Industry 4.0 technologies and organizational design – Evidence from 15 Italian cases

Current literature on Industry 4.0 technologies has mainly explored their relationship to the employment dynamics, or to the required competencies and emerging roles. This paper is complementing current literature with a perspective focused on organizational design. The aim of the paper is to explore how organizations are re-designed when Industry 4.0 technologies are implemented. The paper is based on 15 case studies carried out in Italian manufacturing companies and data was collected from 70 semi-structured interviews to relevant roles involved in the implementation of digital technologies. Results show that, when Industry 4.0 technologies are implemented, organizations are redesigned following a control-oriented or following a commitment-oriented organizational design. These results show that organizational design is the result of decisions, and is not determined by technology. The implications of our findings are presented and discussed.