The Fifth Industrial Revolution: How Harmonious Human–Machine Collaboration is Triggering a Retail and Service [R]evolution

TLDR

The Fifth Industrial Revolution, merging digital, physical, and biological technologies, is emerging as a transformative force poised to address numerous challenges in retail and service sectors and enhance societal well‑being. The article aims to define the Fifth Industrial Revolution, expand stakeholder roles, and chart a roadmap with key research questions for its impact on retail and service sectors. The authors employ a 2 × 2 framework that classifies retailers and service providers by their level of human–machine collaboration and broaden the stakeholder set to include companies, employees, customers, and society. The study presents a roadmap for the evolution of retail and services under the 5IR and identifies key research questions for future investigation.

Abstract

This manuscript draws attention to the dawn of the Fifth Industrial Revolution (5IR) and highlights its potential for addressing a host of issues within retail and service domains. With a retailing and service perspective, the authors outline the meaning of the 5IR, according to a 2 × 2 framework that categorizes retailers and service providers by their embrace of human–machine collaborations. They also propose an expanded definition of stakeholders in the 5IR (companies, employees, customers, and society). Merging digital, physical, and biological technologies promises enhanced well-being for societal actors across the board. By outlining these likely implications of the 5IR for retailing and services, this article establishes a roadmap for how the (r)evolution is likely to progress and offers a set of key research questions that emerge as a result.