The music sector in the Industry 4.0 era: digital innovation solutions in the supply chain and consumer behavioral intention

Abstract

Research on Industry 4.0 in supply chains has developed mainly in traditional manufacturing and service contexts. Creative industries, however, differ substantially from these sectors in the nature of the product, the logic of value creation and market dynamics. Consequently, little is known about how these technologies are transforming the music sector. What is missing, in particular, is a systematic mapping of the technological solutions available and evidence on consumers' willingness to take part in the experiences they enable. To address this gap, this thesis investigated how Industry 4.0 technologies are transforming the Music Industry Supply Chain (MISC) and how live music consumers form the intention to participate in experiences mediated by these technologies. A mixed methods approach with an exploratory sequential design was adopted, organized into three studies. The first combined a systematic literature review, a grey literature survey, content analysis and expert validation, resulting in a framework of 37 Digital Innovation Solutions (DISs) distributed across the five MISC processes, each assigned a readiness level: 18 commercially available, 13 experimental and 6 still conceptual. Once the supply side had been mapped, the empirical investigation was delimited to the exhibition and consumption process, where the interface between technology and the consumer materializes. Within it, two formats were selected in which technology plays opposite roles: in Virtual Reality concerts, it substitutes physical co-presence with a simulated environment; in Digitally Enhanced Live Music Events (DELMEs), it retains physical co-presence and augments it through a subset of the mapped DISs. The two subsequent studies tested behavioral intention models on the same sample of 1,242 Brazilian consumers, analyzed through partial least squares structural equation modeling. The second integrated the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology with the Diffusion of Innovations theory to explain the intention to attend Virtual Reality concerts, incorporating three original constructs: immersive experiential value, physical discomfort risk and perceived rapid adaptability. The third integrated the same acceptance theory with the Theory of Consumption Values to explain participation in DELMEs, specifying instrumental value as a formative construct and proposing multisensory experiential value. The models, specified according to the nature of each format, explained 58.9% and 70.7% of the variance in intention. In both, the strongest predictors were social and experiential rather than technical: in virtual concerts, social influence and immersive experiential value, with facilitating conditions acting indirectly through perceived rapid adaptability; in DELMEs, instrumental value and multisensory experiential value, with technological feasibility operating as an enabling condition. Relative advantage was not supported, suggesting that the two formats constitute distinct modes of music consumption, more complementary than substitutive.