Understanding the cyber-physical-social-intentional Workforce 4.0

Abstract

The widespread application of Industry 4.0 technologies relating to social robotics, AI, the Internet of Things (IoT), ubiquitous computing, and advanced human-computer interfaces is giving rise to a growing range of “cyber-physical” entities. By building on established definitions of such entities, this text formulates a novel conceptual framework for understanding the emerging Workforce 4.0 as a specialized type of “cyber-physical-social-intentional system”. Attention is given to the heterogeneous agency, functional decentralization, technological posthumanization, and planned architectures or spontaneously self-organizing topologies manifested by Workforce 4.0. It is shown how such a workforce is situated within the context of cyber-physical space, a cyber-physical organization, cyber-physical ecosystems, a cyber-physical society, and the larger cyber-physical world.

Keywords

• management 4.0
• workforce 4.0
• cyber-physical systems
• cyber-physical-social-intentional
• systems
• technological posthumanization