Robots at the Gates? Robotic Process Automation, Skills and Institutions in Knowledge-Intensive Business Services

Against the backdrop of the fourth industrial revolution, this paper examines the emergence of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) as one of the new technologies that are shaping the future of work and reconfiguring sectoral business and innovation systems and models. It discusses how the institutional context can potentially mediate the digital transformation of services, how RPA affects workers’ employment and skills, and how it alters inter-organisational relationships and capabilities. Bringing together different strands of academic literature on employment studies, innovation, and technology studies, it deploys a comparative institutional perspective to explore the potential effects of RPA and illustrates their plausibility through mini case studies from knowledge-intensive business services.