The influence of Industry 4.0 on employment in engineering companies: Evidence of managerial view in Czech and Germany

¹ Pan-European University, Faculty of Economics and Entrepreneurship, Tematínska 10, 851 05 Bratislava, Slovakia
² Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Business and Management, Kolejni 2906/4, 612 00, Brno, Czech Republic

^* Corresponding author: frantisek.milichovsky@vut.cz

Abstract

Research background: The global business activities raise the necessity of skilled workers, especially in the context of Industry 4.0 and its implementation in company processes. At the same time, the development of technologies in connection with the automation and robotization of production processes. Industry 4.0 provides the company with the opportunity to change from a traditional production approach and separate production units to an automated operation.

Purpose of the article: The primary research aimed to obtain information and data that top managers consider as important. At the same time, there is a focus on the connection between the level of employment in an engineering company and within the implementation of the concept of industry 4.0.

Methods: In the primary research, structured interviews were used. For the interview, we asked managers from the 88 companies in the Czech and 303 companies in Germany. From that amount, we get responses from 67 Czech companies (82 managers) and 160 German companies (200 managers). Their answers were processed by the Dematel method, which is considered a multi-evaluation tool.

Findings & Value added: Based on the implementation of the DEMATEL method, the coordinates of individual parameters were determined with their visualization in the map of influences, in which the links between individual variables are visible, which are located in two quadrants. The links between the individual variables are in the form of the above arrows, wherein in the case of bidirectional arrows, it is a mutual influence of variables and one-way arrows then show a one-sided dependence.