Repudiating the Fourth Industrial Revolution Discourse: A New Episteme of Technological Progress

Background: South African cities have been facing challenges since democratisation to meet the expectations of the citizens. The challenges have included fraud and corruption, financial constraints, lack of service delivery and technological progress, amongst others, which were underpinned by weak leadership and governance processes. This article explored eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality’s technological progress and identified that inefficiencies in good governance and the lack of a governance framework have limited digitalisation.Aim: The aim of this study was to assess the progress towards digitalisation and review the effectiveness of the governance processes within the eThekwini Municipality in contributing towards the fourth industrial revolution.Setting: The study was based on the processes at the eThekwini Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa.Methods: A qualitative research approach was used, and the study is exploratory in nature.Results: The study identified that there was limited digitalisation at eThekwini Municipality. Furthermore, governance processes and an overall governance framework were lacking within the municipality. There was also limited support from the national government to address the fourth industrial revolution at local government level.Conclusion: The implications of a lack of a strong public governance framework, and not being supported sufficiently by the national government, mean that the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality cannot compete internationally within the digital economy. The national government must co-ordinate a collaborated effort towards digitalisation, especially at municipal level. A multilevel governance framework, identifying collaboration between the various levels of government and the public, has been identified as the key response in embracing and enhancing the fourth industrial revolution within municipalities.

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Surviving and thriving in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Digital skills for education and society

Homo Virtualis ◽

10.12681/homvir.20192 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 34 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Charalambos Tsekeris

Keyword(s):

Technological Progress ◽

Industrial Revolution ◽

Collective Intelligence ◽

Responsible Innovation ◽

Fourth Industrial Revolution ◽

Digital Skills ◽

Multiple Challenges ◽

Education And Society ◽

Sustainable Economic Growth ◽

And Control

This concise article maintains that, in times of structural and persistent crisis, Europe needs to effectively tackle the multiple challenges and existential fears by cultivating a strong and dynamical digital skills ecosystem, based on collective values and the fundamental liberal principles of co-creation, co-evolution, and collective intelligence, over against the obsolete principles of optimisation and top-down administration and control. This will arguably result in upgrading humanism (humanism 2.0) and democracy (democracy 2.0), and in boosting responsible innovation and, therefore, adaptiveness, as well as in translating technological progress into inclusive and sustainable economic growth, and risks into creative opportunities for all citizens.

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Fourth industrial revolution and India's “employment problem”

International Journal of Social Economics ◽

10.1108/ijse-09-2019-0540 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 47 (7) ◽

pp. 851-866

Author(s):

Sujatra Bhattacharyya ◽

Arup Mitra

Keyword(s):

Productivity Growth ◽

Technological Progress ◽

Industrial Revolution ◽

Employment Growth ◽

Capital Intensity ◽

Industrial Sector ◽

Content Type ◽

Employment Problem ◽

Fourth Industrial Revolution ◽

The Impact

PurposeThis paper aims at assessing the impact of innovation on productivity as sustainable development can be attained primarily through non-resource-driven growth. Secondly, it also proposes to reflect on the rising capital intensity in the Indian industries as technology advancement, particularly in the light of the fourth industrial revolution, is expected to reduce the labour absorbing capacity of the industrial sector.Design/methodology/approachBased on panel data for different Indian firms in various groups of industries, this paper estimates TFPG and TE (following Cornwell et al. methodology) and assesses the impact of R&D expenditure on the performance indices. Secondly, it measures the capital intensity across various groups of industries to reflect on the “employment problem”.FindingsInnovation does not seem to enhance the performance index in a very significant manner across industry groups considered in the study. The lack of extensive evidence on impact of innovation on total factor productivity growth suggests that innovation does not necessarily result in technological progress while the need of the hour is to experience non-resource-driven growth on the one hand and employment growth on the other. The positive impact of innovation on efficiency as seen in the paper can be interpreted as the expenditure incurred to realize the potentiality of the technology which is possibly imported. However, capital accumulation is resulting in rapid productivity growth at the cost of employment.Research limitations/implicationsCapturing technological progress in terms of TFPG can be subjected to criticism.Practical implicationsPolicy implications for employment generation and inclusive growth are derived.Social implicationsThe study cautions us about the adverse implications in terms of employment growth.Originality/valueAssessing the impact of innovation on performance such as TFPG and TE is rather rare in the literature, and this paper tries to reflect on this aspect using the Indian firm-level data. Secondly, the trade-offs between productivity growth and employment growth are brought out distinctly in order to highlight the declining labour absorbing capacity of the industrial sector. This enables us to reflect on the adverse consequences of the fourth industrial revolution.

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