Drivers and hindrances of technology adoption by manufacturing industries : a systematic literature review

Abstract

Manufacturing is a core sector in the economy of a nation and currently faces increasing pressure to adopt highly sophisticated manufacturing technological innovations for competitiveness. This review examines the drivers and hindrances of adopting new manufacturing technological innovations within the industry 4.0 concept relative to context. Previous reviews lack an overall view of drivers and hindrances of industry 4.0 technologies adoption by manufacturing industries in developing and developed economy context. A systematic search of literature in the EBSCO and Science Direct databases between 2017 and 2022 resulted in 71 peer reviewed articles, followed by content analysis of gathered evidence to provide findings for this study. The identified six main drivers and seven hindrances of technology adoption as a result of integrating evidence from past studies contribute to literature. Added to that, the developed conceptual framework of technology adoption based on drivers and hindrances and their relationship to context, make another contribution to literature. The results revealed that corporate social responsibility, digital strategy, innovation, digitalisation maturity, competition, and customer demands are the six main drivers of technology adoption. Secondly, the results revealed that organisational constraints, funding, personnel-related issues, regulations and policy hindrances, technological issue, resistance to change, and lack of empirical evidence are the seven main hindrances of technology adoption. Moreover, results revealed that drivers and hindrances of technology adoption in a developing economy differ from a developed economy.