Digitalization, Demographic Change and Decarbonization: Eight Pivotal Competencies for Learning Factories

Society is faced with its most pressing challenges: Digitalization, Demographic change, and Decarbonization. Beyond technical and organizational adjustments, the success of corporate transformation hinges on employee development. Formal qualifications and knowledge, though crucial, need to be revised. Instead, emphasis must be placed on fostering competencies—the ability to navigate complex problem contexts with elusive parameters swiftly. Recent research highlights the efficacy of learning factories in cultivating these competencies. Yet, there global proliferation reveals diverse approaches. Navigating these approaches is essential for the learning factorie community. This paper introduces eight pivotal competencies for learning factories derived from a systematic literature review. The findings are contextualized within the challenges of digitalization, demographic change, and decarbonization. The research provides insights for practitioners working on the competence-oriented conceptualization and development of learning factories. Furthermore, researchers benefit from a research agenda that outlines additional research recommendations.