Auckland International Conference on Social Sciences, Education, Entrepreneurship and Technology 2020(AICSEET 2020) ISBN 978-0-473-55094-3 24th – 26th November 2020 AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND 3 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTIONS AND SHIFTING OF GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS T.B .Dewanarayana 1 Wijitapure Wimalaratana 2 1 National Institute of Business Management, Colombo 07, Sri Lanka, (barathadewanarayana@gmail.com) 2 Departments of Economics, University of Colombo 03, Sri Lanka, (wimala10@gmail.com) ___________________________________________________________________________ Abstract: Industrial revolutions marked rapid structural transformation in the manufacturing sector making changes to production processors and products while reshaping the lifestyle across the world. Industrial revolutions redefined the product identity of every individual economy with the changes of specializations acquired through different manufacturing sectors. Similarly, new sets of countries emerged as industrial input providers as well as output buyers across the world. When the industrial revolutions reached to more sophisticated stages, the world specialization in manufacturing sector diversified along with the expansion of global value chains. As a result, the final product is assembled in one location while multitudes of components are produced globally by different countries. International competitiveness of a country under a free trade system is mainly decided by the relative cost of production. It is decided by such factors as productivity, availability of quality resources including labor, cost of doing business, favorable macroeconomic environment and institutional setup. The global case studies suggest that the degree of global competitiveness in terms of manufacturing value additive (MVA) was shifting from the west to the east of the world along the timeline. The main objective of this study is to focus the attention on the reshaping of global competitiveness map along the timeline as a result of technological spikes known as industrial revolutions paying special attention to the fourth industrial revolution. The secondary sources are tapped for the necessary information and mixed method is applied to analyze the gathered data. The implications of the fourth industrial revolutions show the reshaping of global competitiveness landscape faster than the previous industrial revolutions. Countries with more commercialized innovations, intellectual property rights and adopting key technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data analytics, internet of things, cloud computing, 3D printing and simulations in production are at the forefront of the competitiveness in manufacturing sector. Key words: Industrial Revolutions, Competitiveness, Macroeconomic Indicators, Industrial Policies. ___________________________________________________________________________ Introduction Industrial revolutions are considered as turning points in the manufacturing sector making changes to production processors and products while making a huge impact to the lifestyle across the world. Such changes in the industrial sector, among many others, redefined the