Navigating Unchartered Territory: Early Impact of Pandemic on SMEs Robotization

Masood Rangraz, Nikolay Kazantsev, Maduka Subasinghage, Tatiana M. Martinez

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference paperConference paperpeer-review

Abstract

As COVID-19-related social distancing measures have been adopted and look likely to remain in place for a significant period, robotics experts now question whether the current scenario might spur investments into total blue-collar robotization in manufacturing. This paper focuses on the context of SMEs which play a major role in national economies and industrial value chains worldwide. Adopting multiple case studies, we collect data through seven interviews with SME managers in Germany, UK and Sweden during first and second quarter of 2020. Our analysis reveals administrative, technical, and economic issues impeding robotization of SMEs, but these barriers are lowered by the pandemics. The SME managers reported on the changed attitudes towards data access, remote networking and collaboration, and the early experiments to adopt robots to compensate the staff shortage on shop floors. We theorize on these impacts with a conceptual model predicting SME robotization from contingent resource-based view perspective.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPACIS 2021 Proceedings
PublisherAssociation for Information Systems
Publication statusPublished - 2021
Externally publishedYes
EventPacific Asia Conference on Information Systems 2021 - Virtual, United Arab Emirates
Duration: 12 Jul 202114 Jul 2021

Conference

ConferencePacific Asia Conference on Information Systems 2021
Abbreviated titlePACIS2021
Country/TerritoryUnited Arab Emirates
Period12/07/2114/07/21

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Navigating Unchartered Territory: Early Impact of Pandemic on SMEs Robotization'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this