Modelling Labour Productivity Under Industry 4.0: Digitalisation, Automation, and Firm Maturity

Firm-level productivity differentials in Industry 4.0 are increasingly linked to heterogeneous patterns of digital adoption. This study examines whether labour productivity among SMEs in Castilla-La Mancha is more strongly associated with effective technological implementation than with automation considered separately. The empirical analysis combines primary survey data from regional SMEs with firm-level accounting and financial information and estimates alternative econometric specifications in which productivity is modelled as a function of digitalisation, automation, and firm maturity, including a quadratic term to test for non-linearity. The results indicate that digitalisation, particularly when proxied by indicators capturing effective technological adoption, shows a positive and statistically robust association with productivity across specifications. By contrast, the automation coefficient does not remain stable. Firm maturity is not significant in linear form, whereas its quadratic specification is consistent with non-linear productivity dynamics linked to cumulative learning and organisational consolidation. The findings establish that effective digital transformation is a more relevant explanatory factor of firm-level productive performance than automation taken in isolation.