke, 2019 ).

the enhancement of new approaches to work (related to the points of interest I and II);

the introduction of new competences (related to the point of interest III); and

the promotion of a cultural change (related to the points of interest IV and V).

Regarding the new approaches to work, the most important required change refers to the shifting from a logic of execution to a logic of improvement of the working processes.

Comau is now organizing teams and activities into projects, instead of following a functional structure:

“There are two types of changes: changes of a technical nature and changes of a cultural, managerial or rather general type. From a technical point of view, all our products must be equipped with options that allow data reading or remote management. From a purely cultural and social point of view, new professions are certainly being created and others are probably disappearing” (D1).

“We are moving from a product culture to a service culture. This is a big change and not only at an industrial level. The machines that are rented today in the cities constitute the acquisition of a service and not a product. A similar thing is happening also for the machine tools” (F1).

This business activities organization simplifies the sharing of competences and influences the approach to career. The choices linked to the professional career of workers are increasingly self-directed, instead of depending on a dedicated institution:

“This clearly has an impact on people’s careers too, how they see their work, etc. […] it’s all very different and seen from the outside it can seem very confusing, but seen from the inside it doesn’t. The effort is not to design an organization, but it is always to be clear in what you do and what you don’t do. Because again, you don’t have a job description, you rather have a skills profile that you make available to what there is to do and what you like to do” (A1).

“The approach to career is also different because there is no longer a staff body that, together with your boss, designs your path; of course, they do it, but on macro trends. What you will do the next day must also be manifested by yourself and this is a big change” (Focus group, I, 1).

A second feature emerging from the interviews is that workers choose whether to participate in a project because of their competencies and their will to do it. The result is a “nebula organization” that seen from the outside can seem pretty much confused, but internally is well organized because everybody knows who the supervisor is:

“Shaping a very fluid work organization with clear objectives is in fact something that never ends. One piece of the project ends, but another one opens up and you have to start all over again, re-explain it, communicate it again within the teams, outside the teams and within the organization. It is always in the process of becoming […] more than a hierarchical organization, it is a nebulous interlocking organization” (E1).

“Assigning activities to a person is based on the skills he/she possesses and what he/she desires. It’s a very different thing from the classic way of working, where a person has a role and has a job description and does that until they change his/her role if they change it. These teams are extremely permeable teams. The teams are organized and everyone knows who his/her boss is, but someone who writes software can also work on the commercial proposal to the client because he/she has the skills to do it and wants to do it. He/she can, thus, contribute with his/her own skills and get help for those he/she does not have” (C1).

“I have been here for two years and in this period of time, my work has changed a lot. We observe many changes at the level of technical solutions that are adopted to design a line from scratch. An example is AGVs, which are a technology that was inconceivable to install on lines up to 10 years ago. Today the idea of no longer having lines that are real straight lines, but that is much more flexible, certainly facilitates our work in many situations, allowing much more flexibility to solutions” (Focus group, I, 2).

A third aspect is that collaboration between humans and machines is becoming essential for companies. It is important to underline that machines are becoming intuitive to use because they are designed to communicate like humans; differently from the past, when humans had to adapt to machines (acquiring specific skills and knowledge) to use certain tools. The adopted direction, as the founding assumption of the HUMANufacturing culture, is the ennobling of human work and the removal from repetitive and alienating activities. Workers are now paid to improve processes and not just to execute them:

“Technology must be functional to our needs as human beings. It will not replace us because there are things that cannot be replaced and, above all, we do not want it to happen” (B1).

“Moving a small bottle of water is not a human competence. Understanding where it is best to move it, that is a human skill. It has been occurring a big change in the interpretation and approach to work: from the execution of processes to the improvement of processes” (B2).

“I believe that the technology that most affects human work within the 4.0 paradigm is represented by collaborative robots. I believe they can make a difference. Staying on the ‘site’ I’ve seen how they affect various aspects of human activity such as safety in work environments characterized by the presence of Robots” (Focus group, II, 4).

The transformation of the working approach is not taken for granted and also entails problems and difficulties to be handled:

“The inclusion of suppliers relationship management was disruptive from all points of view […] Let’s say that the way of working has changed and had to lead to a speeding up of all processes and greater flexibility of individuals, but it requires effort because it takes time and people need to understand the potential to lighten the work that comes with it […]” (F 2).

“In general, it is increasingly difficult to separate personal life from what is working life. This is because we are increasingly connected […] Unfortunately, I read e-mails at all hours. It is always going more and more toward this direction” (Focus group, II, 3).

About the introduction of new skills and competencies, the participants state that technical skills remain essential in the industrial sector but even out of it if we think about the pervasiveness of technology in today’s human experience. Such skills are useful to use certain tools and to understand their potential:

“In the world of work, industry 4.0 gave me work, in the sense that I am a ‘data scientist’ and this figure was born and raised because of industry 4.0. It is becoming a widespread figure even if we will discover its actual usefulness just in a while” (Focus group, II, 5).

“In the plants, we begin to see the first workers who work wearing a watch and no longer using tools such as sheets of paper. Today these figures use tablets, smartphones, watches and soon will use the voice. Let’s say that there is a progressive change even for these professional figures because of the use of increasingly sophisticated technologies and related competences” (F3).

In addition, many participants highlighted the necessity of figures with transversal skills and broad horizontal culture, allowing them to have an overview of the different activities:

“The real novelty is precisely the introduction of people who are able to extract value from the data collected and people who are able to get the data to these systems by understanding what type of sensors to use and where to put them” (Focus group, I,6).

“The ability to collaborate or team working is fundamental. More and more there are very different skills that acquire importance […] it becomes more and more difficult for a person to have the necessary knowledge to complete a job […]” (A2).

“It is clear that soft skills such as problem-solving, project management, teamwork and flexibility are all strictly necessary. Especially if you get to cover managerial roles and enter middle management. An individual who does not know how to work in a group would not know how to work in a company that sees groups interconnected according to a logic of platform, in which they all work together to achieve the same goal. The other project management skills are equally fundamental. Today almost all activities are organized by projects, so knowing how to work and organize oneself by projects, finishing activity calendars, finishing the progress of the work control etc. […]” (Focus group, I, 5).

Finally, soft skills are increasingly important for companies. For example, the dynamicity of operative environments and the high level of specialization of workers underline the importance of flexibility and ability to collaborate, as in the following quote:

“[…] the reason why Comau hired us is precisely that of contaminating with our flexibility the others who have instead the technical skills deriving from a more consolidated experience. We had to transfer our ‘less technical’ skills, to put it in simplistic terms, to those who have been here for several years, exploiting our adaptability and flexibility” (Focus Group, II, 7).

The achievement of new competences is not straightforward either and some criticalities emerge:

“At the moment in Comau, there are different approaches between people: those who manage the traditional business in a more traditional way and those who manage the most innovative business in a more innovative way. Innovative means a lot of things. First, knowing how to use tools that did not exist until 10 years ago. I refer in particular to working on a digital platform or working on Google platforms, where everything is shared and there is nothing local […] you need to know how to work beyond space” (C2).

“There is not a method to validate the software yet. At the management level, there is still no preparation for software development because there are methods/standards that are used within software engineering but here they have not been implemented yet” (F3).

“[…] a discourse of risks exists […] We may be facing critical issues and problems never faced before and given that, the experience significantly affects our work, change can be seen as too high a risk” (Focus group, I, 7).

“Access to new skills can be seen as a limit by those who have been in this job for a long time or who have created their own comfort zone and do not want to leave it. I don’t think it’s a limit for us, on the contrary, I think it’s an opportunity” (Focus group, I, 4).

“There is not enough communication, and therefore the competences related to the fourth industrial revolution are not shared between the different business units” (E2).

The third dimension is related to the promotion of cultural change. Comau, besides the learning activities, is adopting techniques such as job rotation and the creation of inter-generational and inter-functional teams. Such paths can help workers to gain an overview of the different activities and ease the coexistence of different approaches within the organization. Moreover, the company is creating diffuse connections among people, to boost the internal diffusion of knowledge and with external realities through partnerships, to seek the competencies not yet achieved.

To change the processes can be hard work and can take months, but to change the culture of a company is even a bigger challenge because it is strictly rooted within the company history, values and activities, as well as within its members’ background:

“Certainly, it is not an easy thing since you have to clash with practices that have always existed. However, Comau is entering industry 4.0 and is changing the processes, and therefore the heart and the engine of the company. For the automation system, over the last year, the processes have been retouched and revised from all points of view. Our organization is changing and has changed a few months ago according to this new vision that the company has acquired” (B3).

“It is difficult to interpret what a customer wants because it is a myth that the customer knows what he wants. There are latent needs that not even market analysis is able to capture and that you have to be good at interpreting. There is a world that is so dynamic and liquid that it is difficult to understand it. I don’t think there is resistance, but I believe that being confused by a thousand things, we find it hard to find the right path” (Focus group, II. 8).

“Some drivers can be seen as the backbone of our change. The first is open-mindedness, and therefore the ability to look beyond one’s habits and patterns. The second is accountability, that is, taking risks at all levels of the organization because when certainties fail, you need to know how to interpret new environments. A third could be the opening of vision, in the sense that now even a classic industrial company like ours can no longer avoid looking systematically outside of itself. Because resources and skills are shared. You can no longer think about drawing your own path without systematically look around. The last driver I would like to point out is the customer, both the one who buys and the internal one. You are much more than before compared to people close to you with expectations, whether they are your employees, bosses or colleagues and who are used to express themselves also due to the fact that we are now connected. In the relationship with the employee, it is now the employee himself who tells me what he needs and what his expectations are. So, hyper-connection is another aspect that you cannot ignore because we are now connected” (E3).

Comau, to deal with this kind of change, instead of imposing it, has chosen an interesting way: the strong involvement of people as first promoters and authors of organizational change:

“[…] to adopt the exoskeleton, Comau selected key operators on the basis of certain features (potential change agents) and proposed them a set of technologies among which they picked the exoskeleton as the best tool to improve their activities. Then these operators participated in the whole design phase till the actual implementation. Their colleagues observing them immediately understood the potential of such technologies and started using them without resistances […]” (Focus group, I, 5).

“The way in which Comau is spreading this new culture is by involving people and there is no better way. You must involve people so that they begin to use these technologies and methodologies little by little. The same people who begin to use them become agents of changing themselves and begin to contaminate others until a complete diffusion of these new methodologies and technologies” (B4).

“The reason why they hired us and inserted us like crazy cells within the company is precisely to contaminate with our flexibility the others who instead have the skills of those with a more consolidated experience. It’s a bit like a virus that starts from a small group of people and then spreads. There is a healthy bacterium that is carried by some healthy carriers until it spreads to all the people within the company” (Focus group, II, 7).

“I take people who are young, not so much from the age point of view, but more from an intellectual point of view and who are, therefore, led to experimenting and I bring them to use new processes and technologies. These, in turn, become agents of change, so that people who are less inclined to accept such changes can see and follow them by imitation” (A3).

“Certainly, with inter-generational teams and inter-functional teams this type of culture can spread and we are observing it. For example, when we work on the proposal phase, we do it in close contact with all the other business units” (B5).

To govern the learning processes aimed at promoting, developing and disseminating the HUMANufacturing culture, Comau has set up an internal academy, with the aim of creating and monitoring multiple training and learning initiatives, in partnership with various international stakeholders.

Seeking to sum up the most relevant results emerging from the qualitative inquiry, we can underline that in Comau the new approach to work is based on specific processes and structures, in which acceleration and simplification, project-based organization (inter-functional and inter-generational teams), open innovation and tuning on strategic goals coexist, as the metaphor of the nebulous interlocking organization (E1) highlighted. The representation of the fourth industrial revolution and its implications concerns the enabling technologies implementation within industrial environments, based on a cultural transformation. This entails not only the spread of new technologies and machines, rather a rooted in-practice use of innovative technology by the practitioners, acquiring the necessary skills to master and fully understand it ( Bondarouk and Brewster, 2016 ; Ivaldi and Scaratti, 2020 ).

In relation to the development of new competences, Comau, as the qualitative data point out, emphasizes the relevance of both transversal skills (from execution to entrepreneurship) and digital capabilities (for the interaction between humans and machines). At stake are professional movements from knowledge accumulation to empowerment, toward a more problem-solving orientation and the active participation in practical and sense-making processes.

Concerning the cultural change, Comau promotes a HUMANufacturing approach, in which listening to the practical knowledge, responsibility toward new generations, orientation toward clients and giving value to diversity as a resource constitute the core values of a high-tech company focused on the relevance of organizational members and the sustainable relationship between persons and technology.

Albeit emblematic, the Comau case cannot be mechanically replicated, due to its uniqueness and peculiar specificity compared to other organizational contexts involved in the challenge to cope with the digital revolution. Anyway, it conveys some transversal issues that must be addressed in multiple workplace situations faced with the pressure of technological innovation.

(1) Individual

(2) Relational

(3) Organizational

related to the embedded procedures to be questioned or contested and the fear of mistakes or about tackling with consolidated powers. The challenge is the possibility to achieve a different managerial approach, coping with the unexpected and the complexity of internal and external organizational environments.

the importance of a strong alliance between top management and the engagement of key figures (middle managers, young generations) as ambassadors for the creation of a new culture;

the promotion of a diffuse awareness concerning the value of adopted technologies, improving participation, the coexistence of different approaches and a diffused mindset of managing the unexpected;

the involvement of employees at all levels in projects and events that give concrete evidence for the company’s interpretation of the fourth industrial revolution, so that they begin to use these new technologies and methodologies little by little, becoming agents of changing themselves;

the role played by institutional artifacts (in the Comau case, the Academy) and learning processes to spread the new culture; and

the care of paradigm-shifting, widespread contamination and sharing, creation of accessible memories (report, internal documents […]).

As a final result, the findings acquired through the study of the Comau case can support and endorse what the scientific literature highlights about the impact, the new competences and the learning paths solicited by the emergence of the fourth industrial revolution: shifting from a logic of execution to a logic of improvement entails a new approach to work, a good enough balance between technical and social competences and the development of innovative work, professional and organizational cultures.

Such a cultural change is not taken for granted and must be accompanied through an organizational learning process, enhancing activities engaged in transformation efforts and promoting multiparty encounters, discussions and debates. This learning process conveys, in turn, the need to cope with tensions and contradictions people face in struggling with persistent problems and challenges in their workplace walk ( Ivaldi and Scaratti, 2016 , 2020; Scaratti et al. , 2017 ). Assuming that the tension of change and future-orientation also implies material and immaterial dimensions, as people engaged in nowadays organizational contexts are asked to explore processes of learning from the fields, connecting action and thought, as well as trying to open new visions not yet available for transforming and improving their daily practices.

5. Conclusions

Aiming to enhance the debate around the fourth industrial revolution, the paper addressed questions related to its relevance and impact, to the implications for organizational learning processes and to the development of new approaches to work, new competences and cultural change.

As highlighted by the literature review, the fourth industrial revolution yields an ambivalence in the introduction of technology, identifying both potentials and risks, respectively, related to the opportunity of social growth on the one hand and of technological unemployment and worse work conditions on the other hand. As sustainability is the key to balancing the strengths and threats of the fourth industrial revolution, that can be achieved if there is a strong investment in the promotion of organizational learning. A learning process in which the experience and practical knowledge of people represent important resources for the introduction, the development and the integration of innovative technologies, matching both knowledge exploration and exploitation.

Managing and engaging people in such a process of expansive learning, as highlighted in the Comau case study, can emblematically express the challenge of the current organizational scenarios characterized by meaninglessness and uncertainty, in which people must deal with contradictions, criticalities and problematic situations. The organizational culture change promoted within Comau’s context can be identified as an agile way of work , that requires: adaptability , maintaining a high level of flexibility and capability to adjust, modify and change a project during its life cycle, going beyond a predictive and waterfall top-down approach; visibility , allowing plural stakeholders to have a view of the multiple aspects involved and to acknowledge the complexity of what is at stake; value generation, since the beginning of the process spreading the concept of value to include not only economic but also eco-friendly, sustainable and ethic dimensions; risks facing, seeking for their reduction and management through a reconfiguration of the relationship connecting scope, time and cost. In a general market and organizational context characterized by a high level of uncertainty, relevant environmental chaos and complexity, an agile approach to work is preferred and recommended, to satisfy the expectations of customers ( Sletholt et al. , 2011 ).

The COVID-19 pandemic plays a relevant role in depicting such a scenario, in which practitioners and professional workers are coping with uncertain circumstances and facing contradictions in their daily organizational experience. At the same time, they are asked to make sense out of them, seeking new possibilities of action related to their object-oriented activity. In this perspective, the coronavirus situation can act as a litmus test and a situational organizer for both boosting the introduction and spreading the use of technological devices, as well as for soliciting the cultural change at different levels to cope with severe societal problems.

As shown by the Comau experience and vision, at stake is the need to place humans at the center both as technology recipients and guides toward technological progress. At the organizational level, this means giving back the responsibility of certain tools’ choices and their implementation to users. At the social level, this requires the awareness that humans create machines and that they are leading technological progress. Today this awareness is not a foregone conclusion, as the social anxiety about the impact of technologies on the social systems is due to the perception of technology as something external to humans that we can only suffer. To direct the technological progress toward the needs of the community, as the emergence of coronavirus is teaching us, a joint intervention of institutions, the academic world and the industrial world is necessary.

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Intelligent Data Engineering and Analytics pp 463–468 Cite as

Review Paper on Fourth Industrial Revolution and Its Impact on Humans

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Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 1177))

The fourth industrial revolution, a term instituted by Klaus Schwab, organizer and official executive of the World Financial Gathering, depicts an existence where people move between computerized areas and disconnected reality with the utilization of associated innovation to empower and deal with their lives (Mill operator 2015, 3). The principal mechanical upheaval transformed us and economy from an agrarian and handiwork economy to one ruled by industry and machine fabricating. Oil and power encouraged large-scale manufacturing in the second mechanical insurgency. In the third modern unrest, data innovation was utilized to mechanize creation. Albeit each mechanical unrest is regularly viewed as a different occasion, together they can be better comprehended as a progression of occasions heaps of the past unrest and prompting further developed types of creation. Another technological development zone as of late has been analytics. Financial organizations track and gather a wide range of information on customers, for example, what customers purchase, how they get it, and when they do their shopping. Mobile phones are another key player in enormous information since they can likewise follow shopping information, just as information on media utilization and even your area for the duration of the day. This article examines the significant highlights of the four mechanical insurgencies, the chances of the fourth modern transformation, and the difficulties of the fourth industrial unrest. With so much information accessible, what job will it have in the up and coming fourth industrial transformation?

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The Fourth Industrial Revolution: what it means, how to respond

.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo{-webkit-transition:all 0.15s ease-out;transition:all 0.15s ease-out;cursor:pointer;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;outline:none;color:inherit;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:hover,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-hover]{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:focus,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-focus]{box-shadow:0 0 0 3px rgba(168,203,251,0.5);} Klaus Schwab

.chakra .wef-9dduvl{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-9dduvl{font-size:1.125rem;}} Explore and monitor how .chakra .wef-15eoq1r{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;color:#F7DB5E;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-15eoq1r{font-size:1.125rem;}} Fourth Industrial Revolution is affecting economies, industries and global issues

.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;color:#2846F8;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{font-size:1.125rem;}} Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:, fourth industrial revolution.

We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. We do not yet know just how it will unfold, but one thing is clear: the response to it must be integrated and comprehensive, involving all stakeholders of the global polity, from the public and private sectors to academia and civil society.

The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production. The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.

There are three reasons why today’s transformations represent not merely a prolongation of the Third Industrial Revolution but rather the arrival of a Fourth and distinct one: velocity, scope, and systems impact. The speed of current breakthroughs has no historical precedent. When compared with previous industrial revolutions, the Fourth is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace. Moreover, it is disrupting almost every industry in every country. And the breadth and depth of these changes herald the transformation of entire systems of production, management, and governance.

The possibilities of billions of people connected by mobile devices, with unprecedented processing power, storage capacity, and access to knowledge, are unlimited. And these possibilities will be multiplied by emerging technology breakthroughs in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing.

Already, artificial intelligence is all around us, from self-driving cars and drones to virtual assistants and software that translate or invest. Impressive progress has been made in AI in recent years, driven by exponential increases in computing power and by the availability of vast amounts of data, from software used to discover new drugs to algorithms used to predict our cultural interests. Digital fabrication technologies, meanwhile, are interacting with the biological world on a daily basis. Engineers, designers, and architects are combining computational design, additive manufacturing, materials engineering, and synthetic biology to pioneer a symbiosis between microorganisms, our bodies, the products we consume, and even the buildings we inhabit.

Challenges and opportunities

Like the revolutions that preceded it, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has the potential to raise global income levels and improve the quality of life for populations around the world. To date, those who have gained the most from it have been consumers able to afford and access the digital world; technology has made possible new products and services that increase the efficiency and pleasure of our personal lives. Ordering a cab, booking a flight, buying a product, making a payment, listening to music, watching a film, or playing a game—any of these can now be done remotely.

In the future, technological innovation will also lead to a supply-side miracle, with long-term gains in efficiency and productivity. Transportation and communication costs will drop, logistics and global supply chains will become more effective, and the cost of trade will diminish, all of which will open new markets and drive economic growth.

At the same time, as the economists Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee have pointed out, the revolution could yield greater inequality, particularly in its potential to disrupt labor markets. As automation substitutes for labor across the entire economy, the net displacement of workers by machines might exacerbate the gap between returns to capital and returns to labor. On the other hand, it is also possible that the displacement of workers by technology will, in aggregate, result in a net increase in safe and rewarding jobs.

We cannot foresee at this point which scenario is likely to emerge, and history suggests that the outcome is likely to be some combination of the two. However, I am convinced of one thing—that in the future, talent, more than capital, will represent the critical factor of production. This will give rise to a job market increasingly segregated into “low-skill/low-pay” and “high-skill/high-pay” segments, which in turn will lead to an increase in social tensions.

In addition to being a key economic concern, inequality represents the greatest societal concern associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The largest beneficiaries of innovation tend to be the providers of intellectual and physical capital—the innovators, shareholders, and investors—which explains the rising gap in wealth between those dependent on capital versus labor. Technology is therefore one of the main reasons why incomes have stagnated, or even decreased, for a majority of the population in high-income countries: the demand for highly skilled workers has increased while the demand for workers with less education and lower skills has decreased. The result is a job market with a strong demand at the high and low ends, but a hollowing out of the middle.

This helps explain why so many workers are disillusioned and fearful that their own real incomes and those of their children will continue to stagnate. It also helps explain why middle classes around the world are increasingly experiencing a pervasive sense of dissatisfaction and unfairness. A winner-takes-all economy that offers only limited access to the middle class is a recipe for democratic malaise and dereliction.

Discontent can also be fueled by the pervasiveness of digital technologies and the dynamics of information sharing typified by social media. More than 30 percent of the global population now uses social media platforms to connect, learn, and share information. In an ideal world, these interactions would provide an opportunity for cross-cultural understanding and cohesion. However, they can also create and propagate unrealistic expectations as to what constitutes success for an individual or a group, as well as offer opportunities for extreme ideas and ideologies to spread.

The impact on business

An underlying theme in my conversations with global CEOs and senior business executives is that the acceleration of innovation and the velocity of disruption are hard to comprehend or anticipate and that these drivers constitute a source of constant surprise, even for the best connected and most well informed. Indeed, across all industries, there is clear evidence that the technologies that underpin the Fourth Industrial Revolution are having a major impact on businesses.

On the supply side, many industries are seeing the introduction of new technologies that create entirely new ways of serving existing needs and significantly disrupt existing industry value chains. Disruption is also flowing from agile, innovative competitors who, thanks to access to global digital platforms for research, development, marketing, sales, and distribution, can oust well-established incumbents faster than ever by improving the quality, speed, or price at which value is delivered.

Major shifts on the demand side are also occurring, as growing transparency, consumer engagement, and new patterns of consumer behavior (increasingly built upon access to mobile networks and data) force companies to adapt the way they design, market, and deliver products and services.

A key trend is the development of technology-enabled platforms that combine both demand and supply to disrupt existing industry structures, such as those we see within the “sharing” or “on demand” economy. These technology platforms, rendered easy to use by the smartphone, convene people, assets, and data—thus creating entirely new ways of consuming goods and services in the process. In addition, they lower the barriers for businesses and individuals to create wealth, altering the personal and professional environments of workers. These new platform businesses are rapidly multiplying into many new services, ranging from laundry to shopping, from chores to parking, from massages to travel.

On the whole, there are four main effects that the Fourth Industrial Revolution has on business—on customer expectations, on product enhancement, on collaborative innovation, and on organizational forms. Whether consumers or businesses, customers are increasingly at the epicenter of the economy, which is all about improving how customers are served. Physical products and services, moreover, can now be enhanced with digital capabilities that increase their value. New technologies make assets more durable and resilient, while data and analytics are transforming how they are maintained. A world of customer experiences, data-based services, and asset performance through analytics, meanwhile, requires new forms of collaboration, particularly given the speed at which innovation and disruption are taking place. And the emergence of global platforms and other new business models, finally, means that talent, culture, and organizational forms will have to be rethought.

Overall, the inexorable shift from simple digitization (the Third Industrial Revolution) to innovation based on combinations of technologies (the Fourth Industrial Revolution) is forcing companies to reexamine the way they do business. The bottom line, however, is the same: business leaders and senior executives need to understand their changing environment, challenge the assumptions of their operating teams, and relentlessly and continuously innovate.

The impact on government

As the physical, digital, and biological worlds continue to converge, new technologies and platforms will increasingly enable citizens to engage with governments, voice their opinions, coordinate their efforts, and even circumvent the supervision of public authorities. Simultaneously, governments will gain new technological powers to increase their control over populations, based on pervasive surveillance systems and the ability to control digital infrastructure. On the whole, however, governments will increasingly face pressure to change their current approach to public engagement and policymaking, as their central role of conducting policy diminishes owing to new sources of competition and the redistribution and decentralization of power that new technologies make possible.

Ultimately, the ability of government systems and public authorities to adapt will determine their survival. If they prove capable of embracing a world of disruptive change, subjecting their structures to the levels of transparency and efficiency that will enable them to maintain their competitive edge, they will endure. If they cannot evolve, they will face increasing trouble.

This will be particularly true in the realm of regulation. Current systems of public policy and decision-making evolved alongside the Second Industrial Revolution, when decision-makers had time to study a specific issue and develop the necessary response or appropriate regulatory framework. The whole process was designed to be linear and mechanistic, following a strict “top down” approach.

But such an approach is no longer feasible. Given the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s rapid pace of change and broad impacts, legislators and regulators are being challenged to an unprecedented degree and for the most part are proving unable to cope.

How, then, can they preserve the interest of the consumers and the public at large while continuing to support innovation and technological development? By embracing “agile” governance, just as the private sector has increasingly adopted agile responses to software development and business operations more generally. This means regulators must continuously adapt to a new, fast-changing environment, reinventing themselves so they can truly understand what it is they are regulating. To do so, governments and regulatory agencies will need to collaborate closely with business and civil society.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution will also profoundly impact the nature of national and international security, affecting both the probability and the nature of conflict. The history of warfare and international security is the history of technological innovation, and today is no exception. Modern conflicts involving states are increasingly “hybrid” in nature, combining traditional battlefield techniques with elements previously associated with nonstate actors. The distinction between war and peace, combatant and noncombatant, and even violence and nonviolence (think cyberwarfare) is becoming uncomfortably blurry.

As this process takes place and new technologies such as autonomous or biological weapons become easier to use, individuals and small groups will increasingly join states in being capable of causing mass harm. This new vulnerability will lead to new fears. But at the same time, advances in technology will create the potential to reduce the scale or impact of violence, through the development of new modes of protection, for example, or greater precision in targeting.

The impact on people

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, finally, will change not only what we do but also who we are. It will affect our identity and all the issues associated with it: our sense of privacy, our notions of ownership, our consumption patterns, the time we devote to work and leisure, and how we develop our careers, cultivate our skills, meet people, and nurture relationships. It is already changing our health and leading to a “quantified” self, and sooner than we think it may lead to human augmentation. The list is endless because it is bound only by our imagination.

I am a great enthusiast and early adopter of technology, but sometimes I wonder whether the inexorable integration of technology in our lives could diminish some of our quintessential human capacities, such as compassion and cooperation. Our relationship with our smartphones is a case in point. Constant connection may deprive us of one of life’s most important assets: the time to pause, reflect, and engage in meaningful conversation.

One of the greatest individual challenges posed by new information technologies is privacy. We instinctively understand why it is so essential, yet the tracking and sharing of information about us is a crucial part of the new connectivity. Debates about fundamental issues such as the impact on our inner lives of the loss of control over our data will only intensify in the years ahead. Similarly, the revolutions occurring in biotechnology and AI, which are redefining what it means to be human by pushing back the current thresholds of life span, health, cognition, and capabilities, will compel us to redefine our moral and ethical boundaries.

Shaping the future

Neither technology nor the disruption that comes with it is an exogenous force over which humans have no control. All of us are responsible for guiding its evolution, in the decisions we make on a daily basis as citizens, consumers, and investors. We should thus grasp the opportunity and power we have to shape the Fourth Industrial Revolution and direct it toward a future that reflects our common objectives and values.

To do this, however, we must develop a comprehensive and globally shared view of how technology is affecting our lives and reshaping our economic, social, cultural, and human environments. There has never been a time of greater promise, or one of greater potential peril. Today’s decision-makers, however, are too often trapped in traditional, linear thinking, or too absorbed by the multiple crises demanding their attention, to think strategically about the forces of disruption and innovation shaping our future.

In the end, it all comes down to people and values. We need to shape a future that works for all of us by putting people first and empowering them. In its most pessimistic, dehumanized form, the Fourth Industrial Revolution may indeed have the potential to “robotize” humanity and thus to deprive us of our heart and soul. But as a complement to the best parts of human nature—creativity, empathy, stewardship—it can also lift humanity into a new collective and moral consciousness based on a shared sense of destiny. It is incumbent on us all to make sure the latter prevails.

This article was first published in Foreign Affairs

Author: Klaus Schwab is Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum

Image: An Aeronavics drone sits in a paddock near the town of Raglan, New Zealand, July 6, 2015. REUTERS/Naomi Tajitsu

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The Impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on Managers’ Sense of Coherence

Claude-hélène mayer.

1 Department of Industrial Psychology and People Management, College for Business and Economics, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg 2006, South Africa; moc.liamg@elregewnnomec

2 Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät, Europa Universität Viadrina, 15234 Frankfurt, Germany

Cemonn Wegerle

Rudolf m. oosthuizen.

3 Department of Industrial and Organisational Psychology, School of Management Sciences, College of Economic and Management Sciences, University of South Africa, Pretoria 0003, South Africa; az.ca.asinu@mrhtsoo

Associated Data

The data presented in this study are available if requested.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) disrupts the world of work, new technologies change the nature of individuals’ work and their tasks, and therefore it is necessary to determine how managers cope with these changes, specifically relating to their salutogenesis. There is a lack of research conducted on the salutogenesis of managers in times of the 4IR. The purpose of this study is to investigate the level of managers’ sense of coherence (SOC) in terms of the adjustments and developments of the 4IR, and their in-depth understanding of their SOC. This study employs a hermeneutical research design with a qualitative approach by using a semi-structured interview. The method used to analyze the data was content analysis. From the data analysis, the findings indicate that a majority of the managers tend to have an understanding of the 4IR and what implications of the 4IR will have on the world of work and their job description, the necessary resources to cope with the 4IR, and find the 4IR meaningful, therefore, managers have a strong SOC level during the 4IR. The recommendations for future studies suggest that research could be conducted how managers and lower-level managers’ SOC differ, which will provide insight into what different methods are required for the different level of managers.

1. Introduction

Technological advances are witnessed through history, where humans implement technology to address the limitations of human practices [ 1 ]. Skilton and Hovsepian [ 1 ], state that technology is utilized to build machines that aid in the achievement of specific tasks or substitute human work. Consequently, industrial revolutions emerged to reshape the production of goods and services through innovative technology. In addition, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is where technology reflects rapid innovation and technology transformation [ 2 ]. This revolution has a great impact not only on the work processes but on the individual as well. Hattingh [ 3 ] (p. 8) highlights that due to the rapid velocity change and new disruptive technology of the 4IR, the working environment is “unknown and unpredictable”. Hattingh [ 3 ] further mention that the changes of the 4IR have led to substantial job loss of unskilled employees and personal trauma as workers battle to cope with vulnerability and precariousness of the new world of work.

In addition, Coldwell [ 4 ] mentions that the 4IR has a negative effect on the mental health of managers. However, there is not adequate literature relating the effect of 4IR on the mental health of the workforce. The question arises of ‘is the workforce confident and prepared to deal with the changes brought by the 4IR?’ Therefore, research on the mental health of managers, specifically focusing on salutogenesis, is necessary to fill the gap. Antonovsky’s [ 5 ] theory of salutogenesis focuses on the sense of coherence (SOC) of individuals. SOC is defined as: “a global orientation that expresses the extent to which one has a pervasive, enduring though dynamic feeling of confidence that one’s environment is predictable and that things will work out as well as can reasonably be expected” [ 6 ] (p. 11). It is necessary to measure the manager’s SOC in times of the 4IR to better provide assistance through the change. Therefore, by measuring the managers’ SOC will determine their mental health, which indicates the preparedness of managers to deal with change.

1.1. Mental Health in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Throughout history, industrial revolutions have brought changes in the economy, society and the world of work, where the industrial revolutions have had a dire impact on all aspects of society, work and life in general [ 7 ]. Industrial revolution is a term that refers to an economic change that is characterized by a new era of capitalist development or a point of departure to ensure economic growth and maturity [ 8 ]. The 4IR is the integration of evolving technology into the physical and biological worlds. This has not been the case in the other industrial revolutions with advances increasing at an exponential rate [ 1 ]. Dombrowski and Wagner [ 9 ] comment that the new key technologies will inevitably result in job losses, redundancies and de-industrialization. Webber-Youngman [ 10 ] lists the skills needed to adapt to the 4IR as critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity and innovation, emotional intelligence, cognitive flexibility and adaptability. This implies that individuals need to adapt their skills and knowledge to thrive in the new world of work in the 4IR. According to [ 4 ], the strain experienced to retain employment in the changing and dynamic 4IR environment has an adverse effect on the mental health of managers. These changes influence individuals’ employability and their working environment, which in turn influence their mental health [ 4 ].

Various theories exist that try to explain the relationship between the mental health of managers and their working environment [ 11 ]. Unfortunately, most theories focus on the negative effects on mental health, whereas Antonovsky’s [ 5 ] theory tries to determine what creates positive mental health, rather than is harmful to mental health in situations of suffering and stress, this is known as salutogenesis [ 12 ]. The focus is on the individuals’ feeling of assurance that their internal and external environments are assured and events will proceed as planned [ 13 ]. In Germany, Japan and the US, the 4IR is perceived as an opportunity rather, than as a threat [ 14 ], whereas in South Africa (SA) it is generally seen as a threat since the challenges of the 4IR are likely to cause job losses. In developing countries such as South Africa, this can be serious because of the high unemployment rates [ 15 ]. In some countries the 4IR has been known to cause hardship, therefore, an investigation into how managers stay healthy during the changes brought about by the 4IR. It follows that a positive attitude is required to ensure that managers will strive to understand, manage and fulfill the opportunities and challenges of the 4IR meaningfully.

The 4IR has also prompted disruption in society as witnessed in the preceding industrial revolutions. As technology develops exponentially, the repercussions on the workforce are noticeable. The 4IR builds on the technological advances of the Third Industrial Revolution (3IR), which integrates the physical, digital and biological worlds [ 16 ]. The by-product of the innovative technology used in the 4IR offers numerous opportunities and challenges. This industrial revolution is set apart from the previous industrial revolutions by the dissemination, speed and the scale of the new technologies which have been implemented in various sectors. Li et al. [ 17 ] classified the technologies as (1) digital technologies include the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, big data and cloud computing, as well as digital platform, (2) physical technologies include self-driven cars and 3D printing, and (3) biological technologies include genetic engineering and neurotechnology.

Each industrial revolution brought certain changes to the world of work that affected managers in various ways. Furthermore, although the previous industrial revolutions saw the creation of new and the redundancy of jobs present managers adapted to this change. However, the 4IR is different from the previous industrial revolutions in terms of the exponential evolving pace and the depth to which changes are occurring in the world of work [ 18 ]. Prisecaru [ 19 ] discusses the impact of the 4IR on the economy and society, where self-employment, short-term contracts and part-time workers are key players in the disruption brought by this industrial revolution. Prisecaru [ 19 ] further states that the disruption of the 4IR in the labor market not only affects the individuals, but tax revenue, pension funds and the gross domestic product (GDP). In addition, Prisecaru [ 19 ] contents that the 4IR will affect the income distribution with the low-income earners being seriously affected, and pensions being lower. Li et al. [ 17 ] on the other hand, argue that the 4IR creates greater opportunities for future economic development, with an increase in production efficiency and a shift in the global value chain.

One of the strengths of SA is innovation owing to an active innovative culture and entrepreneurial activity. However, Levin [ 20 ] highlights concern regarding preparation of South Africa’s human capital for the 4IR. In addition, Levin [ 20 ] asserts that it is essential that the institutional framework of SA be reviewed and improved to facilitate the change to 4IR thereby ensuring an environment with steady policies that can direct innovation.

1.2. The Effect of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on the Organisation and Workforce

With the new technologies proliferating in the economy, society and industry, these technologies have had major consequences in everyday life and the world of work. Brondoni and Zaninotto [ 21 ] opine that the 4IR has forced a shift in businesses that has altered the traditional business and organizational models. In turn, the labor market will be affected by this industrial revolution that offers more flexibility and on-demand work [ 3 ]. Furthermore, Hirschi [ 22 ] cites the loss of jobs, the change of occupation and the emergence of new occupations, resulting in the relocation of power, wealth and knowledge [ 16 ].

The question is how organizations will support managers’ mental health during the time of the 4IR? Organizations generally implement programs to promote mental health and address stressors in organizations, namely stress management interventions and/or workplace health promotion strategies [ 23 ]. Salutogenesis is the application of resources and outcomes that relate to the positive health-orientated change process in the organization [ 23 ]. However, there is a lack of information on how organizations can assist their managers during the 4IR to promote salutogenesis. A study conducted by Morathi [ 24 ] in an information technology company, the managers formulated the following guidelines to assist them during the changes brought about by the 4IR, which will enable them to be more self-sufficient, to develop the managers, provide future-orientated leadership, to practice transparency, and to give clear descriptions of their future roles.

Min et al. [ 25 ] determined the occupational health issues relating to the 4IR. With automation and robots taking over repetitive or simple tasks, managers experience job insecurity, and this instability provoked by 4IR can give rise the mental illnesses among managers [ 25 ]. Although the 4IR technologies put forward an argument for increased productivity and a better quality of life, Min et al. [ 25 ] argue that automation results in increased human labor time to improve productivity and keep abreast with the competitive firms, thus resulting in increased occupational stress. When Dombrowski and Wagner [ 9 ] looked at the mental strain of socio-technical production systems on imposed managers, they observed that sophisticated problem solving was necessary and managers would require different competencies to function in the 4IR. From the secondary analysis used to gather the information, it is evident that work systems that are subjected to change (such as 4IR) give rise in an increase in the mental demands process related to working systems [ 9 ].

Furthermore, in South Africa, the 4IR has brought in new employment equity (EE) practices that will govern the effects of this revolution [ 26 ]. Oosthuizen and Mayer [ 27 ] (p. 2) state that as “job mobility, consent retraining and rotation” are necessary to improve managers’ flexibility, employability and suitability in today’s world of work, an adaptation to EE is necessary to address the changing work environment. According to Min et al. [ 25 ], government policies should also be adapted to protect the health rights of managers who are faced with increased atypical employment due to the 4IR, currently some managers are not protected by the labor laws [ 25 ]. Finally, the 4IR can increase the quality of managers’ lives or increase the risk of unemployment [ 28 ]. However, in both cases, it is imperative to remain mentally healthy, although these situations can result in improving or loss of quality of life.

1.3. Salutogenesis and Sense of Coherence

Traditionally health theories focused on pathogenesis, which looks at the origin of the disease to avoid or limit the spread of disease [ 29 ]. When Antonovsky [ 5 , 30 ] sought the answer to the question of what keeps people healthy, he introduced the concept of salutogenesis [ 13 ]. Schnyder et al. [ 31 ] state that salutogenesis focuses on maintaining good health amid undesirable stressors. Salutogenesis focuses on the origin and assets of health, and the central focus of the Salutogenesis Model is SOC, which is molded by an individual’s life experiences [ 32 ], therefore, it focuses on the resources and factors that will generate good health and wellbeing [ 33 ]. The resources used to develop one’s SOC are referred to as general resistance resources (GRR), which are measures that one implements or uses to relieve stress in challenging times [ 33 ]. GRR include social support or support networks, knowledge, self-esteem and money [ 34 ].

Antonovsky [ 5 ] (p. 168) defines SOC strength “as a global orientation that expresses the extent to which one has a (A) pervasive, enduring, though dynamic feeling of confidence and that stimuli, deriving from one’s internal and external environments in the course of living are structured, predictable and explicable; (B) the resources are available to one to offset the demands posed by these stimuli; and (C) these demands are challenges worthy of investment and engagement”. Therefore, a strong SOC assists individuals to marshal resources to manage stressors and change effectively [ 32 ]. SOC includes the following dimensions: comprehensibility (cognitive element), manageability (behavioral element), and meaningfulness (motivational element) [ 35 , 36 , 37 ]. Comprehensibility is a concept that refers to the rationalization of external and internal elements to make sense, which results in the predictability of the elements or the possibility of implementing problem-solving strategies [ 38 ]. Manageability relates to the individuals’ believes or confidence in their personal and external resources ate their disposal are ample to address the demands of internal or external stressors experienced [ 38 ]. Meaningfulness is the perception of whether the challenges encountered are deemed as a worthwhile endeavor [ 38 ]. Therefore, individuals with high SOC levels: “wish to, be motivated to, cope; believe that challenge is understood; believe that resources to cope are available” [ 6 ] (p. 15).

Braun-Lewensohn and Mayer [ 39 ] elaborate that SOC is an appraisal of the environment to assisting the examination of the available resources that can be utilized to cope with a stressful event or situation. GRR also includes coping strategies, which are defined as behavioral factors that summon the effort to be implemented to make a stressful situation or stressors tolerable and to minimize the negative effects of the situation [ 39 ]. SOC is considered as being flexible, therefore, “not constructed around a fixed set of mastering strategies, like the classic coping strategies” [ 36 ] (p. 241). Furthermore, the SOC is a tool to measure individual’s ability of resilience when facing challenges or stressors. In other words, the SOC measures the ability to implement the appropriate coping strategies and processes. Therefore, individuals with high scores of SOC will effectively implement strategies to address encountered stressors, while individuals with low SOC scores display the opposite [ 31 ].

1.4. Salutogenesis in the Fourth Industrial Workplace

The SOC measure is also applicable to both the individual’s working life. Bauer and Jenny [ 40 ] define a healthy organization as one which is characterized by producing both low pathogenic processes and high salutogenic processes. The focus of organizational health development (OHD), should be where health in organizations is improved and maintained through the interaction between the individual and the organization’s capacities including salutogenic health development. This is achieved by explaining critically the managers’ working environment and their SOC. The framework of salutogenesis is based on two concepts, which are the SOC and GRR, and the specific GRR in the work context includes job control, task significance and social relations [ 37 ].

As it is evident that the 4IR is accompanied by dynamic changes which affect both the organization and the individual, thus attention should be paid to the health promotion in the organization to bring about change. Change involves the complex relationship between psychosocial elements (objective procedures and subjective experiences), job design, policies and procedures and the external environment of the organization [ 41 ]. The model of salutogenesis can be used as an intervention to foster organizational health development [ 40 ]. Furthermore, these interventions can be used to address job demands (work-related stressors) and job resources (work-related GRR) to ensure a better balance between stressors and GRR to improve the work experience of managers [ 40 ].

Studies have been conducted on determining the effect of SOC on burnout, work engagement, personal accomplishments, and occupation stress [ 35 , 42 ]. Another study conducted by Mayer [ 13 ] aims to assist in the development of South African managers’ SOC. In addition, a study conducted in the Democratic Republic of Congo, investigates the SOC, burnout and coping, which contribute towards positive psychology in African literature [ 43 ]. Mitonga-Monga and Mayer [ 44 ] reported that individuals were dedicated and engaged when they observed their world of work as structured. Recent studies have focused on the connection between the work-SOC and the SOC’s prediction on work engagement, stress and manager wellness [ 43 ], and the link between the SOC, mindfulness and the Big Five personality traits [ 45 ]. The study conducted by Van der Westhuizen [ 43 ] found that work-SOC significantly predicted work engagement and fatigue. The study conducted by Grevenstein et al. [ 45 ] concluded that SOC and mindfulness showed incremental validity in the Big Five traits, therefore, a significant correlation existed. Pallant and Lae [ 46 ] assert that individuals with higher levels of SOC are more inclined to cope with stressors by using adaptive strategies.

Various literature has examined the effects of the 4IR on individuals and to gather a greater understanding of the 4IR [ 4 , 22 ]. However, a lack of research is conducted on managerial managers’ sense of coherence levels during the 4IR [ 26 ]. Although a study [ 26 ] was conducted to determine how salutogenesis can assist international leaders to cultivate healthy organizations, research lacks to address the question of how various levels of South African managerial managers are functioning during the 4IR. The 4IR creates various technological changes that will disrupt how a business operates and generate value, the way people work and live [ 3 , 47 ]. As a result of this industrial revolution, the nature of individuals’ work and their tasks will change [ 22 ], therefore, it is necessary to determine how managers cope with these changes, specifically relating to their salutogenesis. Furthermore, to manage change and challenges one needs to have a strong salutogenesis to comprehend, manage it in a resourceful manner, and see the meaningfulness in that change and new job requirements.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the level of managers’ sense of coherence (SOC) in terms of the adjustments and developments of the 4IR, and to gain an in-depth understanding of the three SOC components, namely comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness. The study also determined how managers with high and low SOC level scores manage the stressors inherent in the 4IR.

2. Materials and Methods

The nature of inquiry of this study employs an interpretivist approach, which is implemented in this study to provide a detailed understanding of the salutogenesis of managerial managers in South Africa and their interpretation of the era of the 4IR.

2.1. Research Design and Approach

The research design applied in this study was a hermeneutical design, which refers to the understanding and interpretation of texts such as organizational activities or events, the goal is to derive the participants’ meaning from the text [ 48 ]. As a qualitative interview method was employed to gather primary data in the qualitative research paradigm, a hermeneutical approach was adopted.

2.2. Sample

As the population under investigation consists managerial employees in South Africa, hence the sample consisted of altogether 17 managers from various industries. Out of the 17 managers, 10 were male and 7 were female, ranging in age from 26 to 63 years. For 10 individuals, Afrikaans was the first and English the second language while for 7 individuals English was the first language. The industries managers worked in range from manufacturing, human resource management, information technology finance, retail, construction, professional services to health and care services. Positions in the organizations were: Executive Director, Senior Executive, Senior Research Officer, Financial Director, HR Managers, Head Accountant, Commercial Director, and Medical Sales Manager.

The sampling methods used were purposive and snowball sampling [ 49 , 50 ]. Purposefully chosen, specific individuals were invited to participate in the study. These individuals were directly contacted by email or telephone.

Data were collected from selected managers on lower, medium and upper managerial levels in different organizations. All of the organizations, managers were recruited from for interviews are organizations which are transforming into 4IR workplaces. Selection criteria were therefore: (1) managers on different managerial levels; (2) fluently in English language; and (3) working in organizations which are in the process of transforming or are transformed in terms of the 4IR.

2.3. Data Collection and Data Analysis

One of the researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with the managers. Questions in the interviews included, for example: “how do you perceive the 4IR process?”; “tell me about detailed experiences of the 4IR in your organization.”; “what are your personal resources to cope with the 4IR?”; “how do you manage the 4IR processes?” and “what makes your life meaningful in the 4IR context?”.

The method of analysis was the interpretive qualitative content analysis [ 51 ]. The interview texts were coded and categorized [ 52 ] by an abductive approach where the themes were established prior to the data analysis through categories formed from the analysis of the data [ 53 ].

2.4. Quality Criteria

The rigor of qualitative inquiry [ 54 ] is necessary to establish that the results are evidence and scientific based [ 55 ]. The trustworthiness of the research was ensured by adhering to the requirements of credibility, transferability, dependability, and conformability [ 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 ]. Credibility was addressed by presenting research and findings in transparent ways which fulfil the objective of the study and focusing on selected characteristics [ 58 ], through reading and re-reading the data to identify codes and thereafter formulated themes. Dependability was determined by the reliability of the findings or the consistency of the results, which is guaranteed by maintaining records (audit trail) of the steps followed and conclusions made during the research process [ 54 , 58 ]. Transferability was achieved by that the findings can be repeated in the same context with the same participants (no ambiguity found in decisions made) [ 56 ], by using a thick description of the research process [ 54 , 58 ]. Conformity was achieved by that the results were verified and supported by other researchers [ 59 ], by describing the process in detail and documenting the records [ 54 , 56 , 58 ].

2.5. Ethical Considerations

In terms of ethical considerations [ 60 ], the participants were provided with the information relating to the study and given a choice to participate in the study [ 61 ]. The participants were informed that they had the right to withdraw from the research process at any stage. While the participants were provided with the necessary information regarding the objectives of the study [ 62 ], the participants were provided with the opportunity to exercise their right of informed consent. Confidentiality was obtained by guaranteeing participants’ anonymity and not disclosing any identifiable information from the participants [ 63 ]. Precautions were put in place to prohibit the disclosure of personal information to irrelevant parties. While reporting was conducted in a transparent and honest manner to avoid deception [ 61 ], the researchers did not draw conclusions that were not supported by the data gathered [ 64 ].

The results of the semi-structured interviews on the SOC during the 4IR is provided with direct quotations.

3.1. Theme: Comprehensibility

Managers were asked to describe the 4IR and most managers understood the 4IR as technological development by naming the disruptive technologies (see Table 1 ). Where 12 out of 17 participants named examples of these new technologies, and 10 out of 17 participants mentioned that the 4IR is disruptive technologies:

The Comprehensibility of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) by Managers.

“Uhm, and actually quite disruptive, I think we hear about stuff like water, you know, self-driving cars, and maybe household appliances being interconnected, everything…” (Participant 2, Male). Hence the participant is describing the 4IR by proving examples of the new technologies of the 4IR namely self-driving cars.

Furthermore, the participants were asked to comment on how their job descriptions will change due to the 4IR and 13 out of 17 participants mentioned that their job descriptions will remain the same, however, additional practices will be required:

“ So, I think that would probably say the same. Uhm, the only thing that would they’ll probably add some auxiliary in front of it, like online research, or virtual research or something like that… ” (Participant 3, Male). In other words, the participant believes his job description would not be entirely affected by the 4IR, but rather additional skills will be needed.

Furthermore, participants understood that the developments of the 4IR will mostly impact their life and health in a positive way:

“ It’s made my life easier. I get here, I didn’t have I didn’t have[sic] a computer when I started here, or my other companies where I worked, I had a computer to keep in touch with uhm, people overseas or contacts… ” (Participant 14, Male). This participant articulates the comfort and improvement of life due to the new technologies.

“ Now it is quite nice, because you book your class, and then you know, you’re in that class, you can plan your day around that class. So, I think it’s helped me… uhm dedicate better to do physical activity. ” (Participant 9, Female). Therefore, the participant pronounces the easiness of exercise due to the new technological developments.

3.2. Theme: Manageability

This theme outlines the resources used to cope and manage the changes of the 4IR (see Table 2 ). Most participants mentioned that skills and knowledge are important resources to have to remain relevant during the 4IR. Therefore, continuous learning, connecting with others, upskilling, adaptability and observations are important practices during the 4IR:

Manageability Resources Used by Managers.

“ Yes, I would say I read a lot, I read a lot. Uhm, I read, uhm, a lot of articles related to my job, and also to the technology. ” (Participant 7, Female). This illustrate that continuous learning is necessary to remain relevant during 4IR.

“ And other thing as well is connecting with people face to face, virtually, and learning from their experiences and then determining, you know, what is, you know, how can I respond to that, to ensure that they have uhm, a good experience. ” (Participant 6, Female). Hence, tapping into other professionals’ knowledge and skills to manage the changes of the 4IR, which emphasis interpersonal skills.

“ Uhm so ja, I think just basically people that are stuck in their ways are not going to cope [laugh] they will have to be adaptable. ” (Participant 2, Male). This statement demonstrate that adaptability is needed during the 4IR, otherwise people will not cope with these new changes.

3.3. Theme: Meaningfulness

The participants view of the 4IR is overall positive and optimistic about the changes brought by the 4IR (see Table 3 ):

Meaningfulness of the 4IR Perceived by Managers.

“I think it’s a positive aspect… I think it’s like some strain off human on humans.” (Participant 6, Female), in other words, the 4IR improves the efficiency of human tasks.

“Oh, yes, for sure. I think it’s probably the best thing. Yeah, the best thing we can do now is to push forward with it.” (Participant 13, Male). Therefore, the 4IR is viewed in a positive light and it is to the benefit of people to develop with the 4IR.

Furthermore, participants were asked to describe will make their job meaningful, and 13 out of 17 participants mentioned that technology can assist in making their job meaningful:

“ …I can reach more people through technology that would be great, uhm that I could get the knowledge out there. Uhm, you know, get more knowledge to more people .” (Participant 5, Female). This indicates that employing technology to be of service to people is an important aspect in the individual’s job.

4. Discussion

The general aim of this study was to determine how do managers in South Africa conceptualize the 4IR as a result of their SOC levels. The overall results of comprehensibility illustrate that majority of the managers tend to understand the 4IR and changes brought about in their job descriptions. The results illustrate that the most frequent understanding of the 4IR is the technological component, namely the development of disruptive technologies. These descriptions are consisted with international literature of Schwab [ 65 ], who describes the 4IR as a technological revolution which brings about changes and transformation. Furthermore, digitization and access to information are also used to describe the 4IR, which is similar to that of Griffiths and Ooi [ 2 ], Hirschi [ 22 ], Lasi et al. [ 66 ], Lombard [ 67 ], Skilton and Hovsepian [ 1 ], and Schwab [ 65 ], which include unlimited access to information, digitization and the fusion of biological and physical worlds.

However, the results also indicate that the human element cannot be fully removed from the workplace, with Paba and Solinas [ 68 ] sharing the opinion of the participants that not all human tasks can be replaced by the new technology, therefore, these results contribute to international literature. The results also indicate that majority managers mostly believe that their job descriptions will not change due to the 4IR in the near future, but additional skills will be needed to stay relevant during the 4IR. These results are similar to the South African findings of Abdulla [ 69 ], where managerial activities and leading of people is secure from job automation.

Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the managers believe they have the necessary resources to manage the challenges and change brought by the 4IR, where the manager’s emphasized the resources of having the relevant knowledge and skills to remain relevant during the 4IR. The international results of Güleryüz and Duygulu [ 70 ] also demonstrate that the leaders prepare themselves for the 4IR by gaining the necessary knowledge and skills, and understanding of the 4IR.

In addition, the results of meaningfulness indicated that managers find that the 4IR meaningful due to the majority of the changes seen as a positive and the optimistic. Similar to Abdulla (2019), who found that most South African managers had a positive view of the technologies available due to the 4IR, however, negative views were also shared. In addition, Mayer and Oosthuizen [ 26 ] found that international managers tend to focus on positive elements when working with challenges during the transition into the 4IR due to their substantial focus on a strong Sense of Coherence, salutogenesis and meaningfulness. Furthermore, majority of managers’ work is meaningful when they are able to utilize technology to reach more people and upskill them. It is evident that the 4IR can assist managers in making their job meaningful. Findings of Mayer and Oosthuizen [ 26 ] suggest that international leaders find meaningfulness important, which result in the necessary strengths and motivation during 4IR, however, literature on what makes manager’s work meaningful is scarce.

The findings do not necessarily provide a critical view on the 4IR, but rather reflect the experiences and insights of the managers with regard to the changing environments within the framework of SOC.

The limitations of this study entail the subjective perspective on the qualitative approach that results in the probability of the researcher’s bias to reflect certain data. As usual in qualitative research, the findings are not generalizable. The study is limited to a relatively small sample size of 17 individuals. Another limitation of the study is that the sample is not representative of all South African cultures, since the sample consists mostly of white participants, with the majority of the participants being male (10), whereas the female participants number seven of the seventeen participants. Furthermore, these findings cannot be linked to a specific industry since participants work across industries.

5. Conclusions and Recommendations

The 4IR incites disruption in society, the economy and industry by introducing dynamic changes, which will affect businesses, individuals and their jobs. To cope with these changes and challenges one needs to have a strong salutogenesis to comprehend and manage change in a resourceful manner and to see the meaningfulness in that change and the new experiences at work. Considering how extensively the 4IR is discussed and the effects of the 4IR on economies, businesses and jobs, there is there is a noticeable lack of research on the Salutogenesis of managers at the time of the 4IR. Consequently, this research study was employed to explore managers’ SOC levels with relevance to the 4IR.

It can be concluded that managers try their best to understand the 4IR well, to grasp the concepts and to see its application in their daily managerial work and activities. Further, they believe that they need resources to manage rapid changes and stay at the top of the trend. Finally, managers use a positive psychology perspective: they aim at seeing the meaningfulness in the new trends of the 4IR. That does not mean that they are uncritical, but it rather shows that they try to adapt to a change that is unstoppable. While they are trying to make ends meet, managers ascribe meaningfulness into the new work life which is strongly influenced by technology. They define certain 4IR trends therefore as a meaningful chance to reach a growing number of people (clients, stakeholder, colleagues, competitors etc.) and to be stimulated through the experience of new effects of the environment on the organization and the self. They further see meaningfulness in their own upskilling and their own familiarization with the new challenges and the response to the question of how to handle the new trends.

Managers tend to have a good understanding of the 4IR by describing this concept according to other literature. In addition, managers predict that their job descriptions would not change in the near future, but additional practices will be required. Managers consider they have the necessary resources to manage and cope with the changes and challenges that emanate from the 4IR. Furthermore, managers find their job meaningful when technology can be used to help and upskill others. Furthermore, according to the findings, managers perceive the 4IR as an overall welcome change. A majority of the research focuses on how the 4IR impacts occupations of specific nature, and the effect on organizational structure, economies and societies. However, literature on positive mental health remain scarce in the 4IR field. The recommendations for future studies suggest that research studies could be conducted how managers and lower-level managers’ SOC differ, which will provide insight into what different preparation methods are required for the different level of managers. Furthermore, these findings could be used as a basis for future studies, which employs a quantitative approach to generalize the findings to a bigger population. On a practical level, organizations should focus on building comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness by addressing their human resource management, adjusting their training programs and supporting their managers by building a meaningful and manageable work culture based on cooperation, openness and trust.

Acknowledgments

We would kindly like that thank all of the interviewees and Elisabeth Vanderheiden for doing the technical editing for this article.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, methodology, validation, and writing of original draft: C.W.; C.-H.M.; formal analysis, investigation, resources, data curation, C.W.; writing, review and editing, R.M.O. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

2020 Global Excellence and Stature (GES) 4.0 Funding MASTER’S SCHOLARSHIPS.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Ethics Committee of the Academic Institution (protocol code IPPM-2020-418(M) and approval date: 18 June 2020).

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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The Fourth Industrial Revolution

What is the fourth industrial revolution.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), also known as Industry 4.0, is a new era of development in which digital, physical and biological systems converge, fundamentally transforming industries, economies and societies.  

The term Fourth Industrial Revolution was coined by Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF). He introduced this concept in his book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution, published in 2016. In it, he discusses how emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) and robotics have begun to merge with the physical, digital and biological worlds and, thus, have revolutionized economies, industries and societies in the process.   

 In this video, discover how the 4IR is transforming the world: 

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The 4IR’s alternate name, Industry 4.0, is usually referred to in the context of the manufacturing and industrial sectors. This term highlights the revolution's focus on the integration of digital technologies into the heart of industry to create smart factories that embody the convergence of the physical and digital worlds. 

This revolution is distinguished by its unprecedented speed, scope and impact on human life—it offers immense opportunities for progress but also poses significant challenges, including ethical considerations and the potential for increased inequality. Klaus Schwab argues that this era is more than just a technological upgrade—it’s an opportunity to help everyone, including leaders, policymakers and people from all income groups and nations, to harness converging technologies in order to create an inclusive, human-centered future. The 4IR compels us to rethink how we create, exchange and distribute value, with particular emphasis on the need for global cooperation and inclusive policies to harness its potential for the betterment of humanity. 

The 4IR expands upon the breakthroughs of the Third Industrial Revolution, also known as the digital revolution, that occurred from the 1950s through the early 2000s. During this time, innovations like computers, diverse electronic devices, the Internet and numerous other technological advances emerged. 

Fourth Industrial Revolution: Integration of Design and Technology 

The 4IR is marked by the integration of technologies like AI, IoT, robotics and VR, which demands a holistic design approach that considers not only the form and function but also the interconnectedness and intelligence of products and systems. 

The Apple Vision Pro epitomizes the convergence of design, technology, AI and VR—it’s a significant release of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This device combines Apple's renowned design ethos with cutting-edge virtual reality capabilities to offer users immersive experiences that blur the line between the digital and physical worlds. The Vision Pro is powered by sophisticated AI to deliver personalized, intuitive interactions—it’s expected to set a new standard for how technology interfaces with human behavior.  

Watch Apple’s first announcement video for the Vision Pro: 

 As technology becomes more embedded in everyday life, design in the 4IR emphasizes user-centric solutions and personalized experiences, enabled by data analytics and machine learning. There's also a growing focus on sustainable and circular design principles driven by global challenges like climate change and resource scarcity. 

The complexity of 4IR technologies requires designers to work collaboratively across disciplines, integrating insights from engineering, biology, computer science and psychology. This interdisciplinary approach is crucial for innovation and for addressing the ethical, social and environmental implications of new technologies. 

The 4IR encourages designers to engage in speculative and critical design practices, exploring future scenarios and the societal impact of emerging technologies. This approach helps to envision potential futures and guide the development of technology in a responsible and human-centered direction. 

What Are the Key Technologies of the 4IR 

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning 

AI involves machines and programs capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence. Machine learning, a subset of AI, enables computers to learn from data and improve over time. These technologies are revolutionizing sectors by enhancing decision-making, automating tasks and creating new services and products. 

In this video, AI Product Designer Ioana Teleanu discusses AI’s impact on the world:  

 Learn more about machine learning in this video: 

Internet of Things (IoT) 

IoT refers to the network of physical objects embedded with sensors, software and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the internet. This interconnectivity enables more efficient processes and improved data analytics, which impacts everything from home automation to industrial manufacturing.  

Smart lighting product, Philips Hue, uses IoT technology to offer a wide range of smart bulbs, lamps, and light fixtures that can be controlled via the Philips Hue app or through integration with other smart home systems. These lights can change color, brightness, and even sync with media content for an immersive experience. See how Philips uses IoT in their product expansion, Philips Hue Secure, in this video:   

Robotics technology involves the design, construction, operation and use of robots for various tasks. With advancements in AI and machine learning, robots are becoming increasingly sophisticated, capable of performing complex tasks autonomously or augmenting human capabilities in industries like manufacturing, healthcare and services. 

 In this video, Robotic company Boston Dynamics demonstrates how their robot Atlas can aid in construction:

Blockchain 

Blockchain is a decentralized ledger of all transactions across a network, which enables secure, transparent and tamper-proof record-keeping. While it underpins cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, its applications extend to secure transactions, smart contracts and supply chain management. 

Organizations like IBM's Food Trust network uses blockchain to trace the production, processing, and distribution of food products to enhance safety and reduce waste.   

Quantum Computing 

Quantum computing represents a significant leap forward in computing power—it uses principles of quantum mechanics to process information at speeds unattainable by traditional computers. This technology has the potential to revolutionize fields such as cryptography, drug discovery and complex system simulation. 

Google's quantum AI lab is researching how quantum computing could accelerate machine learning tasks by processing complex data more efficiently than classical computers. Learn more in this video:    

3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing 

3D printing builds objects layer by layer from digital models. This offers unprecedented flexibility in manufacturing. It enables rapid prototyping, custom manufacturing and complex designs not possible with traditional methods which impacts industries from healthcare (with prosthetics and organ printing) to aerospace and automotive. 

 In this video by Mayo Clinic, 3D printing is used to create more hygienic and effective casts and splints for a patient with fractures and other injuries:  

Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering 

Advances in biotechnology and genetic engineering have enabled us to manipulate living organisms or their components to develop or make products, which improves healthcare, agriculture and environmental sustainability. Techniques like CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing have opened new possibilities for disease treatment and precision medicine. 

Learn more about gene editing in this video by TED-Ed:

Nanotechnology  

Nanotechnology manipulates matter at the atomic and molecular scale and promises significant advancements in materials science, medicine and electronics. Its applications range from more effective drug delivery systems to water treatment processes that remove contaminants at a molecular level. 

 In this video by Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology, learn how nanotechnology can be used to fight cancer:  

 Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) 

AR and VR technologies are changing the way we interact with digital environments. AR overlays digital information onto the physical world, while VR creates immersive digital environments. These technologies have applications in education, training, entertainment and beyond. 

 Learn more about VR, its history and its future in this video: 

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) 

CPS are integrations of computation, networking and physical processes. Embedded computers and networks monitor and control the physical processes, with feedback loops where physical processes affect computations and vice versa. This integration is foundational for smart grids, autonomous vehicle systems and smart factories. 

 In this video watch how a Tesla vehicle drives itself:   

These technologies are not only transformative in their own right, but are also interrelated. They often converge to create innovative solutions and opportunities across a variety of sectors and different levels of society and the economy. The potential of the 4IR lies in how these technologies are harnessed to drive forward human progress, address global challenges and reshape the world for the better. 

The Impact of the 4IR: Case Studies 

Environmental protection: iot for monitoring and conservation .

Rainforest Connection transforms recycled smartphones into solar-powered acoustic devices that monitor rainforest sounds. AI algorithms analyze these sounds to detect illegal logging and poaching in real time, enabling rapid response to protect wildlife and forests. This case study highlights how 4IR technologies can be creatively applied to combat environmental destruction and biodiversity loss. 

 Learn more about Rainforest Connection’s work in this video:  

Agro 4.0: More Efficient Farming 

The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) introduced technology to small and medium farms in Colombia. The technology includes soil, water and climate sensors, as well as AI, cloud computing and drones. The project managed to reduce the farmer's costs by 30% and increase their yields by 20%.  

 Watch the C4IR video to learn more   

Healthcare: AI-Driven Diagnostics and Personalized Medicine 

Google's DeepMind developed an artificial intelligence system that can accurately detect over 50 types of eye diseases from 3D scans. Scientists from Google's DeepMind division, University College London (UCL) and Moorfields Eye Hospital developed software through deep learning techniques that can detect numerous prevalent eye conditions from 3D scans and subsequently recommend treatment options for the patient. This technology enables early diagnosis and treatment to potentially prevent vision loss in millions of people worldwide. Not only does it improve diagnostic accuracy and patient outcomes, but it can also reduce healthcare costs.  

© UCL, Moorfields, DeepMind, et al, Fair Use

What are the Impacts of the 4IR? 

The 4IR is not just a technological revolution; it's a catalyst for comprehensive change—how we live, work and relate to one another. Here are some of the major impacts and implications of the 4IR: 

Economic Transformation 

Productivity and efficiency : The integration of technologies like AI, robotics and IoT significantly boosts productivity and operational efficiencies across industries. In most cases, this leads to reduced costs, improved production rates and enhanced product quality. 

New business models and markets : The 4IR has enabled new, innovative business models (e.g., platform-based economies like Airbnb and sharing economies like Uber) and the creation of markets that didn't exist before, particularly in the digital and service sectors. 

Job displacement and creation : While automation and AI have displaced many traditional jobs, particularly in manufacturing and routine white-collar tasks, they also create new jobs that require advanced digital skills and competencies in technology development, data analysis and cybersecurity. 

Societal Changes 

Education and skill development : There's a growing need for education systems to adapt and an emphasis on STEM education, critical thinking, creativity and lifelong learning to prepare individuals for the jobs of the future. 

Inequality and digital divide : The benefits of the 4IR risk being unevenly distributed, which could exacerbate income inequality and widen the digital divide between those with access to new technologies and skills and those without. 

Enhanced connectivity and communication : The global proliferation of the internet and mobile devices has led to unprecedented levels of connectivity to enable new forms of social interaction, collaboration and information exchange. 

Technological Advancements 

Accelerated innovation : The rapid pace of technological advancement in fields like biotechnology, nanotechnology and quantum computing has already begun to revolutionize healthcare, energy and other industries.  

Cybersecurity challenges : As more devices and systems are connected, vulnerabilities to cyber-attacks increase. Data privacy and system security are increasingly critical challenges. 

Environmental Considerations 

Sustainable development : Technologies emerging from the 4IR offer promising solutions to environmental challenges, including more efficient resource use, renewable energy technologies and smarter, more sustainable cities. 

Climate change mitigation : Advances in technology are crucial for monitoring environmental changes, improving energy efficiency and developing new methods for carbon capture and storage to combat climate change. 

Ethical and Governance Issues 

Ethical considerations : The development and application of technologies like AI and genetic engineering raise profound ethical questions about privacy, consent and the nature of human identity. 

Regulation and governance : There is an increasing need for effective governance frameworks to ensure that the development and deployment of new technologies are aligned with societal values and ethical principles. Policymakers are challenged to keep pace with technological innovation while safeguarding public interests. 

The History of the World’s Industrial Revolutions 

The 4IR is built upon the foundation laid by the three previous industrial revolutions, each marked by a significant leap in technological capabilities that transformed societies and economies. It's important to understand these precursors as they provide essential context to grasp the scale and scope of the changes the 4IR represents. 

First Industrial Revolution: Late 18th to Early 19th Century 

The first Industrial Revolution’s start and end date are widely debated, but the general consensus is that it spanned from about 1760 to 1840. It was characterized by the transition from hand production methods to machines through the use of steam power and water power. The textile industry was among the first to be transformed, with the invention of the spinning jenny and the power loom. This era saw the rise of mechanized factories, which significantly increased production capabilities and led to urbanization as people moved to cities for work. 

A factory from the First Industrial Revolution. The machinery harnessed steam and water power.

© National Geographic, CC BY-SA 4.0

Second Industrial Revolution: Late 19th to Early 20th Century 

This period is roughly dated between 1870 and the beginning of World War I in 1914. The Second Industrial Revolution was marked by the introduction of electricity—this transformation led to more advanced manufacturing and production technologies. The development of the assembly line, notably used by Henry Ford in the mass production of automobiles, drastically increased efficiency and made goods more accessible to the masses. This period also saw significant advancements in chemical, electrical and steel production. 

The Ford Model T assembly line circa 1913-1914. Henry Ford was one of the first to use an assembly line for mass production. When a Model T left the assembly line at Ford's Highland Park plant to be shipped by rail, it was not fully assembled. In this photograph, workers temporarily place bodies onto a chassis. At the loading dock, bodies and wheels would be removed and packed separately to conserve freight car space. Full assembly took place at branch plants closer to the vehicles' final destination.

© The Henry Ford, CC BY-SA 4.0

Third Industrial Revolution: Mid-Late 20th Century  

Also known as the Digital Revolution, this era started around the 1950s-1970s. It’s defined by the move from analog electronic and mechanical devices to digital technologies. The invention of the personal computer, the internet and information and communications technology (ICT) transformed the way people live, work and communicate. It laid the groundwork for the globalized, interconnected world of today. The Third Industrial Revolution transitioned into the Fourth Industrial Revolution around the early 21st century, so there is no definitive end date for this period.  

Steve Jobs with the Apple II. It was released in 1977 and is an example of an early personal computer.

© Alamy, CC BY-SA 4.0

Fourth Industrial Revolution: 21st Century 

The 4IR builds on the digital revolution and is marked by a fusion of technologies that blur the lines between the physical, digital and biological. It’s characterized by breakthroughs in a range of areas including AI, robotics, the Internet of Things, genetic engineering, quantum computing and others. Unlike previous revolutions, the 4IR evolves at an exponential rate, transforming almost every industry and many aspects of human life. 

Each industrial revolution brought about drastic changes in economic structures, social systems and the global order. While the first three revolutions introduced and then expanded upon mechanization, electrification and digitization, respectively, the 4IR stands out for its potential to integrate cyber-physical systems and impact all disciplines, economies and industries on a global scale.  

How the Industrial Revolutions Have Impacted Design 

The industrial revolutions have profoundly influenced design. The technological, social and economic shifts of each era have shaped how, what and why humans design. Here's how each industrial revolution has impacted design: 

First Industrial Revolution 

Mass Production : The advent of steam-powered machinery enabled the mass production of goods, leading to product standardization. Design during this period focused on functionality and manufacturability, often at the expense of aesthetics and individuality. 

This British printed cotton textile is an example of the 1820 is an example of Regency design.

Second Industrial Revolution 

Industrial design : The introduction of assembly line manufacturing and advancements in materials and processes, such as steel production and electrical engineering, birthed the discipline of industrial design. Designers began to focus on the user experience, ergonomics and aesthetic appeal of products and thus recognized the value of design in marketing and brand differentiation. 

A Singer sewing machine circa 1880.

© Singer, Fair Use

The Singer sewing machine is a pivotal and recognizable invention from the 19th Century. Isaac Merritt Singer, an American inventor, patented the first practical sewing machine in 1851. Their machines were a combination of practical functionality with elaborate Victorian aesthetics. Its design not only made sewing more efficient and less labor-intensive but also turned the sewing machine into a desirable household item. In 1889, they released the first electric sewing machine. The Singer Company's innovations in mass production and global marketing strategies are classic examples of Second Industrial Revolution practices.  

An advertisement for the Singer 99k-13, the first electric sewing machine released in 1889.

Third Industrial Revolution 

Digital design : The Digital Revolution introduced computers and digital technology which revolutionized the way designers work. Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and other digital tools enabled more complex and precise designs to foster innovation in product development, architecture and graphic design. The rise of the internet also opened new avenues for digital and web design and emphasized user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design. 

Milton Glaser's "I Love NY" logo was designed in 1977 for a New York State advertising campaign—it’s one of the most iconic works in graphic design. With its simple yet impactful composition, the American Typewriter font paired with a heart symbol replacing the word "love", Glaser's design captured the essence of New York City's resilience and appeal during a time of economic hardship and social unrest. This logo revitalized New York's image and showcased the power of graphic design in shaping public perception and fostering a sense of community and pride. Although the Digital Revolution was in its nascent stage, the impact of evolving technologies on design practices was becoming increasingly apparent.

© Milton Glaser, Fair Use

Learn More About the Fourth Industrial Revolution 

Read Klaus Schwab’s book The Fourth Industrial Revolution . 

Visit the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution .  

Read McKinsey and Company’s piece, What are Industry 4.0, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and 4IR?  

Read about the World Economic Forum’s various 4IR projects . 

Check out National Geographic’s collection on the Industrial Revolution .  ​​​​

Questions about The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Emerging technologies such as AI and IoT are fundamentally transforming the design industry through the introduction of new capabilities for automation, personalization and connectivity. AI is being leveraged to automate routine design tasks, generate innovative design options and provide data-driven insights that can enhance efficiency and creativity. For example, Autodesk's Dreamcatcher is an AI-based generative design system that enables designers to input design goals along with parameters such as materials, manufacturing methods and cost constraints. The system then explores all the possible permutations of a solution and quickly generates design alternatives. IoT, on the other hand, integrates physical objects with sensors and software to allow designers to create interconnected products that can communicate with each other and with users in real-time. A notable example is the Philips Hue lighting system, which allows users to control light settings from their mobile devices, creating personalized environments.  

 Learn more about how AI is changing design and the world in this video with AI Product Designer, Ioana Teleanu:  

In the 4IR, essential skills for designers extend beyond traditional design competencies to include digital literacy, an understanding of emerging technologies and the ability to work with data. Proficiency in tools and platforms that leverage AI, IoT, VR/AR and 3D printing has become increasingly important. For instance, designers must be adept at using AI for user experience personalization and predictive analytics, as seen in platforms like Adobe Sensei, which helps automate and enhance creative tasks. Additionally, critical thinking, creativity and problem-solving remain foundational and enable designers to devise innovative solutions to complex problems. Collaboration skills are also vital, as the multidisciplinary nature of 4IR projects often requires working closely with engineers, data scientists and other specialists. The ability to continuously learn and adapt is crucial, given the rapid pace of technological change.  

 Learn more about essential skills for the 4IR in our courses AI for Designers , UX Design for Virtual Reality and UX Design for Augmented Reality .

The 4IR has significantly impacted UX and UI design practices by pushing the boundaries of customization, interactivity and user engagement. With the integration of technologies such as AI, IoT, VR and AR, designers are now able to create more personalized and immersive experiences. AI and machine learning offer the ability to analyze user data in real-time which enables the creation of interfaces that adapt to user behaviors and preferences. For example, Spotify uses machine learning to tailor music recommendations to individual tastes to enhance the user experience through personalization. 

 In addition, VR and AR technologies are redefining user interactions with digital products by offering immersive experiences that were previously not possible. AR apps like IKEA Place allow users to visualize furniture in their homes before making a purchase, merging digital and physical realities to improve decision-making and satisfaction. These advancements demand that UX/UI designers not only focus on traditional design principles but also on understanding and leveraging these emerging technologies to create seamless, intuitive and engaging user experiences. The emphasis on user-centered design has never been more critical as designers strive to ensure that technological advancements enhance rather than complicate the user experience. 

 Learn more about UX and UI Design for AR, VR and XR in our courses UX Design for Virtual Reality and UX Design for Augmented Reality , as well as our Master Classes How To Craft Immersive Experiences in XR and How to Innovate with XR .

Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) are transforming product design by enabling designers to create immersive and interactive prototypes which enhances the design process, user testing and user engagement. This capability is invaluable for industries such as automotive and architecture, where designers and engineers can virtually walk through a building or experience a car's interior before any physical prototype is built. For example, Ford uses VR to simulate car designs to allow for rapid iteration and testing of ergonomic and aesthetic features without the need for physical models. 

AR, on the other hand, overlays digital information onto the real world to enhance a user's perception of reality. This technology is particularly transformative in retail and interior design, as seen in. IKEA's AR app, IKEA Place. 

VR and AR technologies offer powerful tools for designers to not only improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the design process but also to create products and experiences that are more aligned with user needs and expectations. These technologies facilitate a more iterative design process, where feedback can be gathered and implemented quickly and lead to higher-quality and more user-friendly products. 

Learn more about UX Design for VR and AR in our courses UX Design for Virtual Reality and UX Design for Augmented Reality .

Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF) coined the term term the Fourth Industrial Revolution. He introduced this concept in his 2016 book of the same name. It remains the most influential book on the topic.   

Schwab, K. (2016). The Fourth Industrial Revolution. Portfolio. 

In the 4IR, data analytics plays a crucial role in design—it empowers designers with insights that drive more informed, user-centric decisions. Through the analysis of large datasets, designers can uncover patterns, trends and user behaviors that inform every stage of the design process, from conceptualization to final product development. This data-driven approach enables the creation of products and services that truly meet user needs and preferences. 

For example, in UX/UI design, data analytics can optimize user interfaces based on actual user interaction data and lead to more intuitive and effective designs. Companies like Netflix use data analytics to tailor content and recommendations to individual users, which enhances user experience. In product design, data analytics can inform feature development, usability improvements and even predict future trends, to ensure products remain relevant and competitive.  

Additionally, in the context of sustainable design, data analytics can identify areas where resources can be optimized or reduced, contributing to more environmentally friendly design solutions. Overall, data analytics bridges the gap between user expectations and design outcomes, making it an indispensable tool in the 4IR design toolkit. 

Learn more about data-driven design in our course Data-Driven Design: Quantitative Research for UX . 

Designers can leverage machine learning (ML) and AI in their work to enhance creativity, efficiency and user experience. One primary way is through the automation of routine tasks such as data analysis, which allows designers to focus more on the creative aspects of their projects. For example, Adobe Sensei, Adobe's AI and ML technology, automates complex processes like image editing and pattern recognition, to speed up the design workflow. 

Additionally, ML and AI can generate design alternatives and suggest improvements by learning from vast datasets of design elements and user interactions. This capability supports designers in exploring a wider range of options and making informed decisions based on predicted user preferences and behaviors. 

AI can also personalize user experiences in real-time by adapting interfaces, content and recommendations to individual user needs. Streaming services like Netflix and Spotify use AI to analyze viewing or listening habits, respectively, to deliver highly personalized content recommendations, to improve user satisfaction. 

Additionally, designers can use AI for more accurate user testing and feedback gathering. Tools powered by AI can simulate how users interact with designs to provide valuable insights without the need for extensive user testing sessions. 

Learn more about AI and ML, especially in the context of design, in our course AI for Designers . 

Watch the trailer here:  

In the Fourth Industrial Revolution, designers face several ethical considerations that stem from the increased use of emerging technologies like AI, IoT and big data analytics. Key ethical considerations include: 

Privacy and data protection : With the extensive collection and analysis of user data, designers must ensure they respect user privacy and comply with data protection laws. This involves designing systems that are secure by default and transparent about how user data is collected, used and stored. 

Bias and fairness : AI and machine learning algorithms can inadvertently perpetuate biases present in their training data, leading to unfair or discriminatory outcomes. Designers must strive to use diverse datasets and regularly audit algorithms to minimize bias. 

Accessibility and inclusiveness : The 4IR offers opportunities to make designs more accessible to a wider audience, including people with disabilities. Designers have a responsibility to ensure their products and services are inclusive, providing equal access and opportunities for everyone. 

Sustainability : With the growing concern over environmental issues, designers must consider the ecological impact of their designs. This includes choosing sustainable materials, designing for energy efficiency and considering the entire lifecycle of products to minimize waste. 

Accountability and transparency : As AI systems become more autonomous, designers must ensure that these systems are transparent in their decision-making processes and that there are mechanisms in place for accountability, especially in critical applications like healthcare or autonomous vehicles. 

User autonomy and manipulation : Designers need to be mindful of not creating manipulative designs that exploit user psychology for profit, such as dark patterns that trick users into making decisions against their interests. 

An example of ethical design in practice is the development of AI in healthcare, where designers and developers are working to ensure systems are transparent, explainable and free from bias to recognize the critical impact these systems have on patient care and outcomes. Ethical considerations in the 4IR are complex and evolving, requiring designers to stay informed and engaged with the latest developments in technology ethics. 

Learn more about the ethics and transparency in AI in the article AI Challenges and How You Can Overcome Them: How to Design for Trust .  

The role of human-centered design (HCD) is evolving significantly with the advent of the 4IR technologies, such as AI, IoT, VR/AR and big data analytics. HCD's core principle is to design with a deep focus on the needs, wants and limitations of end-users. That remains intact, but the scope and impact of this approach have expanded dramatically. 

In the 4IR, HCD is not just about products and services that are easy and intuitive to use; it's increasingly about how designers can leverage technology to make life better, work more productive and societies more inclusive. For example, AI and machine learning are being used to create more personalized experiences in everything from healthcare apps that provide tailored health advice, to educational platforms that adapt to the learning pace of individual students. 

In addition, HCD in the 4IR means designing for ethics and sustainability—to consider not just the immediate impact of a design on users, but also its long-term effects on society and the environment. This includes using IoT to create smart cities that enhance the quality of life, employing VR to train medical professionals without the need for physical resources and applying big data analytics to tackle complex social issues like poverty and climate change.  

Learn more about HCD in our Master Class Human-Centered Design for AI and our article Human-Centered Design: How to Focus on People When You Solve Complex Global Challenges . 

The Fourth Industrial Revolution has had a profound impact on sustainable and inclusive design—it’s offered new opportunities and challenges to create solutions that are environmentally friendly and accessible to all. The integration of technologies such as AI, IoT, VR/AR and big data analytics into the design process enables more informed decision-making, which leads to designs that can better address environmental concerns and social inequalities. 

In terms of sustainability, 4IR technologies allow for the optimization of resources and energy efficiency in product design and manufacturing processes. For example, AI can be used to analyze and predict patterns in energy consumption, which leads to the development of smarter, more energy-efficient buildings. Similarly, 3D printing technology enables the production of components with minimal waste and the use of sustainable materials further reduces the environmental footprint of manufactured goods. 

From an inclusivity perspective, 4IR technologies are breaking down barriers for people with disabilities and those in marginalized communities. For instance, AI-powered assistive devices can improve the quality of life for people with visual or auditory impairments, while AR and VR technologies offer new ways to experience content and services for those who may be physically unable to access them in traditional ways. 

Moreover, big data analytics play a crucial role in identifying and addressing gaps in accessibility and inclusivity and enable designers to create products and services that cater to a wider range of needs and preferences. This data-driven approach ensures that design decisions are based on real-world insights for more effective and impactful solutions. 

Learn more about sustainable design in our piece What is Sustainable Design? Take our course Design for Better World with Don Norman for an in-depth learning experience. 

Literature on The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Here’s the entire UX literature on The Fourth Industrial Revolution by the Interaction Design Foundation, collated in one place:

Learn more about The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Take a deep dive into The Fourth Industrial Revolution with our course Design for a Better World with Don Norman .

“Because everyone designs, we are all designers, so it is up to all of us to change the world. However, those of us who are professional designers have an even greater responsibility, for professional designers have the training and the knowledge to have a major impact on the lives of people and therefore on the earth.” — Don Norman, Design for a Better World

Our world is full of complex socio-technical problems:

Unsustainable and wasteful practices that cause extreme climate changes such as floods and droughts.

Wars that worsen hunger and poverty .

Pandemics that disrupt entire economies and cripple healthcare .

Widespread misinformation that undermines education.

All these problems are massive and interconnected. They seem daunting, but as you'll see in this course, we can overcome them.

Design for a Better World with Don Norman is taught by cognitive psychologist and computer scientist Don Norman. Widely regarded as the father (and even the grandfather) of user experience, he is the former VP of the Advanced Technology Group at Apple and co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group.

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The Fourth Industrial Revolution will be people powered

For many members of the world’s workforces, change can sometimes be seen as a threat, particularly when it comes to technology. This is often coupled with fears that automation will replace people. But a look beyond the headlines shows that the reverse is proving to be true , with Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies   driving productivity and growth across manufacturing and production at brownfield and greenfield sites . These technologies are creating more and different jobs that are transforming manufacturing and helping to build fulfilling, rewarding, and sustainable careers. What’s more, with 4IR technologies in the hands of a workforce empowered with the skills needed to use them, an organization’s digital transformation journey can move from aspiration to reality.

In this special edition of the McKinsey Talks Operations podcast, host Daphne Luchtenberg brings you highlights from a panel discussion on the importance of building workforce capabilities and shifting mindsets for successful digital transformation. The discussion took place recently as part of Lighthouses Live, the flagship event of the Global Lighthouse Network—a World Economic Forum initiative in collaboration with McKinsey & Company.

The conversation was led by Francisco Betti, head of advanced manufacturing and value chains and member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum. It also featured Revathi Advaithi, CEO of Flex; Robert Bodor, president and CEO of Protolabs; and David Goeckeler, CEO of Western Digital. The following is an edited version of their conversation.

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Daphne Luchtenberg: In this new world of work, the impact of technology means new skills and new roles are emerging as fast as other roles change.

David Goeckeler: You know, change can be opportunity for everybody. So I think we look at it through that lens. Change doesn’t have to be a threat; it’s just the opposite.

Daphne Luchtenberg: I’m Daphne Luchtenberg, one of your hosts for McKinsey Talks Operations , and that was David Goeckeler, CEO of Western Digital.

His comments were part of a conversation about the use of digital technologies in manufacturing and production, and how there is a need for training and development programs to teach workers the skills to use [these technologies].

So while there is a common perception that digitization and automation are a threat to the world’s workers, companies at the forefront of the technology frontier have actually created jobs—different, new roles that are much more high tech than the roles of the past.

And with the current labor mismatch being felt in many countries, the time is now to further engage workers for a digitally enabled future.

The Global Lighthouse Network

This focus is backed by growing research proving that workforce engagement is key. Over the last several years, research with the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with McKinsey, surveyed thousands of manufacturing sites on their way to digitizing operations and have identified about 90 leaders. These are the lighthouses—sites and supply chains chosen by an independent panel of experts for leadership in creating dramatic improvements with technology. Together they create the Global Lighthouse Network, committed to sharing what they’ve learned along the way. A common theme among these sites is their worker centricity—they are supporting the frontline workforce, upskilling, and making jobs easier and more interesting.

In this special edition of McKinsey Talks Operations , we’ll hear from the CEOs of a few of these leading companies about how they are engaging their people and putting technology in the hands of the workforce. The conversation originally took place during Lighthouses Live, a recent event of the Global Lighthouse Network. The discussion is led by Francisco Betti, at the World Economic Forum.

Let’s listen in.

Francisco Betti: I am delighted to be joined by an impressive group of leaders from our Global Lighthouse Network: Revathi Advaithi, chief executive officer of Flex; Robert Bodor, president and CEO of Protolabs; and David Goeckeler, chief executive officer of Western Digital.

Revathi, Robert, David—a very warm welcome, and thank you for joining us today. We have an exciting conversation ahead of us. We will discuss how you are shaping the future direction of your companies by leveraging Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies and empowering and engaging your people.

Revathi Advaithi: The most important thing is that we’re a company of people. We’re 165,000 people in 30 countries. And I’m a big believer that culture is at the forefront of everything we do. And great manufacturing comes because you have a great culture.

My belief is that the recognition of [the Flex factory in Althofen, Austria] as a lighthouse site is because they have a fantastic culture—a culture that’s focused on innovation, that is very ready to embrace change, is willing to learn from other companies across the world. So it’s such an amazing recognition for that particular site. And it really opens up the avenue for every Flex manufacturing site to really strive to be at the level that Althofen is and to be at the level of the other 90 manufacturing sites that are lighthouse-recognized.

So we are very, very excited about it. We think that this is the start of using the Fourth Industrial Revolution to really build on the capability of our sites, and just build a sustainable manufacturing legacy for Flex.

Francisco Betti: Western Digital has also joined the Global Lighthouse Network with two sites this year—one in Penang, Malaysia, and the other in Prachinburi, Thailand.

In your lighthouses, we have seen success driven by a combination of technology and people. Can you share how Western Digital has been keeping people at the center of its digital transformation journey to realize its full potential?

David Goeckeler: Keeping people at the center is actually pretty straightforward because people are the number-one priority in our operations. We work in a very dynamic market, and we know that our teams, and the skill of our teams, is really what’s going to define our success in the future. So keeping them at the center is critical. And it’s not just the operations team; it’s everybody in the company. We have over 60,000 employees—from the people in operations all the way to the executive team—and everybody is involved and behind this exciting effort. So keeping our people, reskilling our people, building that future-ready workforce, is what’s critical for us, but also for our employees.

Any time in life when you learn new skills, when you educate yourself, I think you have the opportunity to live a better life. It’s not just about our company being better and us being prepared for the future; it’s about all of our employees being ready for that future—keeping them at the center, having them highly engaged, all of the reskilling, getting them excited about what the future holds.

This isn’t some kind of executive mandate; it’s the employees leading it, pulling the company to it. Keeping them all deeply engaged keeps them directly at the center of what we’re doing. And, as I said, having our employees fully engaged, really building that future-ready workforce, is going to be what defines the success of Western Digital.

Francisco Betti: Thank you very much, David. It’s great to hear about the importance of culture and people from both you and Revathi.

Let me ask you a follow-up question. What advice you would give to those companies that are still stuck in pilot purgatory and are trying to scale digital transformations?

David Goeckeler: First of all, what we just talked about is workforce engagement. It’s got to be a pull, the workforce has to be fully engaged, you have to take the time to train and explain all the things about what success is going to mean for everybody. And you have to get that alignment from the shop floor all the way to the executive team on what going to a new model is going to deliver. And, as I said, not just for the business, but for all the individuals.

This is a new world. In manufacturing, there’s going to be a lot of fast and big data. Make sure you have a scalable industrial IoT stack that’s going to be able to handle that and be ready. David Goeckeler

Then I would point people to infrastructure readiness. This is a new world. In manufacturing, there’s going to be a lot of fast and big data. Make sure you have a scalable industrial IoT [Internet of Things] stack that’s going to be able to handle that and be ready.

So first make sure the workforce is engaged. Make sure the infrastructure is ready so that you don’t run into roadblocks. And then really prioritize. Pick use cases that are going to have a big impact. As the team says, “Think big, start small, and then scale fast.”

We’ve had a lot of success doing that—picking use cases that are going to have big business impacts. People see the value. You start to build momentum. And once you get some momentum going, it’s easier to keep it going and build faster and more of it. So, again, workforce engagement, infrastructure readiness, and then start with some prioritized use cases. Start small but think big. And then scale as fast as you can.

Francisco Betti: That is great advice, David. Thank you.

Revathi, let me come back to you now. Flex’s lighthouse in Austria was facing tough competition from lower-cost regions. However, your teams were able to leverage technology to build a more attractive product lineup. What are the key lessons your company learned from this? How does it inform your future strategy?

Revathi Advaithi: When you walk into our Althofen site, the first thing you notice is the “can do” culture. As the world went through labor arbitrage and manufacturing moving to more competitive regions of the world, Althofen has been a thriving site that has focused on using technology as a competitive advantage.

We have a site that is very well trained in terms of skilling. They’re able to skill and reskill, like David talked about, at an amazing pace with really good change. And the second is, tremendous resiliency. They’re able to bring up new products at a fast pace versus any other site that I’m aware of just because they have that spirit of innovation and the focus on technology.

Pretty much any complexity of product, they’re able to bring into their facility and scale up for a customer, and really respond to any of the market dynamics present. All of this has resulted in a site that’s having tremendous rigor—operational rigor—lots of agility, in terms of how they operate.

The results have been incredible for that site. They’ve had tremendous revenue growth while improving margins. But most importantly, they’ve made some sustainable change, which I really love. CO 2 emissions have improved significantly for that site. And we have driven reductions, in terms of our travel costs and those things in that site, just by use of technology—whether you’re thinking about simulation or any of those other technologies that have been used.

Francisco Betti: Thank you, Revathi. Amazing achievements.

Robert, this seems like the perfect opportunity to bring you in. Firstly, many congratulations for the recognition of your Plymouth site as a lighthouse—Protolabs’ first lighthouse in our global network.

As a medium-size enterprise, you embarked on an amazing journey to transition from providing prototypes to becoming an at-scale production supplier—and you did that by incrementally developing new digital capabilities.

What did you do to further accelerate your 4IR journey, considering your company was already a digital native?

Robert Bodor: As you alluded to, Protolabs was founded over two decades ago with a digital mindset from the start. We began as an injection-molding company looking to transform the traditional manufacturing process. Our mission was to automate traditional manufacturing in order to provide molded parts in days at a fraction of the price of traditional molders.

Over time, we extended this digitalization approach to other services, including CNC [computerized numerical control] machining, sheet metal fabrication, and 3-D printing. So, Revathi, you’re right, we love additive manufacturing at Protolabs.

As our name implies, we targeted engineers, who had needs for prototypes to begin with. But over time, we found that our customers were using us for production-part needs and that they valued us for our quality, our reliability, and our willingness to make parts on demand with no minimum-order quantities, so that they could virtualize their inventory and reduce their supply-chain risks, especially in times when demand was volatile.

So that realization was really key for us. And that launched the 4IR journey that you mentioned, Francisco, from being a prototype provider to, now, also a production provider. To do that, we had to extend our digital thread, which connects our online quoting platform to the shop floor and to the customer.

We already had end-to-end automation in place that allowed us to make a mold from scratch and shoot molded parts in one to 15 days. But now, we needed to extend that for these production applications. So we adopted 4IR technologies to expand that system. And it included things like processed automation, digital-part inspection and validation, and process control, which included implementing an industrial IoT stack that allows us to conduct real-time monitoring of our mold presses and associated equipment. And then close the loop in all of that.

All of this expanded the digital thread and the digital twin of key elements of our production processes so that we truly had this end-to-end connection from the online quote all the way through the production process and, ultimately, to the customer.

Lastly, we also implemented a scaled agile development framework, because software is at the core of our business and what we do. And this framework allowed several hundred software developers who are serving our injection-molding business to be able to be agile and coordinated at that scale and to respond to the needs of the plant and to the customers as they evolved.

Francisco Betti: Excellent. Thank you for sharing that, Robert. It sounds like an amazing journey. David, coming back to you now, and I’d like to focus once again on the importance of people.

Your lighthouses in Thailand and Malaysia have several thousand workers, and you’ve focused heavily on upskilling and reskilling. In fact, in Thailand, 60 percent of your workforce was reskilled to support and accelerate technology adoption. And that resulted in zero job losses, which is just fantastic.

How are you turning this approach of reskilling at scale into a competitive advantage for your company?

David Goeckeler: Our successes depended on our people. And let me give a little bit of background on what these people are building. Western Digital is a diversified storage company. An easy way to think about us is, 40 percent of the data that’s stored in the world is stored on a device that our team built.

That’s kind of an amazing stat: 40 percent of the data in the world that’s stored is stored on a device that these teams built. And the demand for that storage is increasing at a 35 percent yearly compounded annual growth rate. So there are plenty of things to do, and the technology allows us to build that.

And it’s our responsibility to equip and empower that team for our short-term and our long-term success. This is a very large imperative that we have a workforce that’s ready for the future that we’re building. We have thousands of engineers who are designing the products of the future that are going to enable the digital economy we all live in. Making sure we have a workforce that’s ready to build that technology is critically important to us.

So it’s really about making Western Digital the employer of choice in the regions that you saw. And that’s about that stronger workforce engagement—training them, letting people know that when you come to Western Digital, you’re not just going to do the job you have today, but you’re going to learn new skills.

We’re able to take our very experienced employees and our workforce that really knows how our business works and bring them into the future, and at the same time attract new people into the business. So I think it’s a win for everybody, and it’s been a great journey and a tremendous success.

Francisco Betti: Thank you, David. Robert, can I ask you what your thoughts are here?

Robert Bodor: I would agree with David’s comments. And furthermore, I would add that the manufacturing industry today, particularly the American manufacturing industry, is experiencing a severe labor shortage. And this has potential long-term implications.

A National Association of Manufacturers study indicated that over two million manufacturing jobs could go unfilled by 2030. As a digital manufacturer, we’ve worked to automate a great deal of our manufacturing process, which allows us to be more efficient with our workforce. And that’s one of the competitive advantages that’s coming to us from our 4IR initiatives.

However, our employees are absolutely critical to our success. So the challenge is real. And at Protolabs, we’re dedicated to creating what we hope are long-term career opportunities for our employees on the shop floor. And that requires considerable investment in creating learning opportunities that will help them grow.

We’ve put a really concerted focus on upskilling our employees to ensure that they’re able to grow in their careers and develop the skills that are vital in this Fourth Industrial Revolution. But for us, that includes things like in-house training and certification programs for key roles, like our mold technicians, for example.

Our online learning portal offers hundreds of courses that can help our employees to grow. [We provide] tuition reimbursement for continued learning opportunities at universities and trade schools. Further, we really work to incorporate technology on the job so that we can improve the employee experience on the manufacturing floor and support their on-the-job training through technology.

Ultimately, our goal is to ensure that our employees have the path to become experts in the modern best-practice methods that we’re using, such as scientific molding in the case of Plymouth, and also to grow other skills, like A3 problem solving, change management, leadership development.

Francisco Betti: Excellent, Robert. Thank you. Revathi, one final question to you. At Flex, we have seen your incredible efforts to reskill almost the entire IT team and your shop floor operators. They are all smart manufacturing experts by now.

It’s core for the survival of companies, and, more importantly, its core for our people strategy, because the best way to keep our employees, our colleagues, excited about what they do is to make sure that they are at the forefront of every technology they use. Revathi Advaithi

Revathi Advaithi: Francisco, just like Robert and David talked about this, I think it’s core for the survival of companies, and, more importantly, its core for our people strategy, because the best way to keep our employees, our colleagues, excited about what they do is to make sure that they are at the forefront of every technology they use.

I’ll give you an example. The facility here in Austin typically makes a lot of technology products, whether it is storing security products, things like that. But recently, we had to start moving a lot of medical products into Austin.

One reason for this is because it’s a fantastic location to have. But two is because we also have a great team there. But the team had to really change their entire mindset. They had to learn a fully automated, wholly sophisticated set of equipment and how to run it, and really pick up new skills that they didn’t have before, including FDA [US Food and Drug Administration] compliance for a lot of regulatory issues.

But we were able to train the team based on other sites, learn from them, and really change the competency of this site in the last couple of years. Althofen, the site that is recognized as a lighthouse today, has done that time and time again, many times over.

We have a system called Pulse that we deploy across the organization. Pulse, truly, is the heartbeat of the organization. Althofen was one of the first sites that deployed Pulse. They know in real time exactly where all the product is—what is coming in, what is leaving, how much inventory is in the system—so they can give real-time updates to the customer to provide them a seamless transition.

The idea of all those sites was “unless we learn first and we get to the table first, it is survival of the fittest and the best team wins,” right? So we are able to have sites that have the culture of “we want to be the best.” And what has been amazing about [the Global Lighthouse Network] is we get the ability to benchmark and learn from other sites, then bring it in, and then really reskill our workforce.

Francisco Betti: There are millions of facilities and companies around the world that we want to reach and engage in the unique learning opportunity the Global Lighthouse Network provides. Our network will continue to grow, and we invite you all to reach out to us to be able to experience the journey toward becoming a lighthouse.

Daphne Luchtenberg: That was a great discussion, and thank you again to our panelists and our colleagues at the World Economic Forum for an insightful event. Once again, organizations are selected to be part of the Global Lighthouse Network based on their leadership and willingness to share their insights. If you are inspired to begin your own Lighthouse Learning Journey, we invite you to learn more on McKinsey.com/GLN , or on the World Economic Forum website .

This program is just one in a series that considers the challenges that companies and economies are facing, as well as the opportunities that leaders can seize for competitive advantage. We will explore other important topics, such as how to connect boardroom strategy to the front lines, where and when to infuse operations with technology, and why empowering the workforce with skills and capabilities is key to success.

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Original research article, impact of industrial policy on urban green innovation: empirical evidence of china’s national high-tech zones based on double machine learning.

• College of Economics and Management, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, China

Effective industrial policies need to be implemented, particularly aligning with environmental protection goals to drive the high-quality growth of China’s economy in the new era. Setting up national high-tech zones falls under the purview of both regional and industrial policies. Using panel data from 163 prefecture-level cities in China from 2007 to 2019, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of national high-tech zones on the level of urban green innovation and its underlying mechanisms. It utilizes the national high-tech zones as a quasi-natural experiment and employs a double machine learning model. The study findings reveal that the policy for national high-tech zones greatly enhances urban green innovation. This conclusion remains consistent even after adjusting the measurement method, empirical samples, and controlling for other policy interferences. The findings from the heterogeneity analysis reveal that the impact of the national high-tech zone policy on green innovation exhibits significant regional heterogeneity, with a particularly significant effect in the central and western regions. Among cities, there is a notable push for green innovation levels in second-tier, third-tier, and fourth-tier cities. The moderating effect results indicate that, at the current stage of development, transportation infrastructure primarily exerts a negative moderating effect on how the national high-tech zone policy impacts the level of urban green innovation. This research provides robust empirical evidence for informing the optimization of the industrial policy of China and the establishment of a future ecological civilization system.

1 Introduction

The Chinese economy currently focuses on high-quality development rather than quick growth. The traditional demographic and resource advantages gradually diminish, making the earlier crude development model reliant on excessive resource input and consumption unsustainable. Simultaneously, resource impoverishment, environmental pollution, and carbon emissions are growing more severe ( Wang F. et al., 2022 ). Consequently, pursuing a mutually beneficial equilibrium between the economy and the environment has emerged as a critical concern in China’s economic growth. Green innovation, the integration of innovation with sustainability development ideas, is progressively gaining significance within the framework of reshaping China’s economic development strategy and addressing the challenges associated with resource and environmental limitations. In light of the present circumstances, and with the objectives outlined in the “3060 Plan” for carbon peak and carbon neutral, the pursuit of a green and innovative development trajectory, emphasizing heightened innovation alongside environ-mental preservation, has emerged as a pivotal concern within the context of China’s contemporary economic progress.

Industrial policy is pivotal in government intervention within market-driven resource allocation and correcting structural disparities. The government orchestrates this initiative to bolster industrial expansion and operational effectiveness. In contrast to Western industrial policies, those in China are predominantly crafted within the administrative framework and promulgated through administrative regulations. Over an extended period, numerous industrial policies have been devised in response to regional disparities in industrial development. These policies aim to identify new growth opportunities in diverse regions, focusing on optimizing and upgrading industrial structures. These strategies have been implemented at various administrative levels, from the central government to local authorities ( Sun and Sun, 2015 ). As a distinctive regional economic policy in China, the national high-tech zone represents one of the foremost supportive measures a city can acquire at the national level. Its crucial role involves facilitating the dissemination and advancement of regional economic growth. Over more than three decades, it has evolved into the primary platform through which China executes its strategy of concentrating on high-tech industries and fostering development driven by innovation. Concurrently, the national high-tech zone, operating as a geographically focused policy customized for a specific region ( Cao, 2019 ), enhances the precision of policy support for the industries under its purview, covering a more limited range of municipalities, counties, and regions. Contrasting with conventional regional industrial policies, the industry-focused policy within national high-tech zones prioritizes comprehensive resource allocation advice and economic foundations to maximize synergy and promote the long-term sustainable growth of the regional economy, and this represents a significant paradigm shift in location-based policies within the framework of carrying out the new development idea. Its inception embodies a combination of central authorization, high-level strategic planning, local grassroots decision-making, and innovative system development. In recent years, driven by the objective of dual carbon, national high-tech have proactively promoted environmentally friendly innovation. Nevertheless, given the proliferation of new industrial policies and the escalating complexity of the policy framework, has the setting up of national high-tech zones genuinely elevated the level of urban green innovation in contrast to conventional regional industrial policies? What are the underlying mechanisms? Simultaneously, concerning the variations among different cities, have the industrial policy tools within the national high-tech zones been employed judiciously and adaptable? What are the concrete practical outcomes? Investigating these matters has emerged as a significant subject requiring resolution by government, industry and academia.

2 Literature review and research hypothesis

2.1 literature review.

When considering industrial policy, the setting up national high-tech zones embodies the intersection of regional and industrial policies. Domestic and international academic research concerning setting up national high-tech zones primarily centers on economic activities and innovation. Notably, the economic impact of national high-tech zones encompasses a wide range of factors, including their influence on total factor productivity ( Tan and Zhang, 2018 ; Wang and Liu, 2023 ), foreign trade ( Alder et al., 2016 ), industrial structure upgrades ( Yuan and Zhu, 2018 ), and economic growth ( Liu and Zhao, 2015 ; Huang and Fernández-Maldonado, 2016 ; Wang Z. et al., 2022 ). Regarding innovation, numerous researchers have confirmed the positive effects of national high-tech zones on company innovation ( Vásquez-Urriago et al., 2014 ; Díez-Vial and Fernández-Olmos, 2017 ; Wang and Xu, 2020 ); Nevertheless, a few scholars have disagreed on this matter ( Hong et al., 2016 ; Sosnovskikh, 2017 ). In general, the consensus among scholars is that setting up high-tech national zones fosters regional innovation significantly. This consensus is supported by various aspects of innovation, including innovation efficiency ( Park and Lee, 2004 ; Chandrashekar and Bala Subrahmanya, 2017 ), agglomeration effect ( De Beule and Van Beveren, 2012 ), innovation capability ( Yang and Guo, 2020 ), among other relevant dimensions. The existing literature predominantly delves into the correlation between the setting up of national high-tech zones, innovation, and economic significance. However, the rise of digital economic developments, notably industrial digitization, has accentuated the limitations of the traditional innovation paradigm. These shortcomings, such as the inadequate exploration of the social importance and sustainability of innovation, have become apparent in recent years. As the primary driver of sustainable development, green innovation represents a potent avenue for achieving economic benefits and environmental value ( Weber et al., 2014 ). Its distinctiveness from other innovation forms lies in its potential to facilitate the transformation of development modes, reshape economic structures, and address pollution prevention and control challenges. However, in the context of green innovation, based on the double-difference approach, Wang et al. (2020) has pointed out that national high-tech zones enhance the effectiveness of urban green innovation, but this is only significant in the eastern region.

Furthermore, scholars have also explored the mechanisms underlying the innovation effects of national high-tech. For example, Cattapan et al. (2012) focused on science parks in Italy. They found that green innovation represents a potent avenue for achieving economic benefits as the primary driver of sustainable development, and environmental value technology transfer services positively influence product innovation. Albahari et al. (2017) confirmed that higher education institutions’ involvement in advancing corporate innovation within technology and science parks has a beneficial moderating effect. Using the moderating effect of spatial agglomeration as a basis, Li WH. et al. (2022) found that industrial agglomeration has a significantly unfavorable moderating influence on the effectiveness of performance transformation in national high-tech zones. Multiple studies have examined the national high-tech zone industrial policy’s regulatory framework and urban innovation. However, in the age of rapidly expanding new infrastructure, infrastructure construction is concentrated on information technologies like blockchain, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the Internet; Further research is needed to explore whether traditional infrastructure, particularly transportation infrastructure, can promote urban green innovation. Transportation infrastructure has consistently been vital in fostering economic expansion, integrating regional resources, and facilitating coordinated development ( Behrens et al., 2007 ; Zhang et al., 2018 ; Pokharel et al., 2021 ). Therefore, it is necessary to investigate whether transportation infrastructure can continue encouraging innovative urban green practices in the digital economy.

In summary, the existing literature has extensively examined the influence of national high-tech zones on economic growth and innovation from various levels and perspectives, establishing a solid foundation and offering valuable research insights for this study. Nonetheless, previous studies frequently overlooked the impact of national high-tech zones on urban green innovation levels, and a subsequent series of work in this paper aims to address this issue. Further exploration and expansion are needed to understand the industrial policy framework’s strategy for relating national high-tech zones to urban green innovation. Furthermore, there is a need for further improvement and refinement of the research model and methodology. Based on these, this paper aims to discuss the industrial policy effects of national high-tech zones from the perspective of urban green innovation to enrich and expand the existing research.

In contrast to earlier research, the marginal contribution of this paper is organized into three dimensions: 1) Most scholars have primarily focused on the effects of national high-tech zones on economic activity and innovation, with less emphasis on green innovation and rare studies according to the level of green innovation perspective. The study on national high-tech zones as an industrial policy that has already been done is enhanced by this work. 2) Regarding the research methodology, the Double Machine Learning (DML) approach is used to evaluate the policy effects of national high-tech zones, leveraging the advantages of machine learning algorithms for high-dimensional and non-parametric prediction. This approach circumvents the problems of model setting bias and the “curse of dimensionality” encountered in traditional econometric models ( Chernozhukov et al., 2018 ), enhancing the credibility of the research findings. 3) By introducing transportation infrastructure as a moderator variable, this study investigates the underlying mechanism of national high-tech zones on urban green innovation, offering suggestions for maximizing the influence of these zones on policy.

2.2 Theoretical analysis and hypotheses

2.2.1 national high-tech zones’ industrial policies and urban green innovation.

As one of the ways to land industrial policies at the national level, national high-tech zones serve as effective driving forces for enhancing China’s ability to innovate regionally and its contribution to economic growth ( Xu et al., 2022 ). Green innovation is a novel form of innovation activity that harmoniously balances the competing goals of environmental preservation and technological advancement, facilitating the superior expansion of the economy by alleviating the strain on resources and the environment ( Li, 2015 ). National high-tech zones mainly impact urban green innovation through three main aspects. Firstly, based on innovation compensation effects, national high-tech zones, established based on the government’s strategic planning, receive special treatment in areas such as land, taxation, financing, credit, and more, serving as pioneering special zones and experimental fields established by the government to promote high-quality regional development. When the government offers R&D subsidies to enterprises engaged in green innovation activities within the zones, enterprises are inclined to respond positively to the government’s policy support and enhance their level of green innovation as a means of seeking external legitimacy ( Fang et al., 2021 ), thereby contributing to the advancement of urban green innovation. Secondly, based on the industrial restructuring effect, strict regulation of businesses with high emissions, high energy consumption, and high pollution levels is another aspect of implementing the national high-tech zone program. Consequently, businesses with significant emissions and energy consumption are required to optimize their industrial structure to access various benefits within the park, resulting in the gradual transformation and upgrading of high-energy-consumption industries towards green practices, thereby further contributing to regional green innovation. Based on Porter’s hypothesis, the green and low-carbon requirements of the park policy increase the production costs for polluting industries, prompting polluting enterprises to upgrade their existing technology and adopt green innovation practices. Lastly, based on the theory of industrial agglomeration, the national high-tech zones’ industrial policy facilitates the concentration of innovative talents to a certain extent, resulting in intensified competition in the green innovation market. Increased competition fosters the sharing of knowledge, technology, and talent, stimulating a market environment where the survival of the fittest prevails ( Melitz and Ottaviano, 2008 ). These increase the effectiveness of urban green innovation, helping to propel urban green innovation forward. Furthermore, the infrastructure development within the national high-tech zones establishes a favorable physical environment for enterprises to engage in creative endeavors. Also, it enables the influx of high-quality innovation capital from foreign sources, complementing the inherent characteristics of national high-tech zones that attract such capital and concentrate green innovation resources, ultimately resulting in both environmental and economic benefits. Based on the above analysis, Hypothesis 1 is proposed:

Hypothesis 1. Implementing industrial policies in national high-tech zones enhances levels of urban green innovation.

2.2.2 Heterogeneity analysis

Given the variations in economic foundations, industrial statuses, and population distributions across different regions, development strategies in different regions are also influenced by these variations ( Chen and Zheng, 2008 ). Theoretically, when using administrative boundaries or geographic locations as benchmarks, the impact of national high-tech zone industrial policy on urban green innovation should be achieved through strategies like aligning with the region’s existing industrial structure. Compared to the western and central regions, the eastern region exhibits more incredible innovation and dynamism due to advantages such as a developed economy, good infrastructure, advanced management concepts, and technologies, combined with a relatively high initial level of green innovation factor endowment. Considering the diminishing marginal effect principle of green innovation, the industrial policy implementation in national high-tech zones favors an “icing on the cake” approach in the eastern region, contrasting with a “send carbon in the snow” approach in the central and western regions. In other words, the economic benefits of national high-tech zones for promoting urban green innovation may need to be more robust than their impact on the central and western regions. Literature confirms that establishing national high-tech zones yields a more beneficial technology agglomeration effect in the less developed central and western regions ( Liu and Zhao, 2015 ), leading to a more substantial impact on enhancing the level of urban green innovation.

Moreover, local governments consider economic development, industrial structure, and infrastructure levels when establishing national high-tech zones. These factors serve as the foundation for regional classification to address variations in regional quality and to compensate for gaps in theoretical research on the link between national high-tech zone industrial policy implementation and urban green innovation. Consequently, the execution of industrial policies in national high-tech zones relies on other vital factors influencing urban green innovation. Significant variations exist in economic development and infrastructure levels among cities of different grades ( Luo and Wang, 2023 ). Generally, cities with higher rankings exhibit strong economic growth and infrastructure, contrasting those with lower rankings. Consequently, the effect of establishing a national high-tech zone on green innovation may vary across different city grades. Thus, considering the disparities across city rankings, we delve deeper into identifying the underlying reasons for regional diversity in the green innovation outcomes of industrial policies implemented in national high-tech zones based on city grades. Based on the above analysis, Hypothesis 2 is proposed:

Hypothesis 2. There is regional heterogeneity and city-level heterogeneity in the impact of national high-tech zone policies on the level of urban green innovation.

2.2.3 The moderating effect of transportation infrastructure

Implementing industrial policies and facilitating the flow of innovation factors are closely intertwined with the role of transport infrastructure as carriers and linkages. Generally, enhanced transportation infrastructure facilitates the absorption of local factors and improves resource allocation efficiency, thereby influencing the spatial redistribution of production factors like labor, resources, and technology across cities. Enhanced transportation infrastructure fosters the development of more robust and advanced innovation networks ( Fritsch and Slavtchev, 2011 ). Banister and Berechman (2001) highlighted that transportation infrastructure exhibits network properties that are fundamental to its agglomeration or diffusion effects. From this perspective, robust infrastructure impacts various economic activities, including interregional labor mobility, factor agglomeration, and knowledge exchange among firms, thereby expediting the spillover effects of green technological innovations ( Yu et al., 2013 ). In turn, this could positively moderate the influence of national hi-tech zone policies on green innovation. On the other hand, while transportation infrastructure facilitates the growth of national high-tech zone policies, it also brings negative impacts, including high pollution, emissions, and ecological landscape fragmentation. Improving transportation infrastructure can also lead to the “relative congestion effect” in national high-tech zones. This phenomenon, observed in specific regions, refers to the excessive concentration of similar enterprises across different links of the same industrial chain, which exacerbates the competition for innovation resources among enterprises, making it challenging for enterprises in the region to allocate their limited innovation resources to technological research and development activities ( Li et al., 2015 ). As a result, there needs to be a higher green innovation level. Therefore, the impact of transportation infrastructure in the current stage of development will be more complex. When the level of transport infrastructure is moderate, adequate transport infrastructure supports the promotion of urban green innovation through national high-tech zone policies. However, the impact of transport infrastructure regulation may be harmful. Based on the above analysis, Hypothesis 3 is proposed:

Hypothesis 3. Transportation infrastructure moderates the relationship between national high-tech zones and levels of urban green invention.

3 Research design

3.1 model setting.

This research explores the impact of industrial policies of national high-tech zones on the level of urban green innovation. Many related studies utilize traditional causal inference models to assess the impact of these policies. However, these models have several limitations in their application. For instance, the commonly used double-difference model in the parallel trend test has stringent requirements for the sample data. Although the synthetic control approach can create a virtual control group that meets parallel trends’ needs, it is limited to addressing the ‘one-to-many’ problem and requires excluding groups with extreme values. The selection of matching variables in propensity score matching is subjective, among other limitations ( Zhang and Li, 2023 ). To address the limitations of conventional causal inference models, scholars have started to explore applying machine learning to infer causality ( Chernozhukov et al., 2018 ; Knittel and Stolper, 2021 ). Machine learning algorithms excel at an impartial assessment of the effect on the intended target variable for making accurate predictions.

In contrast to traditional machine learning algorithms, the formal proposal of DML was made in 2018 ( Chernozhukov et al., 2018 ). This approach offers a more robust approach to causal inference by mitigating bias through the incorporation of residual modeling. Currently, some scholars utilize DML to assess causality in economic phenomena. For instance, Hull and Grodecka-Messi (2022) examined the effects of local taxation, crime, education, and public services on migration using DML in the context of Swedish cities between 2010 and 2016. These existing research findings serve as valuable references for this study. Compared to traditional causal inference models, DML offers distinct advantages in variable selection and model estimation ( Zhang and Li, 2023 ). However, in promoting urban green innovation in China, there is a high probability of non-linear relationships between variables, and the traditional linear regression model may lead to bias and errors. Moreover, the double machine learning model can effectively avoid problems such as setting bias. Based on this, the present study employs a DML model to evaluate the policy implications of establishing a national high-tech zone.

3.1.1 Double machine learning framework

Prior to applying the DML algorithm, this paper refers to the practice of Chernozhukov et al. (2018) to construct a partially linear DML model, as depicted in Eq. 1 below:

where i represents the city, t represents the year, and l n G I i t represents the explained variable, which in this paper is the green innovation level of the city. Z o n e i t represents the disposition variable, which in this case is a national high-tech zone’s policy variable. It takes a value of 1 after the implementation of the pilot and 0 otherwise. θ 0 is the disposal factor that is the focus of this paper. X i t represents the set of high-dimensional control variables. Machine learning algorithms are utilized to estimate the specific form of g ^ X i t , whereas U i t , which has a conditional mean of 0, stands for the error term. n represents the sample size. Direct estimation of Eq. 1 provides an estimate for the coefficient of dispositions.

We can further explore the estimation bias by combining Eqs 1 , 2 as depicted in Eq. ( 3 ) below:

where a = 1 n ∑ i ∈ I , t ∈ T   Z o n e i t 2 − 1 1 n ∑ i ∈ I , t ∈ T   Z o n e i t U i t , by a normal distribution having 0 as the mean, b = 1 n ∑ i ∈ I , t ∈ T   Z o n e i t 2 − 1 1 n ∑ i ∈ I , t ∈ T   Z o n e i t g X i t − g ^ X i t . It is important to note that DML utilizes machine learning and a regularization algorithm to estimate a specific functional form g ^ X i t . The introduction of “canonical bias” is inevitable as it prevents the estimates from having excessive variance while maintaining their unbiasedness. Specifically, the convergence of g ^ X i t to g X i t , n −φg > n −1/2 , as n tends to infinity, b also tends to infinity, θ ^ 0 is difficult to converge to θ 0 . To expedite convergence and ensure unbiasedness of the disposal coefficient estimates with small samples, an auxiliary regression is constructed as follows:

where m X i t represents the disposition variable’s regression function on the high-dimensional control variable, this function also requires estimation using a machine learning algorithm in the specific form of m ^ X i t . Additionally, V i t represents the error term with a 0 conditional mean.

3.1.2 The test of the mediating effect within the DML framework

This study investigates how the national high-tech zone industrial policy influences the urban green innovation. It incorporates moderating variables within the DML framework, drawing on the testing procedure outlined by Jiang (2022) , and integrates it with the practice of He et al. (2022) , as outlined below:

Equation 5 is based on Eq. 1 with the addition of variables l n t r a i t and Z o n e i t * l n t r a i t .Where l n t r a i t represents the moderating variable, which in this paper is the transportation infrastructure. Z o n e i t * l n t r a i t represents the interaction term of the moderating variable and the disposition variable. The variables l n t r a i t and Z o n e i t are added to the high-dimensional control variables X i t , and the rest of the variables in Eq. 5 are identical to Eq. 1 . θ 1 represents the disposal factor to focus on.

3.2 Variable selection

3.2.1 dependent variable: level of urban green innovation (lngi).

Nowadays, many academics use indicators like the number of applications for patents or authorizations to assess the degree of urban innovation. To be more precise, the quantity of patent applications is a measure of technological innovation effort, while the number of patents authorized undergoes strict auditing and can provide a more direct reflection of the achievements and capacity of scientific and technological innovation. Thus, this paper refers to the studies of Zhou and Shen (2020) and Li X. et al. (2022) to utilize the count of authorized green invention patents in each prefecture-level city to indicate the level of green innovation. For the empirical study, the count of authorized green patents plus 1 is transformed using logarithm.

3.2.2 Disposal variable: dummy variables for national high-tech zones (Zone)

The national high-tech zone dummy variable’s value correlates with the city in which it is located and the list of national high-tech zones released by China’s Ministry of Science and Technology. If a national high-tech zone was established in the city by 2017, the value is set to 1 for the year the high-tech zone is established and subsequent years. Otherwise, it is set to 0.

3.2.3 Moderating variable: transportation infrastructure (lntra)

Previous studies have shown that China’s highway freight transport comprises 75% of the total freight transport ( Li and Tang, 2015 ). Highway transportation infrastructure has a significant influence on the evolution of the Chinese economy. The development and improvement of highway infrastructure are crucial for modern transportation. This paper uses the research methods of Wu (2019) and uses the roadway mileage (measured in kilometers) to population as a measure of the quality of the transportation system.

3.2.4 Control variables

(1) Foreign direct investment (lnfdi): There is general agreement among academics that foreign direct investment (FDI) significantly influences urban green innovation, as FDI provides expertise in management, human resources, and cutting-edge industrial technology ( Luo et al., 2021 ). Thus, it is necessary to consider and control the level of FDI. This paper uses the ratio of foreign investment to the local GDP in a million yuan.

(2) Financial development level (lnfd): Innovation in science and technology is greatly aided by finance. For the green innovation-driven strategy to advance, it is imperative that funding for science and technology innovation be strengthened. The amount of capital raised for innovation is strongly impacted by the state of urban financial development ( Zhou and Du, 2021 ). Thus, this paper uses the loan balance to GDP ratio as an indicator.

(3) Human capital (lnhum): Highly skilled human capital is essential for cities to drive green innovation. Generally, highly qualified human capital significantly boosts green innovation ( Ansaris et al., 2016 ). Therefore, a measure was employed: the proportion of people in the city who had completed their bachelor’s degree or above.

(4) Industrial structure (lnind): Generally, the secondary industry in China is the primary source of pollution, and there is a significant impact of industrial structure on green innovation ( Qiu et al., 2023 ). The metric used in this paper is the secondary industry-to-GDP ratio for the area.

(5) Regional economic development level (lnagdp): A region’s level of economic growth is indicative of the material foundation for urban green innovation and in-fluences the growth of green innovation in the region ( Bo et al., 2020 ). This research uses the annual gross domestic product per capita as a measurement.

3.3 Data source

By 2017, China had developed 157 national high-tech zones in total. In conjunction with the study’s objectives, this study performs sample adjustments and a screening process. The study’s sample period spans from 2007 to 2019. 57 national high-tech zones that were created prior to 2000 are omitted to lessen the impact on the test results of towns having high-tech zones founded before 2007. Due to the limitations of high-tech areas in cities at the county level in promoting urban green innovation, 8 high-tech zones located in county-level cities are excluded. And 4 high-tech zones with missing severe data are excluded. Among the list of established national high-tech zones, 88 high-tech zones are distributed across 83 prefecture-level cities due to multiple districts within a single city. As a result, 83 cities are selected as the experimental group for this study. Additionally, a control group of 80 cities was selected from among those that did not have high-tech zones by the end of 2019, resulting in a final sample size of 163 cities. This paper collects green patent data for each city from the China Green Patent Statistical Report published by the State Intellectual Property Office. The author compiled the list of national high-tech zones and the starting year of their establishment on the official government website. In addition, the remaining data in this paper primarily originated from the China Urban Statistical Yearbook (2007–2019), the EPS database, and the official websites of the respective city’s Bureau of Statistics. Missing values were addressed through linear interpolation. To address heteroskedasticity in the model, the study logarithmically transforms the variables, excluding the disposal variable. Table 1 shows the descriptive analysis of the variables.

Table 1 . Descriptive analysis.

4 Empirical analysis

4.1 national high-tech zones’ policy effects on urban green innovation.

This study utilizes the DML model to estimate the impact of industrial policies implemented in national high-tech zones at the level of urban green innovation. Following the approach of Zhang and Li (2023) , the sample is split in a ratio of 1:4, and the random forest algorithm is used to perform predictions and combine Eq. ( 1 ) with Eq. ( 4 ) for the regression. Table 2 presents the results with and without controlling for time and city effects. The results indicate that the treatment effect sizes for these four columns are 0.376, 0.293, 0.396, and 0.268, correspondingly, each of which was significant at a 1% level. Thus, Hypothesis 1 is supported.

Table 2 . Benchmark regression results.

4.2 Robustness tests

4.2.1 eliminate the influence of extreme values.

To reduce the impact of extreme values on the estimation outcomes, all variables on the benchmark regression, excluding the disposal variable, undergo a shrinkage process based on the upper and lower 1% and 5% quantiles. Values lower than the lowest and higher than the highest quantile are replaced accordingly. Regression analyses are conducted. Table 3 demonstrates that removing outliers did not substantially alter the findings of this study.

Table 3 . Extreme values removal results.

4.2.2 Considering province-time interaction fixed effects

Since provinces are critical administrative units in the governance system of the Chinese government, cities within the same province often share similarities in policy environment and location characteristics. Therefore, to account for the influence of temporal changes across different provinces, this study incorporates province-time interaction fixed effects based on the benchmark regression. Table 4 presents the individual regression results. Based on the regression results, after accounting for the correlation between different city characteristics within the same province, national high-tech zone policies continue to significantly influence urban green innovation, even at the 1% level.

Table 4 . The addition of province and time fixed effects interaction terms.

4.2.3 Excluding other policy disturbances

When analyzing how national high-tech zones affect strategy for urban green innovation, it is susceptible to the influence of concurrent policies. This study accounts for other comparable policies during the same period to ensure an accurate estimation of the policy effect. Since 2007, national high-tech zone policies have been successively implemented, including the development of “smart cities.” Therefore, this study incorporates a policy dummy variable for “smart cities” in the benchmark regression. The specific regression findings are shown in Table 5 . After controlling for the impact of concurrent policies, the importance of national high-tech zones’ policy impact remains consistent.

Table 5 . Results of removing the impact of parallel policies.

4.2.4 Resetting the DML model

To mitigate the potential bias introduced by the settings in the DML model on the conclusions, the purpose of this study is to assess the conclusions’ robustness using the following methods. First, the sample split ratio of the DML model is adjusted from 1:4 to 1:2 to examine the potential impact of the sample split ratio on the conclusions of this study. Second, the machine learning algorithm is substituted, replacing the random forest algorithm, which has been utilized as a prediction algorithm, with lasso regression, gradient boosting, and neural networks to investigate the potential influence of prediction algorithms on the conclusions of this study. Third, regarding benchmark regression, additional linear models were constructed and analyzed using DML, which involves subjective decisions regarding model form selection. Therefore, DML was employed to construct more comprehensive interactive models, aiming to assess the influence of model settings on the conclusions of this study. The main and auxiliary regressions utilized for the analysis were modified as follows:

Combining Eqs ( 7 ), ( 8 ) for the regression, the interactive model yielded estimated coefficients for the disposition effect:

The results of Eq. ( 9 ) are shown in column (5) of Table 6 . And all the regression results obtained from the modified DML model are presented in Table 6 .

Table 6 . Results of resetting the DML model.

The findings indicate that the sample split ratio in the DML model, the prediction algorithm used, or the model estimation approach does not impact the conclusion that the national high-tech zone policy raises urban areas’ level of green innovation. These factors only modify the magnitude of the policy effect to some degree.

4.3 Heterogeneity analysis

4.3.1 regional heterogeneity.

The sample cities were further divided into the east, central, and west regions based on the three major economic subregions to examine regional variations in national high-tech zone policies ' effects on urban green innovation, with the results presented in Table 7 . National high-tech zone policies do not statistically significantly affect urban green innovation in the eastern region. However, they have a considerable beneficial influence in the central and western areas. The lack of statistical significance may be explained by the possibility that the setting up of national high-tech zones in the eastern region will provide obstacles to the growth of urban green innovation, such as resource strain and environmental pollution. Given the central and western regions’ relatively underdeveloped economic status and industrial structure, coupled with the preceding theoretical analysis, establishing national high-tech zones is a crucial catalyst, significantly boosting urban green innovation levels. Furthermore, the central government emphasizes that setting high-tech national zones should consider regional resource endowments and local conditions, implementing tailored policies. The central and western regions possess unique geographic locations and natural conditions that make them well-suited for developing solar energy, wind energy, and other forms of green energy. Compared to the central region, the national high-tech zone initiative has a more pronounced impact on promoting urban green innovation in the western region. While further optimization is needed for the western region’s urban innovation environment, the policy on national high-tech zones has a more substantial incentive effect in this region due to its more significant development potential, positive transformation of industrial structure, and increased policy support from the state, including the development strategy for the western region.

Table 7 . Heterogeneity test results for different regions.

4.3.2 Urban hierarchical heterogeneity

The New Tier 1 Cities Institute’s ‘2020 City Business Charm Ranking’ is the basis for this study, with the sample cities categorized into Tier 1 (New Tier 1), Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4, and Tier 5. Table 8 presents the regression findings for each of the groups.

Table 8 . Heterogeneity test results for different classes of cities.

The results in Table 8 reveal significant heterogeneity at the city level regarding national high-tech zones’ effects on urban green innovation, confirming Hypothesis 2 . In particular, the coefficients for the first-tier cities are not statistically significant due to the small sample size, and the same applies to the fifth-tier cities. This could be attributed to the relatively weak economy and infrastructure development issues in the fifth-tier cities. Additionally, due to their limited level of development, the fifth-tier cities may have a relatively homogeneous industrial structure, with a dominance of traditional industries or agriculture and a need for a more diversified industrial layout. National high-tech zones have not greatly aided the development of green innovation in these cities. In contrast, national high-tech zone policies in second-tier, third-tier, and fourth-tier cities have a noteworthy favorable impact on green innovation, indicating their favorable influence on enhancing green innovation in these cities. Despite the lower level of economic development in fourth-tier cities compared to second-tier and third-tier cities, the fourth-tier cities’ national high-tech zones have the most pronounced impact on promoting green innovation. This could be attributed to the ongoing transformation of industries in fourth-tier cities, which are still in the technology diffusion and imitation stage, allowing these cities’ national high-tech zones to maintain a high marginal effect. Thus, Hypothesis 2 is supported.

5 Further analysis

According to the empirical findings, setting high-tech national zones significantly raises the bar for urban green innovation. Therefore, it is essential to understand the underlying factors and mechanisms that contribute to the positive correlation. This paper constructs a moderating effect test model using Eqs 5 , 6 and provides a detailed discussion by introducing transportation infrastructure as a moderating variable.

The empirical finding of the moderating impact of transportation infrastructure is shown in Table 9 . The dichotomous interaction term Zone*lntra is significantly negative at the 5% level, suggesting that the impact of national high-tech zone policies on the level of urban green innovation is negatively moderated by transportation infrastructure. This result deviates from the general expectation, but it aligns with the complexity of the role played by transportation infrastructure in the context of modern economic development, as discussed in the previous theoretical analysis. This could be attributed to the insufficient green innovation benefits generated by the policy on national high-tech zones at the current stage, which fails to compensate for the adverse effects of excessive resource consumption and environmental pollution caused by the construction of the zone. Furthermore, transportation infrastructure can lead to an excessive concentration of similar enterprises in the high-tech zones. This excessive concentration creates a relative crowding effect, intensifying competition among enterprises. It diminishes their inclination to engage in green innovation collaboration and investment and hinders their effective implementation of technological research and development activities. Moreover, the excessive clustering of similar enterprises implies a need for more diversity in green innovation activities among businesses located in national high-tech zones. This results in duplicated green innovation outputs and hinders the advancement of green innovation. Thus, Hypothesis 3 is supported.

Table 9 . Empirical results of moderating effects.

6 Conclusion and policy recommendations

6.1 conclusion.

Based on panel data from 163 prefecture-level cities in China from 2007 to 2019, the net effect of setting national high-tech zones on urban green innovation was analyzed using the double machine learning model. The results found that: firstly, the national high-tech zone policy significantly raises the degree of local green innovation, and these results remain robust even after accounting for various factors that could affect the estimation results. Secondly, in the central and western regions, the level of urban green innovation is positively impacted by the national high-tech zone policy; However, this impact is less significant in the eastern region. In the western region compared to the central region, the national high-tech zone initiative has a stronger impact on increasing the level of urban green innovation. Across different city levels, compared to second-tier and third-tier cities, the high-tech zone policy has a more substantial impact on increasing the level of green innovation in fourth-tier cities. Thirdly, based on the moderating effect mechanism test, the construction of transportation infrastructure weakens the promotional effect of national high-tech zones on urban green innovation.

6.2 Policy recommendations

In order that national high-tech zones can better promote China’s high-quality development, this paper proposes the following policy recommendations:

(1) Urban green innovation in China depends on accelerating the setting up of national high-tech zones and creating an atmosphere that supports innovation. Establishing national high-tech zones as testbeds for high-quality development and green innovation has significantly elevated urban green innovation. Thus, cities can efficiently foster urban green innovation by supporting the development of national high-tech zones. Cities that have already established national high-tech zones should further encourage enterprises within these zones to increase their investment in research and development. They should also proceed to foster the leadership of national high-tech zones for urban green innovation, assuming the role of pilot cities as models and leaders. Additionally, it is essential to establish mechanisms for cooperation and synergy between the pilot cities and their neighboring cities to promote collective green development in the region.

(2) Expanding the pilot program and implementing tailored policies based on local conditions are essential. Industrial policies about national high-tech zones have differing effects on urban green innovation. Regions should leverage their comparative advantages, consider urban development’s commonalities and unique aspects, and foster a stable and sustainable green innovation ecosystem. The western and central regions should prioritize constructing and enhancing new infrastructure and bolster support for the high-tech green industry. The western region should seize the opportunity presented by national policies that prioritize support, quicken the rate of environmental innovation, and progressively bridge the gap with the eastern and central regions in various aspects. Furthermore, second-tier, third-tier, and fourth-tier cities should enhance the advantages of national high-tech zone policies, further maintaining the high standard of green innovation and keeping green innovation at an elevated level. Regions facing challenges in green innovation, particularly fifth-tier cities, should learn from the development experiences of advanced regions with national high-tech zones to compensate for their deficiencies in green innovation.

(3) Highlighting the importance of transportation regulation and enhancing collaboration in green innovation is crucial. Firstly, transportation infrastructure should be maximized to strengthen coordination and cooperation among regions, facilitate the smooth movement of innovative talents across regions, and facilitate the rational sharing of innovative resources, collectively enhancing green innovation. Additionally, attention ought to be given to the industrial clustering effect of parks to prevent the wastage of resources and inefficiencies resulting from the excessive clustering of similar industries. Efforts should be focused on effectively harnessing the latent potential of crucial transportation infrastructure areas as long-term drivers of development, promptly mitigating the negative impact of transportation infrastructure construction, and gradually achieving the synergistic promotion of the setting up of national high-tech zones and the raising of urban levels of green innovation, among other overarching objectives.

6.3 Limitations and future research

Our study has some limitations because the research in this paper is conducted in the institutional context of China. For example, not all countries are suitable for implementing similar industrial policies to develop the economy while focusing on environmental protection. However, we recognize that this study is interesting and relevant, and it encourages us to focus more intensely on environmental protection from an industrial policy perspective. Moreover, this paper exhibits certain limitations in the research process. Firstly, the urban green innovation measurement index was developed using the quantity of green patent authorizations. Future studies could focus on green innovation processes, such as the quality of green patents granted. Secondly, the paper employs machine learning techniques for causal inference. Subsequent investigations could delve further into the potential applications of machine learning algorithms in environmental sciences to maximize the benefits of innovative research methodologies.

Data availability statement

The raw data supporting the conclusion of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Author contributions

WC: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal Analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing–review and editing. YJ: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing–original draft, Writing–review and editing. BT: Investigation, Project administration, Writing–review and editing.

The authors declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research was supported by the Youth Fund for Humanities and Social Science research of Ministry of Education (20YJC790004).

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the editors and the reviewers for their insightful comments.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: national high-tech zone, industrial policy, green innovation, heterogeneity analysis, moderating effect, double machine learning

Citation: Cao W, Jia Y and Tan B (2024) Impact of industrial policy on urban green innovation: empirical evidence of China’s national high-tech zones based on double machine learning. Front. Environ. Sci. 12:1369433. doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1369433

Received: 12 January 2024; Accepted: 15 March 2024; Published: 04 April 2024.

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*Correspondence: Yu Jia, [email protected]