The Role of Human Resource Practices for the Development of Operator 4.0 in Industry 4.0 Organisations: A Literature Review and a Research Agenda

Emanuele Gabriel Margherita and Ilenia Bua
Additional contact information
Emanuele Gabriel Margherita: Department of Economics Engineering Society and Business Organization—DEIM, University of Tuscia, Via del Paradiso 47, 01100 Viterbo, Italy
Ilenia Bua: Department of Economics and Business Sciences and Law for Economics Di.SEA.DE, University of Milan Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano, Italy

Businesses, 2021, vol. 1, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: In this study, we summarised the human resources practices for the development of Operator 4.0. Operator 4.0 is the worker operating in an Industry 4.0 organisation. Such organisations introduce novel digital technologies—including Big Data, robotics, and the Internet of Things—along the assembly line. Operators 4.0 can manage Industry 4.0 technologies, and Industry 4.0 technologies also support their activities. Some studies illustrate the enabling Industry 4.0 technologies for this role and the various qualitative benefits for Operator 4.0. However, organisations encounter issues to prepare traditional manufacturing workers for this novel role, which implies a drastic change in training and designing jobs, particularly for the qualitative aspects of the work organisation and human-computer interaction. Moreover, traditional manufacturing workers do not possess the proper digital skills to manage complex Industry 4.0 technology. Thus, there is a lack of study that illustrates what organisational practices are used to develop an Operator 4.0. Human resources management is the organisational function devoted to these challenges, such as a lack of a skilled workforce in handling high-tech technologies and employee retention. It provides human resource practices to develop workers for their role. Therefore, we addressed this gap by conducting a systematic literature review to summarise the used human resource practices for the development of an Operator 4.0. The results show six human resource practices for developing an Operator 4.0: staffing, job design, training, performance appraisal system, knowledge management, and compensation. We concluded by proposing a research agenda to advance this research stream.

Keywords: Operator 4.0; human resource practices; human resource management; Industry 4.0; Industry 5.0; socially sustainable factory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A1 D0 D4 D6 D7 D8 D9 E0 E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 E7 F0 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 G0 G1 G2 H0 J0 K2 L0 L1 L2 M0 M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 N0 N1 N2 O0 O1 P0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7116/1/1/2/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7116/1/1/2/ (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:jbusin:v:1:y:2021:i:1:p:2-33:d:539198

Access Statistics for this article

Businesses is currently edited by Dr. Patrick Han

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