How to Respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or the Second Information Technology Revolution? Dynamic New Combinations between Technology, Market, and Society through Open Innovation

TLDR

Since Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum declared the arrival of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, there has been much discussion about it, yet no commonly agreed‑upon definition exists. The authors set out to answer four research questions concerning the definition, institutional, technological, and firm‑innovation responses to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. They organized a brainstorming workshop with 11 scholars from several countries to formulate these questions and outline a framework for addressing them. The study offers an advanced template for future research rather than definitive answers to the four questions.

Abstract

Since Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum declared the arrival of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, there has been much discussion about it. However, there is no commonly agreed-upon definition of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Therefore, we attempted to answer the following four research questions. “What is the definition of the Fourth Industrial Revolution?”, “How can we respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution in terms of institutions?”, “How can we respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution in terms of technology?”, “How can we respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution in terms of firm innovation and start-up strategy?” Brainstorming was conducted by 11 scholars from several countries to answer these four research questions. Therefore, this research is not the end product of four research questions, but a kind of advanced template to answer the four research questions for continuing research.