EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Additive manufacturing technology adoption: an empirical analysis of general and supply chain-related determinants

Katrin Oettmeier () and Erik Hofmann ()
Additional contact information
Katrin Oettmeier: University of St.Gallen
Erik Hofmann: University of St.Gallen

Journal of Business Economics, 2017, vol. 87, issue 1, No 5, 97-124

Abstract: Abstract Despite experiencing immense growth in the past decade, additive manufacturing (AM) technologies—colloquially known as 3D-printing—are still rarely used in industrial fabrication. Being at the interface between technology, innovation, behavioral science and operations management research, this paper identifies multifaceted factors that determine the decision to adopt AM technologies for the production of industrial parts. A review of the relevant literature revealed eight potential factors. These can be classified into four interdisciplinary categories: technology-related factors, firm-related-factors, market structure-related factors, and supply chain-related factors. Special focus is placed on the impact of supply chain-related issues, because there are indicatives that these aspects have an influence on the decision to adopt AM technologies since AM may offer distinct opportunities for both, the supply- and demand-side of a firm’s operations. No work in the field of manufacturing technology adoption has examined the role of such inter-organizational factors before. The results of an empirical study among 195 firms indicate that demand-side benefits and compatibility are the main determinants of AM technology adoption. This suggests that not only intra- but also inter-organizational factors should be considered when investigating the adoption of technological innovations. Furthermore, it is carved out that the adoption of AM technologies has an interdisciplinary nature.

Keywords: Additive manufacturing; Supply chain; Technology adoption; Adoption decisions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L60 M11 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11573-016-0806-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:jbecon:v:87:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s11573-016-0806-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/11573

DOI: 10.1007/s11573-016-0806-8

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Economics is currently edited by Günter Fandel

More articles in Journal of Business Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-20
Handle: RePEc:spr:jbecon:v:87:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s11573-016-0806-8