Managerial Challenges of Industry 4.0 – Conceptualization, Implications, Framing

The dissertation at hand is motivated by the managerial challenges arising from developments subsumed under the term Industry 4.0. Therefore, it first aims to systematically identify these challenges by reviewing, consolidating and synthesizing the existing literature on Industry 4.0 and empirically assess the particular relevance of each challenge by surveying experts from management practice as well as from academia. In four individual studies, the dissertation at hand strives to further establish the practice-oriented topic in management science, contributes to an improved conceptualization of Industry 4.0, and derives normative implications for some of the identified challenges which have been qualified to be of the utmost importance in the initial survey. The normative contribution of this dissertation is geared to be of a holistic nature in the sense that managers should be (i) provided with the means to analyze the impact of Industry 4.0, (ii) offered generic recommendations in the form of strategic thrusts, (iii) enabled to translate these high-level action plans into tangible Industry 4.0 projects, and (iv) informed on ways to frame Industry 4.0 in order to increase employee acceptance and thus the likelihood of the successful implementation of corresponding initiatives.