Examining the development of a digital ecosystem in an Industry 4.0 context: a sociotechnical perspective

Abstract

To respond to increased competition, manufacturing organisations have started developing digital ecosystems within a supply chain by adopting Industry 4.0 tech- nologies. That approach promises to improve organisational efficiency by automat- ing operations and decision-making activities. The development of the digital eco- system passes through vertical and horizontal integrations of technologies. Vertical integration represents the integration of various organisational units, and it is a mile- stone in the process of reaching horizontal integration where different organisations integrate their production processes in a supply chain. The extant literature reveals that the vertical integration of an organisation is challenging to achieve, as the adop- tion process of Industry 4.0 employs a technocentric perspective without consid- ering the way that technology users can cause strong workforce resistance against Industry 4.0 adoption. The sociotechnical perspective addresses this issue by consid- ering both technology and users during the adoption process. Therefore, this paper illustrates the applicability of the sociotechnical approach to an in-depth single case study of an Italian manufacturing group which successfully adopted Industry 4.0 technologies. We show the adoption process of Industry 4.0 technologies, highlight- ing the outcome of the adoption and proposing sociotechnical enabling factors that assist in achieving vertical integration. Keywords