Oliver SOM, Prof. Dr., Management Center Innsbruck, Austria, 
Henning KROLL, Dr., Fraunhofer ISI, Germany, 
Els VAN DER VELDE , Ph.D., IDEA Consult, Belgium
Bernhard DACHS, Dr., Austrian Institute of Technology, Austria
Giacomo COPANI, Ph.D., CNR, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Lawrence DOOLEY, Prof. Ph.D., University College Cork, Ireland
Christian LERCH, Dr., Fraunhofer ISI, Germany
 

Track's Contacts : 

oliver.som[AT]mci.edu
henning.kroll[AT]fraunhofer.isi.de

Manufacturing is among the key driving forces of the European economy. It provides about 20% of all jobs in Europe and generates a turnover of about €7 000 billion in 25 industrial sectors and over 2 million companies. Nowadays, as never before, manufacturing firms need to be able to continuously offer flexibility combined with a high quality/price ratio. One of the crucial prerequisites for achieving and maintaining competitiveness is the adoption and effective usage of a broad range of advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT). Across the board, much of the existing literature recognises these technologies as drivers of competitive advantage, improving productivity, production speed, operating precision as well as energy and material consumption. Moreover, they are innovation multipliers applied to facilitate development of new products. Nonetheless, Europe’s position with respect to ATM performance and the uptake of related technologies in large sections of its industrial sector has remained less than satisfactory. With Asia catching up fast and recovery in the United States, Europe is not able to rest on its laurels. While various relevant AMT are developed by European firms, far too few of them have become commonly adopted.

But the understanding of diffusion mechanisms (e.g. prerequisites, motives of firms) as well as the effects and impacts of industrial modernization (e.g. economic, ecologic performance, development of new business models, impacts on skills) is still scarce, particularly in terms of generalizable, quantitative user-level data. Given the economic importance of the manufacturing sector in the EU, also policymakers need new insights and approaches of monitoring and promoting the diffusion of AMT.
Our proposed special track wants to address these needs by offering an arena for internationally leading researchers in this field to exchange on their newest research findings as well as to strengthen the collaboration network amongst them.

Due to the multidimensional subject of AMT, the track is based on the premise of a holistic approach which is targeted on integrating research, particularly in the fields of economics, management, industry dynamics, technology assessment, decision-making, and technology policy to allow for mutual learning, exchange, and thereby deepen our understanding of AMT. This interdisciplinarity is also reflected in the team of chairs which are ready to activate their research networks to attract 8-12 high-quality contributions. Additionally, the chairs themselves have outstanding expertise in the field of AMT and authored several recent studies and reports about the determinants, dynamics, effects, and policy requirements of AMT (references are available upon request) which could serve as a basis for submissions.

Thus, we cordially invite researchers from all disciplines (see above) to present and discuss their latest findings. Ideally, the contribution within the track sessions will lead into a special issue of a renowned journal providing an integrative overview of the interdisciplinary state-of-the-art research and future research agendas on AMT.

The session format will be based on paper presentation. However, to stimulate fruitful discussions each author(s) will be asked to take the role of a discussant of one of the session’s papers. Additionally, we will ask the presenters to limit their slide decks to seven slides at max to leave enough room discussion.