Assistant Professor Fatma Karaman Kabadurmus, with UW-Stout’s social science department, researched how digital technologies and emerging tools, often described as “AI-enabled” or part of Industry 4.0, are reshaping how firms innovate, manage supply chains and compete in today’s economy. A central focus of this work is how digitalization helped firms respond to the unprecedented disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Through her research, Karaman Kabadurmus recently co-authored two book chapters in “The Palgrave Handbook of Supply Chain and Disruptive Technologies.” The chapters were “The Impact of Digitalization on Firm-Level Innovation Performance During the Pandemic” and “Revolutionizing Last-Mile Delivery: Discovering Disruptive Technologies and Innovative Solutions.”
Her chapters examine how supply chain digitalization influenced firms’ innovation performance during the pandemic. “The findings highlight that digital transformation helps firms adapt to shocks in logistics, inventory management, labor availability and rapidly changing demand,” she said.
Her research on last-mile delivery and Industry 4.0 critically reviewed emerging technologies, such as AI/ML (machine learning) applications, big data analytics, blockchain, IoT, digital twins, and autonomous systems, and evaluated their implications for efficiency, innovation, and implementation barriers in supply chain operations.
“This work builds on my broader research agenda in the economics of innovation. Rather than focusing on the technical design of technologies, my research asks economic and social science questions: When do firms adopt new technologies? What barriers do they face? And how do market conditions, competition and institutions shape innovation outcomes?” Karaman Kabadurmus said.
Impact on students and career readiness
Karaman Kabadurmus’ research has a direct impact on her teaching and students’ learning, particularly through a new course she developed, which launches this spring semester: Innovation and Artificial Intelligence in the Modern Economy.
“Employers want AI literacy,” Karaman Kabadurmus said. “As part of the Stout Core foundational education classes, I designed this course for students from all majors. They will learn to understand AI through an applied economic and social science lens.”
The course is an introduction to how digital and AI-enabled technologies shape innovation across sectors, such as health care, manufacturing, supply chains and more. Students examine real-world case studies, such as Amazon, Tesla and Google; observe changes in labor markets and firm strategy; explore ethical and regulatory dimensions; and study public policy debates that affect everyday economic decisions.
Stout Core’s areas of expertise offer students opportunities to grow their global perspective, communication and critical thinking skills, ethical reasoning, and more, so they graduate ready to do more on day one.
