Abstract
Our article contributes theoretical and empirical evidence for variations of digitalized manufacturing. Revisiting Piore and Sabel’s work on Flexible Specialization, we criticize the inherent one-sidedness of the Industry 4.0 discourse to which we juxtapose empirical findings on platform-mediated factory networks. In these, flexibility is facilitated rather by the digital interconnection of a far-flung network of small-scale manufacturers than though sophisticated production technology. The effects on work are ambivalent. They entail potentials for a crafts-like and skill-intensive paradigm of small-scale manufacturing that is beneficial to an upgrading of work but also perils of a race to the bottom in price-sensitive industries.