Industry 4.0 technologies adoption: barriers and their impact on Polish companies’ innovation performance

ABSTRACT The adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies is a priority from the perspective of firms’ innovation performance. Nevertheless, enterprises’ efforts to follow the pace of digital transformation may be inhibited by several factors. The goal of our study is twofold. First, we try to identify and characterize the barriers businesses face in the implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies, investigating the barriers’ impact on the adoption of I4.0 tools. Second, we seek whether the higher level of adoption is followed by the enterprises’ enhanced innovation performance. To that end, we combine a critical literature review with quantitative empirical research. The latter was conducted on a representative sample of 400 Polish manufacturers. The most popular I4.0 technologies implemented by the companies were cybersecurity and social media solutions. The most important barriers were administrative processes and capital expenditures associated with the implementation of Industry 4.0 solutions. Firms’ greater involvement in innovations is followed by their more intensive implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies and the awareness of higher barriers. This study adds to the debate on barriers of innovative processes in companies and allows to draw conclusions valid for firms and policy makers.