Circular economy and sustainability: The role of organizational behaviour in the transition journey

Abstract

Implementing circular economy (CE) requires complex and dynamic changes in technical and behavioural aspects. Few studies spend efforts to understand the organizational behavioural side of CE transition. Thus, this study proposes a theoretical framework that addresses the requirements for the transition towards CE from the organizational perspective. We conducted a systematic review aiming to identify the relations between CE and organizational culture. As a result, we developed a theoretical framework composed of five building blocks (mindsets, values, behaviours, capabilities and competences) that guide the transition towards a CE-oriented culture aiming to achieve sustainability in business. We also identified several gaps for future researches. We concluded that the framework could enrich the literature discussion in the field and be used by practitioners for the identification of paths to implement CE from the organizational culture perspective. In addition, the use of this framework could lead to the achievement of the sustainable development.

Antecedents of absorptive capacity in the development of circular economy business models of small and medium enterprises

“…Organisations need to accelerate the transition also considering consumer switching behaviours towards circular products and services (Hazen et al, 2017). ACAP but also dynamic capabilities and organisational behaviour (Bertassini et al, 2021) can be useful strategy to boost the transition journey. Integrating circular business models and adopting CE initiatives at firm level and along the supply chain (Ethirajan et al, 2020) is pivotal to pursue a new era of business strategies for environmental sustainability (Rehman Khan et al, 2021).…”

How to renew business strategy to achieve sustainability and circularity? A process model of strategic development in incumbent technology companies

“…In contrast, the sustainability and CE literature has approached the topic by indicating how sustainability and CE transition demand changes in companies' operations, innovative practices, and stakeholder relationships (Brown et al, 2021; Mousavi & Bossink, 2017), which impacts companies' strategic development in the long run. Although both research streams have fundamentally agreed that companies' roles and actions are critical in achieving sustainable development (Bertassini et al, 2021; Chen et al, 2020; Loorbach et al, 2010), there has been no consensus on whether and how a business strategy advances companies' quests for sustainable development (Liu & Kong, 2020), or how business strategies are developed and implemented in practice to achieve sustainability (Engert et al, 2016; Papagiannakis et al, 2014; Rodrigues & Franco, 2019). Therefore, it is critical to investigate how sustainability is integrated into companies' business strategies.…”

“…Although managing business strategy development to promote sustainability is critical, it is extremely challenging for incumbent companies. The reason is that sustainability demands that incumbents drastically rethink and renew their existing operations, competences, organizational culture, and stakeholder relationships (Bertassini et al, 2021; Gandolfo & Lupi, 2021; Hofmann & Jaeger‐Erben, 2020; Kaipainen & Aarikka‐Stenroos, 2021). Therefore, for incumbents, strategic development for sustainability is a complicated process that fundamentally shifts their way of doing business (Engert et al, 2016; Gandolfo & Lupi, 2021; Keijzers, 2002); hence, this type of strategic development is called “strategic renewal” (Agarwal & Helfat, 2009).…”

“…It is critical to investigate the renewal process, its stages, and assumingly emerging processual patterns to understand the management issues that emerge throughout the process as well as how incumbents could address these issues in a timely manner to succeed in renewing their business. However, further processual research is needed to gain this new understanding (Bertassini et al, 2021; Rovanto & Bask, 2020), particularly based on longitudinal data and analysis (Bertassini et al, 2021; Fowler & Hope, 2007; Madsen & Ulhøi, 2016; Zollo et al, 2013). Accordingly, we apply the process approach to examine incumbents' strategic renewal processes, which are expected to consist of different stages with differing management issues.…”

A fuzzy multicriteria group decision approach for circular business models prioritization

“…Thus, the organization needs to choose/prioritize which CBMs will be the predominant in accordance with the organization's main strategies and goals to define the processes, activities, resources, customers, investments, revenues and other factors that are important for the implementation of the CBM. Moreover, the successful implementation of CBMs is directly dependent of the relationship between CE principles and indicators, since companies need to incorporate CE principles in their operations and culture (Bertassini et al, 2021b) and use indicators to measure how well they are performing in the CE transition (Rossi et al, 2020). The use of indicators to measure circularity performance is essential to improve and assess CBMs.…”