Top Management Support in the Implementation of Industry 4.0 and Business Digitization: The Case of Companies in the Main European Stock Indices

Abstract

Top management support is one of the key aspects in the implementation of Industry 4.0 and business digitization, whereas communication is essential to aligning and driving an organization in this task. However, to date, no research has addressed this support from this perspective. To fill this gap, we take a sample of companies (N=159) listed on the 5 main stock indices in the European Union, and we qualitatively examine the letters issued by chief executive officers and other top managers in their annual reports. We assess whether, to which extent and under which motivations and barriers, the senior management of these companies are supporting this implementation through their discourse. Among other relevant findings, our results show that barely half of the managers make explicit their strong support for this implementation, as a kind of widespread spatial myopia that serves as a meta-barrier in this implementation. In addition, the support given by top executives is mostly driven by business and customer motivations; in turn, they generally fail to present sustainability within their main motivations. Overall, this paper offers a series of relevant contributions and insights with managerial implications taken from a novel approach in this field.