Emerging Trends of Industry 4.0 in Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Implementations

Abstract

There is a growing interest in the use of HR-based Industry 4.0 technologies for equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) issues yet the emerging trends of Industry 4.0 in EDI implementations and interventions are not fully covered. This chapter investigates the emerging themes regarding EDI and Industry 4.0 interaction through Google-based big data that show the actual interest in Industry 4.0 and EDI. Drawing on a web analytics method that tracks the real click behaviours of web users through querying combined sets of keywords, the study explores the trends and interactions between Industry 4.0 technologies and EDI-related HR practices. Our search engine results page (SERP) analyses find a high volume of queries and a significant interest between EDI elements and artificial intelligence (AI) only. In contrast to the suggestions of the extant literature, no significant user interest in other Industry 4.0 applications for EDI implementations was observed. The authors suggest that other Industry 4.0 technologies such as machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) for EDI implementations are in their early stages.

Citation

Kamasak, R., Alkan, D.P. and Yalcinkaya, B. (2023), "Emerging Trends of Industry 4.0 in Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Implementations", Kucukaltan, B. (Ed.) Contemporary Approaches in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: Strategic and Technological Perspectives (International Perspectives on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Vol. 9), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 129-148. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2051-233320230000009008