Abstract
The world has seen an explosion in the use of technology to drive economic growth. This is evident as the world has undergone three revolutions in different centuries. In those revolutions, African countries, in particular Nigeria, were late adopters of technology. Currently, the world as we know it is undergoing the 4th industrial revolution and it is important that Nigeria positions itself in order not be a late adopter of the technologies, but also to become an economic power not just in Africa, but also globally. This information has driven this research, leading to the aim of assessing the impact of the Fourth industrial revolution (4IR) on the growth of the Nigerian economy. This is important because despite all the promises of the impacts of the 4IR, many countries have yet to attain the full potential of these technologies as well as being able to position themselves as the leading players in their application. The following research objectives were formulated in order to achieve the aim of the study, namely to identify the challenging factors to the implementation of 4IR in the Nigerian economy, to identify the drivers of 4IR technologies that stimulate growth of the Nigerian economy, to determine the success factors for the adoption of 4IR technologies for the growth of the Nigerian economy, and to ascertain the benefits of the implementation of 4IR technologies for the Nigerian economy. The quantitative methodology was adopted as the research strategy with a questionnaire survey method for the data collection instrument. The data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The following findings were identified: the respondents identified organisational strategies as the primary driver of the implementation of 4IR technologies in Nigeria, unreliable Internet connectivity was considered the primary challenge for the implementation of 4IR in the Nigerian economy, change management was the highest ranked success factor and lastly, the benefits of 4IR implementation are the enhancement of industrial upgrade. The study concluded with recommendations and conclusions.