26th International Association for Management of Technology Conference - IAMOT 2017

“Industry 4.0” or the “Industrial Internet of Things” (IIoT) refers to a new paradigm of digitized and connected industrial manufacturing. Its core is based on Internet of Things technologies, which enable real-time capable, smart, horizontal and vertical interconnectedness of people, machines, objects as well as information and communication systems for the dynamic management of complex systems. It is assumed to yield extensive industry-spanning opportunities, e.g. efficiency and quality increases and novel business models. Being officially defined and mentioned not until 2011, the IIoT represents a comparably young research field. Due to its technical core, recent academic works primarily focused on fundamentals and challenges from a technology perspective. By contrast, the economic and management perspective is still underrepresented, slowly starting to catch up. In order to accelerate the scientific discussion from an economic perspective, a systematic synthesis and overview of the extant body of literature is essential. Accordingly, our paper aims at displaying the current state of management research as well as at identifying research gaps in order to enable a reasoned development of future management research in the context of the IIoT. A systematic literature review is chosen as research method since it is elaborate, transparent and replicable for the identification, evaluation, synthesis and discussion of existing academic works. It revealed 234 articles in leading business journals, reference books, collected editions as well as studies of research institutions published between 2011 and 2016. Further selections with regard to contents and quality criteria identified a final sample of 82 relevant articles to be examined in detail by applying an inductive synthesis and analysis procedure. In doing so, the literature review identifies five topical areas: Human Resources, Implementation, Strategy & Business models, Supply Chain Management as well as Law & Ethics. Most of the articles (n=25) are assigned to the area Human Resources which addresses implications of digitized value chains for ways of working, job design as well as the need for IIoT-specific workforce qualifications. Literature dealing with the Implementation (n=23) of the IIoT provides not only general recommendations but also concrete change management tools to drive the digitized connection of production processes. The area Strategy & Business Models (n=17) emphasizes the need for a future-oriented organizational transformation as wells as for innovative business models based on data and cloud computing. Regarding Supply Chain Management (n=16), academia discusses the optimization of data-driven value chains in order to increase e.g. resource and energy efficiency. Last, Law & Ethics (n=3) refers to legal and ethical issues like data handling, ownership and transparency as well as their potential misuse. By providing a comprehensive and clearly displayed current state of research as well as showing respective research gaps, our findings are highly relevant for future research aiming at further elaborating on the economic perspective of the IIoT. The paper is e.g. recommended for technology management and competitiveness in the globalized world, new business and investment models in the digital world as well as for future demands for work skills in the digital world. Moreover, our paper supports managerial practitioners in understanding the IIoT and its inevitable effects on industrial companies by presenting insights into strategic management in the era of digitized and connected industrial value creation and capture.