The Emergence and Rise of Industry 4.0 Viewed through the Lens of Management Fashion Theory

Dag Øivind Madsen
Additional contact information
Dag Øivind Madsen: Department of Business, Marketing and Law, School of Business, University of South-Eastern Norway, Bredalsveien 14, 3511 Hønefoss, Norway

Administrative Sciences, 2019, vol. 9, issue 3, 1-25

Abstract: The Industry 4.0 (I4.0) concept is concerned with the fourth industrial revolution in manufacturing, in which technological trends such as digitalization, automation and artificial intelligence are transforming production processes. Since the concept’s introduction at the Hannover Fair in Germany in 2011, I4.0 has enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity and is currently high on the agenda of governments, politicians and business elites. In light of these observations, some commentators have asked the question of whether I4.0 is a concept that is hyped up and possibly just the latest in a long line of fashionable management concepts introduced over the course of the last few decades. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to provide a critical outside-in look at the emergence and rise of I4.0. Theoretically, these processes are viewed through the lens of management fashion, a theoretical perspective well suited to examinations of evolutionary trajectories of management concepts and ideas. The findings indicate that the I4.0 concept has quickly become highly popular and is dominating much of the popular management discourse. The concept has migrated out of the specialized manufacturing discourse to become a more general concept with mainstream appeal and applicability, evidenced by a multitude of neologisms such as Work 4.0 and Innovation 4.0. The numbers 4.0 have spread in a meme-like fashion, evidenced by the fact that the combination of a noun and the numbers 4.0 are used to signal and usher in discussions about the future of business and society. While there is much evidence that clearly shows that the concept has had a wide-ranging impact at the discursive level, the currently available research is less clear about what impact the concept has had so far on industries and organizations worldwide.

Keywords: Industry 4.0; fourth industrial revolution; management concept; management fashion; popularity; manufacturing; industrial production (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L M M0 M1 M10 M11 M12 M14 M15 M16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/9/3/71/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/9/3/71/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jadmsc:v:9:y:2019:i:3:p:71-:d:268747

Access Statistics for this article

Administrative Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Nancy Ma

More articles in Administrative Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().