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Additive manufacturing (AM) has the potential to transform the organisation of all the activities carried out by firms. The growing diffusion of these technologies is increasingly challenging multinational enterprises to reinvent their businesses. Accordingly, many scholars argue that AM may reduce countries’ participation in global value chains (GVCs) or, at least, affect GVCs’ geography, length and further developments. However, so far, the lack of available data on the real worldwide diffusion of these technologies has precluded the possibility to study this phenomenon from an empirical standpoint.

This study investigates AM technologies, with a particular focus on their possible impact on GVCs, in the framework of the current debate in international business. In order to examine this relationship and overcome the lack of adoption data, the authors identify a potential proxy of AM diffusion – that is, patenting activity. Coherently, the authors employ this proxy and a country-level measure of GVC participation (i.e., the Share of Re-Exported Inputs on Total Imported Inputs) to empirically investigate the role of AM in influencing countries’ participation to GVCs. This country-level analysis is focussed on three specific industries and the aggregate economy in 58 countries for the period 2000–2014.

The results show that AM decreases a country’s participation in GVCs, both at the country level and, in particular, in the sectors which are more likely to be affected by AM technologies. This evidence suggests that this phenomenon might be induced by a decreasing reliance on intermediates processed abroad, hence an increasing importance of domestic goods, manufactured via AM.

Retailing thought and practice is premised on the assumption that consumers visit retailers to search for and acquire objects produced by manufacturers. In essence, we assume that the acts of consuming and producing are conducted by separate entities. This unspoken yet familiar premise shapes the questions retail scholars ask and the way retail practitioners think about their industry. Although this assumption accurately depicted retailing since the Industrial Revolution, its relevance is being challenged by a growing set of individuals who are equipped with new digital tools to engage in self-manufacturing. In this chapter, we examine self-manufacturing with a particular focus on the recent rise of desktop 3D printing. After discussing this new technology and reviewing the literature, we offer a conceptual classification of four distinct types of 3D printed objects and use this classification to inform a content analysis of over 400 of these objects. Based on this review and analysis, we discuss the implications of self-manufacturing for retailing thought and practice.

Three-dimensional (3D) printing has great potential in the food industry. While 3D printing technology offers customised food products to consumers, it also allows producers to develop new products using a wide variety of alternative food ingredients, modernise the production process and carry out environmentally friendly production. This research aims to determine the attitudes of students towards 3D foods who are studying in the Department of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts, as they are both consumers and examine different food processing systems and use them in the field of application. As a result of the study, it was identified that the participants believed that 3D printing is a great modern technology that allows the development of new foods, that it will bring benefit to us in the future, reduce the cost of food and food waste, increase the sustainability of food and that they see it as environmentally friendly. In addition, it was determined that the participants did not think that 3D-printed foods were disgusting; they found these foods reliable, could try them in the future and were excited to experience them.

Today humanity is facing a time period, in which the speed and rate of change in different fields are faced. The rapid and effective change in the technological, economic, military, social and cultural fields all over the world in recent years has had important results in many topics such as informatics, interactive communication, production, data production and sharing and forms of consumption and perception. Changes and developments at very high speeds and rates affect the personal life, social life and work life in a deep manner, especially after the 1980s, paving the way for many concepts such as globalization, Industry 4.0, digitalization, new economy, new world order and digital transformation age to be the leading variables in every field of social sciences.

Production, consumption and communication forms at the global level are becoming more and more in depth and predicting the future is becoming more and more difficult and valuable. Understanding, analyzing and predicting the future for national and international companies and organizations directly and indirectly affect all economic, military and political variables. At this point, competition stands out as one of the most critical concepts for survival and growth for profit-oriented companies.

Based on this, the topics and contents selected in this study were created to cover the field of management and strategy. Indeed, in this study, the concept of organizational agility is explored theoretically from a historical perspective on the concept of Industry 4.0 and especially emphasized the dimensions and components of agility used in today’s world.

Within the scope of this study, the aim is to define and present the general framework of the Industry 4.0 and agile firms, which aim to combine the conceptual and theoretical infrastructure with the implementation of the agile firms within the field. In this respect, the study defines the situation coming from the past together with the world of today in the relationship of the technological and economical dimensions of globalization with the digitalization and latest theoretical view for the agile firm’s structure and management. On the other hand; in this study, the possible effects of the recent COVID-19 pandemic crisis on the management of organizations are interpreted in the context of Industry 4.0 and agile companies. This aim will provide a foresight for the future periods, with the conclusions added with the theory of senism, which present the dominant value of the study.