Purpose: Industry 4.0 represents a special challenge for businesses in general and for SMEs in particular. The study at hand will examine companies' awareness, readiness and capability to meet this challenge taking into account the special role of SMEs Design/methodology/approach: The results of...

For the impartial observer of German regions, differences in regional industrial structures and prosperity are quite obvious. On the one hand, there are regions characterised by different industries, firm structures and labour qualification profiles. On the other hand, some of these regions are...