Abstract
Industry 4.0 is currently a hot topic for practitioners and academia. However, as the concept originates in manifestos by government-sponsored initiatives or companies, a widely-accepted academic definition is lacking. In this paper – through a systematic literature review – we discuss commonalities and differences in definitions provided by academia and other qualified sources. As we observe a significant ambiguity, we suggest the idea of Industry 4.0 encompassing different technologies and managerial innovations which are industry-, country- and firm-specific. We conclude that any rigorous definition of Industry 4.0 is not possible nor meaningful at this point in time.