Best regional practices for digital transformation in industry: The case of the industry 4.0 program in Portugal

Abstract

The Portuguese government, through its program for Industry 4.0, Portugal I4.0, has been supporting projects aimed at the digital transformation of the economy by mobilizing European funds and governmental subsidies from the Portugal 2020 Program. The objective of this study is to analyze the best regional practices for digital transformation in the industry 4.0 in this context. The following research questions arise: which are the best practices for digital transformation in Portugal under this Program and what was the impact on the competitiveness of Portuguese industries after the implementation of these technologies through the Incentive Value from 2017 to 2019? The methodological approach is correlational, and it establishes a relationship between the I4.0 Incentive Value and Competitiveness in order to identify the best regional practices for digital trans-formation in the Portuguese industry. The hypothesis of this study is accepted for the period 2017–2019, since the factors that make up the industry 4.0—European Fund—Incentive Value dimension are associated to the degree of competitive-ness, which was measured by a set of related variables. Further studies are necessary for longer periods and with a broader scope, the result shows the relevance of the Program