Industry 4.0 and Global Businesses

Industry 4.0 and its leading-edge components are transforming all aspects of human life with wide-ranging repercussions for managing production and workforce in the digital age. The traditional definitions of formal and informal employment are no longer applicable to our world, thanks to disruptions of various nature. The innovation landscape is radically altering the way work is done as well as where it is done, leading to an expansion of the gig economy with its freelancers, contract workers, agile workforce, or independent workforce who are constituting increasingly more temporary providers of labor. In addition to a tension between technological development and loss of jobs at the expense of individuals with lower set of skills, advancing technology is enabling new forms of organizing through facilitating new work arrangements. The new world of work is characterized by short-term contracts, fluidity, fragmentation, transience, temporariness, increased autonomy, and independence, on the one hand, and by precarity, financial instability, job uncertainty, and insecurity embedded in its very fabric, on the other, hence presenting both opportunities and challenges that need to be urgently addressed by researchers and policymakers. The inevitable tension between technology-driven developments in economy and labor markets is further exacerbated by the most recent pandemic and global economic recession, making scholarly and policy discussions all the more relevant.

Decentralization of finance is usually regarded as a revolution in just the field of finance. However, thanks to chain structures (e.g. blockchain) ranging from supply chain management to enterprise resource management systems, decentralization gradually reforms all aspects of global business simultaneously. Cryptocurrency markets and decentralization of network structures may be considered as two independent chaotic processes by an uninformed observer; however, almost every step of this transformation process can be associated with a certain innovative motivation which was designed for a specific purpose.

In this chapter, the implications of financial decentralization movements have been discussed with the assumption that the cryptocurrency market movements and relevant infrastructure improvements may be regarded as the end result of a chain of events which may be influenced by a number of decision-makers. The system components affecting the adoption process have been divided into four categories. Three potential scenarios have been presented for each category with an emphasis on their potential effects on the global business environment. Using intuitive logic, a pathway has been speculated for the adoption process for each component of decentralized finance. Topics discussed in this context should be regarded as pure speculation and should not be perceived as investment advices in any shape or form.

Internet of things (IoT) and Big Data, which are among the pioneers of Industry 4.0 technologies, have gained great importance in recent years. Within the scope of Industry 4.0, organizations are trying to undertake digital transformation by adapting these two important technologies to their business processes. Undoubtedly, while this transformation provides great advantages for organizations in terms of management, organization, and marketing, it also carries disadvantages such as difficulties and complexity regarding the privacy of the collected data and systems. However, IoT and Big Data Analytics play a role as restructuring factors for products, services, and especially business processes. This study discusses the impact of IoT and Big Data Analytics on the digital transformation of organizations from the perspective of corporate culture, marketing, and management. Simultaneously, the effects of the COVID-19 epidemic that the world has experienced recently, on the business of institutions, are also discussed. By adopting IoT and Big Data Analytics, the attitudes, benefits, and challenges of the institutions that are or are not willing to realize digital transformation during the epidemic process are examined, and a projection is tried to be made to the post-COVID-19 period. While the study specifically highlights the positive effects of IoT and Big Data Analytics on the business, it sheds light on available opportunities and provides useful implications for managers and marketers.

It is evident that while new technologies are shifting the current dynamics of the marketplace, technological innovations and Industry 4.0 are influencing the marketing activities along with our perceptions and expectations. The effects of globalization, digitalization, and Internet on marketing activities and consumers are indisputable. Almost every person, society, organization, and even the government has experienced some sense of transformation as a result of the increased connectivity and interaction. Discussion of the current concepts, theories, the way they are used in understanding the technology adoption behavior, and their role in the transformation of the consumers in the digital age is necessary in order to understand the aforementioned changes happening in the marketplace. It is also essential to focus on the transformation of marketing applications caused by Industry 4.0 in order to better understand the consumer expectations, reactions, and behavior. Hence, this study aims to investigate how Industry 4.0 affected and transformed marketing and consumer behavior, by examining the recent technological innovations. In this chapter, the basic concepts related to technology and innovation adoption are explained, and the relationship between marketing and Industry 4.0 is discussed. After reviewing the recent technological innovations and their relation to consumer behavior, a general discussion is given.

Today, millions of exporters and importers are using hundreds of business-to-business (B2B) electronic marketplaces to buy or sell goods and services. With this reason, this study aims to provide the related literature sufficient information concerning the most appropriate and beneficiary criteria which should be taken into consideration in the web pages of B2B companies via applying a content analysis method. The analysis results exhibit that globally oriented websites like B2B marketplaces must contain at least two or three language options, since people from different parts of the world speak and learn different languages according to their geography; and that B2B websites which do not provide trade assurances must consider adding this feature to attract more customers. In the scope of the study, it has been found out that all the selected websites take a good care of the information they share. When visiting these companies, it is really easy to learn everything about industries and international trade relations. Some of them even share information about the effect of the COVID-19 outbreak on industries. Among all the websites analyzed in the scope of the study, only Alibaba.com meets all the criteria taken into consideration. Moreover, it would be appropriate to suggest that Turkish B2B e-marketplaces, such as Tradeatlas.com, ptttrade.com, and steelorbis.com, should have these criteria to become leading B2B e-marketplaces in the world. Finally, it can be suggested that websites should prepare specific pages for newcomers to enlighten them in the best way they can do.

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges for the earth that is mostly driven by human actions. The rapid increase of world population forces the businesses to reach the economies of scale. Digital and technological transformation of the world, thanks to “Industry 4.0,” provides new opportunities for production as well as international trade. Today, the green production process of an imported product could produce lower emissions than producing domestically. However, the greenest countries in the world are developed ones such as Denmark, Switzerland, and Austria. Furthermore, nearly half of the goods' export belongs to developing economies. This chapter focuses on the carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission of 18 countries that produce approximately 75% of the world's CO₂ emission and its determinants. The main target of the study is to investigate the impact of export on carbon emission. The convergence estimation and responsiveness scores (RSs) of countries' CO₂ emission levels are performed to find carbon emission convergent groups and the impact of emission determinants. Besides, the study divides the export of countries into broad economic categories (BEC) and evaluates the impact of capital goods, intermediate goods, and consumption goods groups over the emission. The findings demonstrate that intermediate goods export leads to 7.4% deviation of CO₂ emission whereas the effects of capital and consumption goods are neutral. To the knowledge of the authors, this is the first research discussing the BEC classification impact over the carbon emission of that 18 countries. The results help to take necessary and effective measures of supranational organizations to have a sustainable trade policy especially for the post-Covid-19 period of the world.

Nowadays, the Internet usage rate is rising continuously with the impact of globalization which has led to a significant increase in the use of e-commerce and social commerce. Since the fast spread of Internet usage, globalization has affected all areas of life. Especially with the Covid-19 pandemic, lots of social, commercial, and economic transformations have occurred, and many activities transferred to online environment worldwide. However, in this period, people try to avoid physical contact, staying at home, and started to use e-commerce and social commerce more than before. Therefore, with Covid-19 pandemic, the structure and the relations of globalization, e-commerce, and social commerce has changed. In this regard, within the pandemic period, globalization is going through a great transformation, and, therefore, commercial activities have to be not only global-oriented but also local-oriented. Since many countries closed their borders to protect themselves, the pandemic period has turned into the global crisis which forced nations and companies to focus on the local environment. In this study, it is argued that advancements in Internet technologies affect globalization; globalization affects e-commerce and social commerce usage positively. But, with the discovery of social media platforms, e-commerce has shifted to customer-oriented social commerce, and this has turned people's tendency toward localization, not globalization, especially with the effect of Covid-19 pandemic period. Also, this study discusses how pandemic period changed globalization, e-commerce, and social commerce from global-oriented to local-oriented.

The changes in the industry have gone through many stages until today. These changes can be called a transition phase of industries that lasts for years. The process that started with the emergence of the Industry 1.0 concept first came to the concept of Industry 4.0. Recently, Industry 5.0 concepts are spoken around the world. Germany, where the concept of Industry 4.0 first emerged, is leading Industry 4.0 revolution. With the emergence of this concept, different topics such as smart factories, cybersecurity, simulation, 3D printers, and autonomous robots have come to the fore. These subheadings are undoubtedly very important topics for a factory. To fully implement the Industry 4.0 system, these subheadings must be applied and their sustainability must be ensured. In this study, the 3D printer selection process of a factory that wants to fully integrate its factory into a new revolution is discussed. This problem is called a multicriteria decision problem in terms of being very different criteria and alternatives. Decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method was used to solve the problem, and the results were interpreted.

The COVID-19 outbreak occurred in Wuhan region of China has significantly affected the exports and production of countries. Digitalization and technological developments have increased with the Industry 4.0, and COVID-19 measures accelerated this process. In this study, the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic have been investigated on international trade and production in European countries and Turkey. Accordingly, the cointegration relations between variables were examined with Westerlund panel cointegration test. As a result of the cointegration test, it is determined that there are long-term relationships between variables. The causality relationships between variables are analyzed with the Dumitrescu–Hurlin panel causality test. Causality analyses show that there is a unidirectional causality relationship from COVID-19 cases and deaths to export, while there is a unidirectional causality relationship from COVID-19 cases to production. The empirical findings demonstrate that COVID-19 outbreak has a significant impact on production and export processes in European countries and Turkey.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution has revealed some emerging concepts and technologies. In the framework of Industry 4.0, the Internet of things (IoT) is one of the key concepts as well as an evolving paradigm that creates opportunities of integration between the things and the physical world which has an unprecedented influence in our lives, particularly in the lives of those with disabilities. It is a groundbreaking way of providing independent living opportunities to individuals with disabilities, such as academic and learning aids (e.g. computer-based software, portable word processors), communication aids (e.g. captioning devices, smart glasses, augmentative communication devices), mobility aids (e.g. smart canes, smart wheelchairs), and smart systems (e.g. smart home, smart city, smart workplace), which increase the amount of their participation in the society, thus, empowering individuals with disabilities. This chapter aims to present the IoT technologies for individuals with disabilities and consists of five sections. The first section presents background information about the IoT and how it relates to individuals with disabilities. The second section introduces key technologies and applications that drive the IoT concept of Industry 4.0 in terms of the subject of disability in five domains which are mobility, smart environments, monitoring, communication, and education. The third section illustrates the importance of the IoT technologies and its relevance to the universal approach. The fourth section presents the implications of global business and implications of COVID-19 for IoT technologies. Finally, the chapter concludes with suggestions.

The new type of coronavirus (COVID-19) has deeply affected football, the most followed sport in the world, financially and socially. The clubs that have been heavily hit financially will certainly focus more on the digital world to overcome this problem. Competition in the field will take place in the digital world at the same rate. Three factors will be very important for clubs in the new period: firstly, reassuring the loyal fans' expectation of success as before; secondly, adjusting themselves to the rules of financial fair play and being financially successful; and lastly, meeting the expectations of the new and digitalized fan generation. As a result, the football industry should find the most suitable way for itself, considering the negative consequences of COVID-19 and the changing dynamics of the industry.

With the holistic approaches of Industry 4.0, products, services, standards, and application techniques have been improved. This digitalization era has not only impacted the production and service dynamics, but also added advanced dimensions to logistics and supply chain management. According to the current world standards, consumer behavior makes the logistics and supply chain processes more challenging. Especially during the COVID-19 outbreak, logistics and supply chain operations became more crucial for the firms, as most consumers have tended toward online shopping while they are in lockdown. Therefore, the competitive environment today enables firms to adapt the technologies and approaches of Logistics 4.0 and smart/digital supply chain, as they must respond to consumers' demands quickly. Moreover, firms need to have strong relations with their supply chain partners via these technologies. The technologies such as the Internet of Things (IOT), cyber-physical system, Big Data, and cloud computing help to change the fundamentals of logistics and supply chain and improve processes for all industries. This study aims to analyze the transformation of traditional logistics and supply chain activities into Logistics 4.0 and smart/digital supply chain. Primarily, we hope to analyze the existing studies by investigating the concept of Logistics 4.0 within Industry 4.0 dynamics. As firms develop their logistics operations, their supply chain processes will be shaped by the technologies and applications, and this situation also leads us to find out the importance of smart or digital supply chain operations. Discussing the potentials of smart or digital supply chain also lets us to reveal how companies handle their logistics operations during the COVID-19 period.