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{{Paper
|id=Vol-3016/paper6
|storemode=property
|title=Freelancers 4.0: the impacts of freelancers on the adoption of Industry 4.0 under a socio-technical perspective
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3016/paper6.pdf
|volume=Vol-3016
|authors=Emanuele Gabriel Margherita,Jérôme Sulbout
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/stpis/MargheritaS21
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==Freelancers 4.0: the impacts of freelancers on the adoption of Industry 4.0 under a socio-technical perspective==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3016/paper6.pdf
Freelancers 4.0: the impacts of freelancers on the adoption of
Industry 4.0 under a socio-technical perspective
Emanuele Gabriel Margherita1, Jérôme Sulbout2
1
University of Tuscia, Department of Economics Engineering Society and Organization – DEIM, Via del
Paradiso, 47, 01100, Viterbo, VT, Italy
2
HEC Management School, University of Liège, Rue Louvrex, 14, Liège, Belgium
Abstract
In this study, we debate the role of freelancers 4.0 as facilitators of the adoption of Industry 4.0
technologies (I40), under a socio-technical lens. I40 production can be seen as a complex socio-
technical system that requires various change facilitators to be implemented. After a web
search, we found that a considerable number of freelancers are involved in I40 adoption, and
could be participating in the adoption process, thus acting as facilitators. We label these
workers “freelancers 4.0”. The socio-technical theory does not primarily consider such workers
in the technology adoption, even more down the I40 transition. Hence, we suggest two main
research avenues to explore freelancers 4.0 in conjunction with the I40 adoption, framed under
the socio-technical perspective.
Keywords 1
Industry 4.0, Freelancers, Freelancers 4.0, Independent Contractors, Self-employed workers,
Knowledge, Absorptive Capacity, Socio-Technical Approach, Facilitators, Operator 4.0,
Industry 5.0
1. Introduction
The fourth industrial revolution has brought significant changes in the way manufacturing
companies operate. These companies are moving towards a renewed vision of the industry, driven by
the advanced technologies that are often called Industry 4.0 (I40) [1]. The First Industrial Revolution
was born with the generation of mechanical power from water, steam, and fossil fuels in the 1780s. In
the Second Industrial Revolution, electrical energy was favoured by manufacturers with assembly lines
and mass production in the 1870s. Employing electronics and IT, the Third Industrial Revolution
familiarised the production industries with the concept of automation in the 1970s [1]. While the Fourth
Industrial Revolution introduces technologies – the internet of things, big data analytics, or robots –
that allow integrating the production system and automating both manual and decision-making
activities [2]. The successful adoption of I40 technologies delivers more efficient production processes,
and safer work environments since most of the manual activities are transferred from human agencies
to I40 technologies [2].
In this position paper, we explore the adoption process of the I40 technologies using the socio-
technical perspective [3, 4]. This perspective goes beyond prior research grounded on a technocentric
perspective that considers adopting I40 technologies by addressing the purely technological stance
without considering human agency [4–6]. To reach an effective I40 adoption, various professionals,
beyond IT vendors, take part in the process, acting as facilitators [3]. Freelancers can be seen as one
kind of worker who may significantly help companies adopt and reach the full potential of I40
technologies. Although such skilled contingent workers have been strongly put forward by
practitioners, freelancers are not considered academic considerations [7, 8]. Furthermore, freelancers
Proccedings of the 7th International Workshop on Socio-Technical Perspective in IS Development (STPIS 2021), October 14-15, 2021
EMAIL: emargherita@unitus.it (A. 1)
ORCID: 0000-0001-5528-6817 (A. 1)
©️ 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
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E. G. Margherita & J. Sulbout (2021)
are not studied in conjunction with I40 adoption. We label the term “freelancers 4.0”, referring to such
workers who play a key role in the I40 adoption process of companies.
To start exploring this topic, we conduct a web search and explore the presence and roles as part of
the I40 adoption. Then, we posit that freelancers 4.0 can be represented as key players in the I40
adoption, acting as facilitators of the adoption process. Subsequently, we present avenues of research
using the socio-technical theory. This work contributes to the socio-technical perspective and the I40
literature by providing ways of understanding and analysing the roles of freelancers 4.0 as facilitators
during the I40 adoption.
2. The Socio-technical theory
The socio-technical theory assumes that an organisation is represented as a work system composed
of social – human agencies – and technical systems – technologies. The theory ascribes equal
importance to both the technical component and the social component, acknowledging their
interdependence. The work system requires the joint optimisation of both social and technical systems
to operate successfully: social components, the workers, need to accept the technical components and
develop the proper competencies to use them (see Figure 1). The technology adoption achievements for
the organisations are both instrumental – better production processes and humanistic – safer workplace,
and job enrichment [4]. Figure 1 illustrates the traditional socio-technical framework.
Figure 1: An illustration of the socio-technical theory based on [4]
Our position paper aims to reflect on the facilitator role during the process that leads to the joint
optimisation of both systems. This process is traditionally referred to as the adoption process or
implementation process. The facilitator(s) is in charge of managing the adoption process of novel
technologies and involving workers during such a process – following a participative approach [3]. In
this way, technologies can be designed to fulfil organisational needs in conjunction with worker’s
needs. In practice, the facilitators are often the technology experts in charge of designing and adopting
such technologies in the organisations. Yet, the literature reveals that they can also be external
consultants [3]. The facilitator role is increasingly important in complex and automated technologies
where the transition from the traditional work system to the novel work system is difficult. In the next
section, we suggest that freelancers can be considered facilitators in the I40 adoption process of
manufacturing companies.
2.1. Freelancers as facilitators in Industry 4.0 adoption
Prior studies related to the I40 adoption process follow a technocentric perspective that considers
I40 technologies “rigid” and avoids any consideration of human agencies. However, the literature
increasingly understands I40 production as a complex socio-technical system [9–11]. I40 technologies
need to be adapted to tailor-made production processes. At the same time, workers need to learn how
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to manage such complex I40 technologies to operate efficiently [11]. The extant literature reveals that
organisations do not have the competencies to develop I40 technologies. Thus, they resort to IT vendors
and technology experts to develop and adopt them. Furthermore, organisations are increasingly
resorting to freelancers in conjunction with IT vendors to help this complex I40 transition [12].
Freelancers represent a new form of workers and are part of the contingent workforce that has
increased in number in the global labour market [13]. They are used by organisations operating in a
highly competitive market because their work arrangements are beneficial for them in a particular
situation. Freelancers operate as self-employed workers within one or several companies, during a
specific period, in order to carry out projects or assignments that need external specific expertise to be
accomplished [14]. In this respect, freelancers 4.0 have considerable potential to play a key role along
the I40 adoption process as they may undertake the role of facilitators. However, to date, there is a lack
of studies exploring the role of freelancers 4.0 in the adoption process of I40 technologies.
2.2. The freelancers 4.0
We conducted a web search analysis as an exploratory method to detect the prevalence of freelancers
4.0 in the Anglo-Saxon labour market, i.e. solo self-employed workers linked to I40, work with client
companies, and can potentially be associated with the adoption of I40. In more practical terms, our aim
was to grasp the online presence of freelancers 4.0 working with client companies. After several
searches, we employed the largest online professional social network and matching platform that may
provide companies with freelancers 4.0: LinkedIn [15]. We conducted the websearch in July 2021. We
used the following keywords: “industry 4.0“ was matched with “freelancer”, “self-employed”, or
“independent contractor. Such keywords can be found in their LinkedIn profile, and have been filtered
to “finding persons” only. As no legal tools allow us to scrape data from LinkedIn, we have gathered
the number of results related to the multiple searches. Using boolean operators, the searches conducted
through the LinkedIn search tool yielded the following results. By combining “industry 4.0” AND
“freelancer”, 868 results were found. When combining “industry 4.0” AND “independent contractor”,
98 results were found. When combining “industry 4.0” AND “self-employed “, around 1900 results
were found. Finally, when combining “industry 4.0” AND “self employed”, around 1500 results were
found (see Table 1).
Keywords Number of Results
Industry 4.0 + Freelancer 868
Industry 4.0 + Independent Contractor 98
Industry 4.0 + Self-Employed ≃ 1 900
Industry 4.0 + Self Employed ≃ 1500
Table 1: A LinkedIn search on the number of freelancers 4.0.
Following this web search analysis, we found a considerable number of freelancers 4.0 related to
the I40, therefore linked to both social and technical systems in some way. Such freelancers 4.0 are
operating as software or automation developers, project managers, architects, ERP consultants, process
engineers, internet of things specialists, user experience consultants, or infrastructure system experts.
Apart from project managers, many positions are bounded to more technical systems, as they seem to
take part in directly improving the IT processes and infrastructures. The considerable number of
workers appearing to be involved as freelancers in the I40 adoption leads us to consider the need for
studying this population in the era of the fourth industrial relation. Research avenues to analyse the
relationship between I40 and freelancers will be proposed in the following section.
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3. Freelancers 4.0 and Industry 4.0 adoption under the socio-technical theory
Our web search revealed that freelancers 4.0 are already involved in one way or another within the
I40. Such workers may significantly be involved in the I40 adoption as facilitators, and they may impact
both the resulting I40 technical and social systems. To illustrate some research avenues between the
freelancers 4.0 and the I40 adoption under the socio-technical perspective, we employed the I40 work
system proposed by Margherita and Braccini [5]. The I40 work system is composed of two systems:
the technical and social systems. The technical system includes the tasks and the adaptive feature of
technologies, while the social system consists of the competence and production knowledge of the
workforce. The conjoint optimisation of the work system occurs when workers possess proper
competencies [9, 16]and production knowledge to manage the I40 technologies in conjunction with the
novel production process. The technical system supports to be reprogrammed to incorporate changes in
their activities – called adaptive feature – which are proposed by workers who use their knowledge and
competence to improve the production process [5]. All these components are interrelated, and the role
of human agencies in the work system is essential to the its good functionning. Figure 12 illustrates the
I40 work system.
Figure 2: An illustrated Industry 4.0 work system.
3.1. Freelancers 4.0 as facilitators of the adoption process
The first research avenue pertains to using the socio-technical theory to explore and explain the
adoption process of I40 technologies as a change process [11] (see Figure 3).
Figure 3: Freelancers 4.0 and socio-technical theory used as a change process.
Under this lens, it is useful to explore the stage where freelancers 4.0 are engaged by organisations
and their role in reaching the joint optimisation of technical and social systems. Freelancers 4.0 may be
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E. G. Margherita & J. Sulbout (2021)
represented as key players of the change process, bringing their knowledge and expertise down the I40
adoption to the companies passing from traditional work system to I40 work system. By providing
know-how and experience, freelancers 4.0 may implement technical components and offer ways of
enhancing social systems. They can address adoption barriers by explaining how work practices will
change after I40 adoption. Finally, we raise some questions – that remain unanswered at present times
and require further academic considerations – to extend this first research avenue:
• Are the freelancers 4.0 involved from the beginning of the change process?
• Are they the key actors of the adoption process within companies?
• Do freelancers work and influence only one system, for instance, the technical one, or are they
part of the whole work system change?
• Do freelancers 4.0 bring knowledge, experience, and expertise to enhance only the social
systems, or are they upgrading both work systems?
3.2. The impacts of freelancers 4.0 on work systems components
A second fruitful line of research could involve studying the impacts of freelancers 4.0 on the
components of the two systems (see Figure 4).
Figure 4:The impacts of freelancers 4.0 on components of Industry 4.0 work systems.
When looking at the technical systems, the main question lies in the contribution freelancers 4.0
could bring towards a more efficient and effective implementation of I40 technologies and their
interface, and the support in the choice of I40 technologies for the strategic organisational alignment.
With regard to the social systems, various questions can be raised. An interesting investigation can be
how freelancers 4.0 help grow digital and I40 related competencies within the organisations, and
whether they also conduct job design or they are devoted to developing training paths to enhance
workers knowledge on how to use such advanced technologies.
A further reflection is needed on the knowledge component that seems difficult to capture, store,
and needs to be transferred within organisations. Since freelancers 4.0 transfer and share knowledge
with I40 manufacturers and their workers, we suggest the use of the Absorptive Capacity theory (AC)
to study the relationship between freelancers 4.0 and organisational knowledge.
The concept of AC is important when applied to a highly competitive context such as the I40
production [17], and some studies have stressed that the use of external knowledge –represented by
freelancer 4.0 – leads companies to adopt I40 technologies, both exploratory and exploitative
innovation strategies [18, 19]. More specifically, AC is known as the “ability of a firm to recognise the
value of new, external information, assimilate it, and apply it to commercial ends” [20]. Two
dimensions are constitutive of the theory (see Figure 5).
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E. G. Margherita & J. Sulbout (2021)
Figure 5: Framework of A and the contributions of freelancers (Kozic et al. 2014).
First, the transformation and exploitation of knowledge represent the realised absorptive capacity,
while the acquisition and assimilation of knowledge are related to the potential absorptive capacity [14].
Acquisition relates to one company’s ability “to identify and acquire externally generated knowledge
that is critical to its operations” [21]. Assimilation “refers to the firm’s routines and processes that allow
it to analyse, process, interpret, and understand the information obtained from external sources” [21].
Transformation “denotes a firm’s capability to develop and refine the routines that facilitate combining
existing knowledge and the newly acquired and assimilated knowledge” [21]. Exploitation “as an
organisational capability is based on the routines that allow firms to refine, extend, and leverage existing
competencies or to create new ones by incorporating acquired and transformed knowledge into its
operations” [21].
AC could thus strongly help enhance the understanding of the process of using identifying,
assimilating, and using knowledge from outside the company, and more specifically, the way
companies absorb the knowledge of freelancers 4.0 in order to improve their work system.
Indeed, freelancers 4.0 constitute an important pool of knowledge, as they keep their skills and
knowledge up to date through various ongoing projects within several companies and sectors. By doing
so, they are able to respond to several issues, drawing on their work experiences that have strengthened
their knowledge and skills.
We raise the following questions concerning our second research proposal:
• What is the role of freelancers 4.0 in the knowledge sharing and development of an I40
manufacturing company?
• What components of AC do freelancers 4.0 take part in?
• Through the four components of AC, how are freelancers 4.0 influencing either the technical
system or the social systems of an I40 manufacturing company?
• How do freelancers 4.0 support skill development?
• How do freelancers 4.0 support the development of I40 technical systems?
Both research avenues could be investigated under multiple research. Since we suggest studying an
emerging and novel topic, an explorative stance is needed to investigate the premises of such research.
A case study approach, based on interviews or action research, can be used to embrace and explore the
freelancers 4.0 voices. At the same time, researchers can complement the freelancers 4.0 perspective
by exploring the narratives of managers and employees on the real impact and value of freelancers 4.0
down I40 adoption. Therefore, it is possible to construct a holistic view related to the freelancers in
conjunction with I40 adoption by combining both organisational and external standpoints. Moreover,
conducting a longitudinal and case studies study on how freelancers 4.0 actually help companies
develop and adopt the I40 technologies and how it impacts I40 work systems could also represent an
interesting path. Eventually, and drawing on the research avenues and the models mentioned above,
creating a large-scale quantitative study may afterwards represent an important source of knowledge
and could strongly improve academic understanding and awareness on the topic.
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4. Conclusion
This position paper offers a new view of the freelancers, who may act as facilitators down the
adoption of novel I40 technologies in manufacturing organisations. In this paper, we conduct a web
search to clarify and confirm their potential role in conjunction with I40 adoption. Then, we suggest
some research avenues to explore the role of freelancers 4.0 as key actors in the I40 adoption under the
socio-technical perspective. To advance the topic study, it is pivotal to investigate and explore the
freelancers 4.0 voices. It is also suggested to explore this topic by drawing on the theory of absorptive
capacity theory because freelancers 4.0 can be very valuable change agents. They can help companies
to adopt I40 technologies with their knowledge and skills. Both research avenues represent the main
theoretical implications of the paper. They depict human agencies as important actors in the adoption
process of I40, and moderate therefore, the place of I40 technologies. The main practical implication
can be found in the value for organisations to resort to and engage freelancers 4.0 in the adoption of I40
technologies to ensure a smooth adoption process through their experience, skills and knowledge.
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