How firm size influences the relationship between inter-firm collaboration and industry 4.0 adoption
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2022-06-28
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en
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This thesis has aimed to establish how firm size influences the relationship between inter-firm collaboration and adoption of industry 4.0 technologies. It can be concluded that when it comes to the adoption of industry 4.0 technologies, inter-firm collaboration is a vital part of the process. Different firm sizes have different influences on the relationship between inter-firm collaboration and the adoption of industry 4.0 technologies. There are numerous challenges for firms of all sizes in their journey to successful implementation of industry 4.0 technologies. Smaller firms use their flexibility to collaborate with integrators to quickly adopt new technologies. This collaboration decreases their financial risk and helps them decide on what to adopt. Larger firms in contrast to SMEs often have teams working on process improvement and are more aware of the possibilities. Though they also lack the knowledge to adopt and thus need to collaborate with integrators, they do have more resources at their disposal and are less inconvenienced by labour shortages. Lastly MNCs also require collaboration for the initial adoption of industry 4.0 technologies but will use this collaboration to gain the knowledge themselves to set up their own adoption teams or will opt to acquire an integrator. Larger firms and MNCs are also more likely to be less easy to collaborate with than SMEs due to non-disclosure agreements and less openness about their production processes.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen