We ask whether foreign subsidiaries may work as entities that neutralize the threat of marginalization of the post-transition economies in terms of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) adoption. Building on a conceptual model of foreign subsidiaries as I4.0 vehicles, we conducted interviews with 440 foreign subsidiaries from the manufacturing sector established in Poland. The originality of the paper concerns three key issues. First, our study shows that the strategy adopted by the headquarters is critical, as it impacts the possibility of foreign subsidiaries to act as vehicles of I4.0 transformation in host economies. Second, embeddedness in local environment guarantees the transition of knowledge, whereas the innovation capacity of a foreign subsidiary does not seem to play any role. Third, we focus on foreign subsidiaries established in a post-transition economy. The results of our research enrich the literature on types of foreign subsidiaries in transmitting and diffusing the knowledge received from headquarters and expose the prominent role of links with host market entities.

我们询问外国子公司是否可以作为实体在工业 4.0 (I4.0) 采用方​​面消除转型后经济体边缘化的威胁。基于将外国子公司作为 I4.0 车辆的概念模型，我们对 440 家在波兰建立的制造业的外国子公司进行了采访。论文的原创性涉及三个关键问题。首先，我们的研究表明，总部采用的战略至关重要，因为它会影响外国子公司在东道国经济体中充当 I4.0 转型工具的可能性。其次，融入当地环境保证了知识的转移，而外国子公司的创新能力似乎没有任何作用。第三，我们专注于在转型后经济中建立的外国子公司。我们的研究结果丰富了关于外国子公司类型在传递和传播从总部获得的知识方面的文献，并揭示了与东道国市场实体联系的突出作用。