Human capital and AI in industry 4.0. Convergence and divergence in social entrepreneurship in Russia

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JIC-09-2019-0224
Pages565-581
Published date27 February 2020
Date27 February 2020
AuthorElena G. Popkova,Bruno S. Sergi
Subject MatterKnowledge management,Accounting & Finance,Behavioural accounting,Organizational structure/dynamics,Accounting/accountancy
Human capital and AI in industry
4.0. Convergence and divergence in
social entrepreneurship in Russia
Elena G. Popkova
Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), Moscow,
Russian Federation, and
Bruno S. Sergi
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and
University of Messina, Messina, Italy
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this article is to determine the future proportion and variants of usage of human
intellect and artificial intelligence (AI) in entrepreneurship of industry 4.0 that fits social entrepreneurship the
most. It could be convergence (simultaneous utilization during the same entrepreneurial processes with the
emphasis on unique features by the terms of the competition) or divergence (usage during different business
processes by the terms of labor division).
Design/methodology/approach The authors determine the influence of usage of human capital and AI on
the efficiency of social entrepreneurship. The authorsidentify the perspective directions of usage of AI in social
entrepreneurshipand evaluate the readiness and interest in the implementation of these directions of concerned
parties. The authors also model the optimal proportions and the variant of usage of human intellect and AI in
social entrepreneurship in the conditions of Industry 4.0 in the future (until 2030).
Findings It is found that social entrepreneurshipwill use the opportunities of Industry 4.0 for optimization of
its activities until 2030, but will refuse from full automatization, using human intellect and AI at the same time.
Originality/value The most perspective directions of application of AI at social companies are a collection
of social goods and services, marketing studies and promotion of social goods and services. Neither
convergence nor divergence of human and artificial intellectualcapital does not fully conform to the interests of
concerned parties. The most preferable (optimal) variant of usage of human intellect and AI in social
entrepreneurship in the Industry 4.0 is human intelligent decision support.
Keywords Intellectual capital, Digital personnel, AI, Social entrepreneurship
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Intellectual capital is of the utmost importance for the functioning and development of
entrepreneurship. It plays two key roles. The first one consists in independent usage of
intellectual capital for creation and translation of corporate knowledge and information and
for development of innovations promoting innovative ideas and offering technologies.
Intellectual capital is a valuable and unique non-material asset for any company, which
defines its competitiveness in the target market. The second role of intellectual capital is
connected to managing other forms of capital (material, financial, etc.) for creation of goods
and services. Intellectual capital of a company determines the technology of production and
labor efficiency.
In the Industry 4.0 system, a new type of intellectual capital appears artificial intelligence
(AI). It is a technology of machine (automatic) processing of information which is opposed to
human intellect (cognitive activities of human). At present, capabilities of AI are not that
Human capital
and AI in
industry 4.0
565
JEL Classification A13, D71, E22, E24, J24, L31, L33, M14, O15, O35
The research was performed with financial support from the Russian Fund of Fundamental
Research within the scientific project No. 18-010-00103 A.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/1469-1930.htm
Received 15 September 2019
Revised 8 October 2019
18 November 2019
Accepted 9 December 2019
Journal of Intellectual Capital
Vol. 21 No. 4, 2020
pp. 565-581
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1469-1930
DOI 10.1108/JIC-09-2019-0224
large, but it is constantly improving. It is probable that by 20282030 AI will have equal
capabilities with human intellect or will even surpass it. Thus, there appears a scientific and
practical problem of determining the variants of usage of human intellect and AI in
entrepreneurship of Industry 4.0 in the future.
A lot of commercial companiesstrategies of development for the mid-term envisage full
automatization based on cyber-physical systems of Industry 4.0 (the Internet of Things
[IoT] under control of AI). Based on this, they plan to raise their competitiveness, reducing
the influence of the human factoron production and ensuring the guarantee of quality of
their products. Fully automatized industrial companies will be able to gain more
advantages from the scale effect,increasing the resource effectiveness of their activities.
At the current stage (2019) of digital modernization, these companies set high demand
for digital personnel as owners of prominent human intellect (high level of qualification in
the profession) and digital competencies. This creates stimuli for investments into
education from employees in the labor market in expectation of expanded possibilities for
employment, career building and receipt of high income. However, the demand (at least,
such high demand) for digital personnel could be temporary and peculiar only for the
current stage of digital modernization of companies. Later on, in the course of
implementation and development of breakthrough digital technologies at the stage of
mass automatization (in the mid-2020s), this tendency might be replaced by a wave of
dismissals and growth of unemployment.
When studying the future of intellectual capital in the conditions of Industry 4.0, it is
necessary to pay attention to social entrepreneurship non-profit entrepreneurship that
implements socially important initiatives (e.g., in the sphere of environment protection,
fighting poverty). On the one hand, it cannot stay aside of the tendency of comprehensive
digitization (which is initiated and supported by the state, in particular) and it is interested in
increasing the effectiveness of its activities. On the other hand, social entrepreneurship
envisages active social interaction in which humans could not be replaced by AI.
In additionto this, high level of corporatesocial responsibility contradicts the idea of hiring
of digital personnel for their further dismissal as in this case, while solving certain social
problemsa social company will causeand aggravate other socialproblems (unemploymentand
growth of poverty).Based on this, we offer hypothesis H
0
that social entrepreneurship will be
using the opportunities of Industry4.0 for optimization of its activities but will refusefrom full
automatization,using human intellect and AI at the same time.
This research aims at verification of the offered hypothesis and determination of the
proportion and variant of usage of human intellect and AI in entrepreneurship of Industry in
the future that fits social entrepreneurship the most this could be convergence
(simultaneous usage during the same entrepreneurial processes with the emphasis on
unique features by the terms of competition) or divergence (usage during different business
processes by the conditions of labor division). For this, three research issues are solved:
(1) Determining the influence of activity of usage of human intellect and AI on efficiency
of the activities of social entrepreneurship;
(2) Determining the perspective directions of usage of AI in social entrepreneurship and
evaluating the readiness and interest in implementation of these directions of
concerned parties;
(3) Modeling the optimal proportion and variant of usage of human intellect and AI in
social entrepreneurship in Industry 4.0 in the future (until 2030).
We are involved here in analyzing the period until 2030 being it equally far enough away to
determine notable changes connected to the mass distribution of AI and not too remote to
JIC
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