The actors’ role in industrial districts facing the challenge of technologies 4.0 between absorption and dissemination

Industry 4.0 (I.4.0) has a significant impact on firms, supply chains and in contexts where firms have built tight relations with high levels of interactions in a delimited geographical area. An industrial district (ID) represents an extraordinary field for empirical investigation to understand how the knowledge linked to the I.4.0 technological paradigm can be absorbed and disseminated. However, the current literature has focused its attention on the effect of I.4.0 on the IDs at an aggregate level, while little is known about the role of the firms within the IDs. This research aims to fill this gap by looking at two dimensions: absorption and dissemination. We focused our attention on 101 firms belonging to four Tuscan IDs: the Santa Croce tanning district, the Florentine leather district, the Prato textile district and the Arezzo jewellery district. This research broadens the literature about absorption and dissemination within IDs enlightening the behaviour of firms in IDs, where they can play different roles: ‘traditionalist’, ‘bridge’, ‘isolated’ and ‘opportunist’. From a practical perspective, this paper shows firms their role played within IDs. From this research it comes out that competencies 4.0, culture 4.0 and collaboration are the key aspects for turning IDs into IDs 4.0.