INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS IN POST-INDUSTRIAL ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF INDUSTRY 4.0
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37332/Keywords:
Industry 4.0, institutional environment, institutional factors, innovative development, national innovation system, sectoral structure of the economy, post-industrial transformations, technological changes, digitalizationAbstract
Prushkivska E.V., Lazneva I.O. INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS IN POST-INDUSTRIAL ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF INDUSTRY 4.0
Purpose. The aim of the article is to identify the institutional factors of post-industrial development and to unlock the potential of the national innovation system in driving structural and technological shifts in the context of Industry 4.0.
Methodology of research. The methodological foundation of this study is a synergistic combination of systemic and institutional approaches, which made it possible to reveal the endogenous determinants and cause-and-effect relationships between technological changes, the architecture of the institutional environment, and the qualitative structural transformation of economic systems. A set of general scientific and specialized research methods was applied to achieve this objective: theoretical generalization and epistemological analysis – for a critical reexamination of the classical tenets of post-industrialism theory, the conceptual foundations of Industry 4.0, and the evolutionary theory of sectoral structure; structural and functional analysis – to examine the structure and functional links of the national innovation system, substantiate its role as an institutional transmission mechanism for post-industrial transformations, and systematize the key functions of the innovation process; the method of classification and systematization – to develop an original architecture of complementary groups of institutional factors of post-industrial transformations; abstract and logical modelling – to construct and visualize the institutional and technological mechanism for transforming Industry 4.0’s potential into qualitative structural changes in the economy through the institutional environment and the national innovation system.
Findings. It is argued that post-industrial transformations cannot be reduced to quantitative growth in the share of the tertiary sector, since the expansion of the service sector may accompany deindustrialization rather than technological modernization. The key factor is the renewal of the economy’s technological, sectoral, and institutional structure based on knowledge, innovation, and intangible factors of production. The study reveals the cross-sectoral nature of the impact of Industry 4.0 technologies, which penetrate the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors, enhancing their knowledge intensity and sectoral convergence. The concept of post-industrial transformations is clarified as systemic qualitative changes accompanied by technological renewal across all sectors and the formation of new modes of interaction among them.
Institutional factors have been systematized into six interrelated groups: regulatory and legal, knowledge and educational, financial and investment, infrastructure and technological, organizational and network-based, social and cultural. Their complementary nature has been demonstrated: the effectiveness of technological renewal is determined not by a single element, but by the coherence of rules, competencies, funding, infrastructure, network interaction, social and cultural. prerequisites. The national innovation system is defined as an institutional transmission mechanism that ensures knowledge generation, technology transfer, commercialization, diffusion, and scaling of innovations. A three-level logic of institutional support is proposed, encompassing the macro level of rule and policy formation, the meso level of the national innovation system’s functioning, and the micro level of economic actors’ decisions.
It has been established that, in a favourable institutional environment, technological changes take on a cross-sectoral character and enhance the economy’s ability to generate high added value, whereas in the face of institutional fragmentation, their diffusion may be localized and unsystematic.
Originality. The scientific novelty lies in the conceptual substantiation of the role of the institutional environment and the national innovation system in shaping post-industrial transformations in the context of Industry 4.0. The concept of post-industrial transformations has been clarified by combining technological, sectoral, and institutional dimensions; six groups of interrelated institutional factors have been systematized, and the principle of their complementarity has been substantiated. The role of the national innovation system in ensuring the dissemination and scaling of technological innovations and their transformation into qualitative cross-sectoral changes in the economy is substantiated.
Practical value. The obtained findings can be used in the development of innovative, educational, scientific, industrial, and digital policies aimed at enhancing the economy’s capacity for post-industrial transformations. The proposed systematization of institutional factors, the institutional and technological mechanism can serve as a basis for developing a system of institutional capacity indicators, assessing the coherence of the components of the national innovation system, and identifying constraints that hinder the dissemination and scaling of Industry 4.0 technologies.
Key words: Industry 4.0, institutional environment, institutional factors, innovative development, national innovation system, sectoral structure of the economy, post-industrial transformations, technological changes, digitalization.
References
1. Bell, D. (1973), The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting, Basic Books, New York, USA, 507 p.
2. Toffler, A. (1980), The Third Wave, William Morrow, New York, USA, 544 p.
3. Castells, M. (1996), The Rise of the Network Society. The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Vol. 1, Malden, Blackwell Publishers, MA, USA, 556 p.
4. Schwab, K. and Davis, N. (2018), Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland, 288 p., available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331097271_Shaping_the_Future_of_the_Fourth_Industrial_Revolution (access date May 15, 2026).
5. Acemoglu, D. and Restrepo, P. (2019), “Automation and New Tasks: How Technology Displaces and Reinstates Labor”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 3-30, available at: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.33.2.3 (access date May 15, 2026).
6. Brynjolfsson, E., Rock, D. and Syverson, C. (2021), “The Productivity J-Curve: How Intangibles Complement General Purpose Technologies”, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 333-372, DOI: 10.1257/mac.20180386
7. Mazzucato, M. (2018), “Mission-oriented innovation policies: challenges and opportunities”, Industrial and Corporate Change, Vol. 27, no. 5, pp. 803-815, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/icc/dty034
8. Borrás, S. and Edquist, C. (2019), Holistic Innovation Policy: Theoretical Foundations, Policy Problems, and Instrument Choices, Oxford University Press,Oxford, UK, 320 p., DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198809807.001.0001.
9. Hrytsenko, A.A. (Ed.) (2021), Formuvannia instytutsiinoi arkhitektoniky informatsiino-merezhevoi ekonomiky [Formation of the institutional architecture of the information and network economy], monograph, DNNU “Akademiia finansovoho upravlinnia”, Kyiv, Ukraine, 736 p.
10. Pylypenko, H.M., Fedorova, N.Ye. and Kazymyrenko, O.V. (2017), “Socio-economic development of society through the prism of synergistic paradigm”, Ekonomichnyi visnyk Natsionalnoho hirnychoho universytetu, no. 2(58), pp. 9-17.
11. Pylypenko, Yu.I. (2009), “Technological structure of the national economy of Ukraine and its reform strategy”, Ekonomika ta derzhava, no. 12, pp. 22-24.
12. Pylypenko, Yu.I. (2003), “Mechanisms of innovative motivation and their specifics in the conditions of Ukraine”, Ekonomichnyi visnyk Natsionalnoho hirnychoho universytetu, no. 1(1), pp. 16-20.
13. Py lypenko, H.M. and Herasymenko, T.V. (2023), “Industry 4.0 and its impact on reshoring trends in the global economy”, Economic Bulletin of Dnipro University of Technology, no. 4(84), pp. 67-74, DOI: https://doi.org/10.33271/ebdut/84.067
14. Pylypenko, H., Fedorova, N., Lytvynenko, N. and Pylypenko, Y. (2025), “Breakthrough technologies of social transformations: devising an identification methodology”, Eastern-European Journal of Enterprise Technologies, Vol. 2, no. 13(134), pp. 15-26, DOI: https://doi.org/10.15587/1729-4061.2025.326555
15. Fedorova, N.Ye. (2021), “Post-industrialism and its essential characteristics”, Ekonomichnyi visnyk Dniprovskoi politekhniky, no. 4(76), pp. 9-17, DOI: 10.33271/ebdut/76.009
16. Fedorova, N.Ye. (2024), “Innovation system in the structure of the institutional environment”, Ekonomichnyi visnyk Dniprovskoi politekhniky, no. 2(86), pp. 32-48, DOI: 10.33271/ebdut/86.032
17. Prushkivska, E. (2013), “Post-industrial society as a vector of national economy development”, Ekonomist, no. 7, pp. 40-43.
18. Baines, T., Lightfoot, H.W., Benedettini, O. and Kay, J.M. (2009), “The servitization of manufacturing: A review of literature and reflection on future challenges”, Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, vol. 20, no. 5, pp. 547-567, DOI: 10.1108/17410380910960844
19. OECD (2018), Oslo Manual 2018: Guidelines for Collecting, Reporting and Using Data on Innovation, 4th Edition, OECD Publishing, Paris, France, Eurostat, Luxembourg, 258 p., available at: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oslo-manual-2018_9789264304604-en.html (access date May 20, 2026).
20. North, D.C. (1990), Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 159 p.
21. Freeman, C. (1987), Technology Policy and Economic Performance: Lessons from Japan, Pinter Publishers, London, UK, New York, USA, 155 p.
22. Lundvall, B.-Å. (1992), National Systems of Innovation: Towards a Theory of Innovation and Interactive Learning, Pinter Publishers, London, UK, 342 p.
23. Nelson, R.R. (1993), National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, New York, USA, 541 p.
24. World Intellectual Property Organization (2025), Global Innovation Index 2025: Innovation at a Crossroads, Geneva, Switzerland, 245 p., available at: https://www.wipo.int/publications/en/details.jsp?id=4807 (access date May 23, 2026).
25. European Union (2025), European Innovation Scoreboard 2025, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, available at: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-law-and-publications/publication-detail/-/publication/c102236e-66b2-11f0-bf4e-01aa75ed71a1/language-en (access date May 23, 2026).
26. OECD (1999), Managing National Innovation Systems. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Publishing, Paris, France, 120 p., available at: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/managing-national-innovation-systems_9789264189416 (access date May 23, 2026).
27. Prushkivska, E.V. (2013), “Quantitative and qualitative characteristics of sectoral structure in the context of economic development”, Visnyk Kyivskoho natsionalnoho universytetu imeni Tarasa Shevchenka. Ser.: Ekonomika, no. 6(147), pp. 82-87.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Open-access articles (open-access journals)
Authors whose articles are published in open-access retain all rights to the content of the articles.
Open access articles are committed to be published under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0. This license allows others to distribute, edit, correct and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they indicate your authorship. Detailed information at Creative Commons site: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Permissions for open-access journals
If the article is published in open-access under CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC 4.0 (which was possible till the 15th of December, 2018) licenses, users may reproduce it in accordance with their terms.
Additionally, if the article had been published under CC BY-NC 4.0 (this license authorizes others to download your works and share them with others as long as they indicate your authorship, but they can’t use them commercially in any case.), the use for the following commercial purposes requires permission:
– reproduction of content in a work or product intended for sale;
– reproduction in presentations, brochures or other marketing materials used for commercial purposes;
– distribution of the content to promote or market a person, product, course, service or organization;
– text and data mining for the purpose of creating a saleable product or product which benefits from promotional or advertising revenue;
– use of the content by a commercial entity or individual for the purposes of remuneration, directly or indirectly through sale, licensing, promotion or advertising;
– linking to the content (in an email, webpage, portable electronic device or otherwise) for the specific purpose of marketing or advertising a person, product, course, service or organization for commercial benefit.
For further details and permission requests, please contact.
