Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
  • Publication
    A Circular Economy within the planetary boundaries: towards a resource-based, systemic approach
    (Elsevier, 2020-04-04)
    Design, Harald
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    Brunner, Dunia
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    Nahrath, Stephane
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    Hirschier, Roland
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  • Publication
    Circular Transformation: creating business models and ecosystems for a circular economy
    (Universität St. Gallen, 2022-09-19)
    Since the Industrial Revolution, humanity has risen to become a geological force through economic activities. The consequences accumulated over time are severe: global exploitation of finite and renewable resources, serious waste production, and the climate crisis being accelerated. Humanity and the biosphere are increasingly threatened by these consequences. Different approaches, both in research and practice, exist to counteract this overshoot of planetary boundaries, one being the circular economy. It offers a socially acceptable, ecologically necessary, and economically thrilling potential for change, and aims to close material loops efficiently and reduce negative externalities as much as possible. It is achieved through systemic, business, and personal changes. This cumulative dissertation focuses on the business implementation of a circular economy. To this end, this dissertation presents three standalone papers and a comprehensive introduction to the circular economy. The introduction explains why adopting different perspectives is pivotal while analyzing the complex problem of environmental degradation currently faced. Furthermore, it introduces different concepts and definitions. Based on a dataset of 59 interviews with Swiss small and medium-sized enterprise managers, Paper A identifies possible barriers to the entrepreneurial implementation of a circular economy. The barriers are related to each other and are embedded in a holistic and multilevel framework. Paper B explores the link between business models and circular ecosystems conceptually and based on existing literature. To this end, it presents a comprehensive framework for designing circular ecosystems based on pattern logic, which draws on a comprehensive literature review and over 200 business cases identified in practice. This is enriched by presenting an innovation process and analyzing a thriving textile ecosystem in which eight partner companies were interviewed and evaluated. Finally, Paper C approaches the driving factors of the transformation into a circular economy from a management perspective. The identified drivers are linked to the dynamic capabilities approach, which helps to explain the driving factors for the entrepreneurial implementation of business models in a circular economy. Finally, a conclusion is drawn, and the potential for further research is presented.
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  • Publication
    Managerial and Organizational Antecedents of Business Model Innovation for a Circular Economy
    ( 2021-12-21)
    Today’s economic system and the companies operating within it are strongly oriented toward a linear pattern of value creation in which raw materials are extracted from the earth, products are manufactured, sold to customers, and end up as waste. This economic linearity causes material waste, global warming, and other environmental degradation. There is increasing pressure being put on companies to implement sustainable, material-conserving business models. An economical alternative is a circular economy (CE) in which companies focus on closed material loops implemented with so-called circular business models (CMBs). Although some research has been done in this field, there is still a significant research gap regarding the company-internal driving factors that facilitate the implementation of CBMs. This current study involved conducting interviews with 59 Swiss managers of small- and medium-sized enterprises from three industries: food and beverage, textile, and logistics. Helped by an inductive grounded theory approach, five managerial and five organizational drivers were identified and analyzed first. In the second step, the concept of dynamic capabilities (DCs) was used to explain the possible influence of drivers on the creation of CBMs conceptually and with reference to data. This study shows which company-internal drivers can act as antecedents of CBM innovation in the entrepreneurial context and how they can affect the higher-order DCs of sensing, seizing, and transforming, according to Teece (2007). This current study contributes to the analysis of factors that stimulate economic transformation toward a CE from a company perspective.
  • Publication
    Circular Ecosystems: Business Model Innovation for the Circular Economy
    ( 2020-01-23) ; ;
    Stechow, Richard
    By design, waste and other negative environmental impacts have become an integral part of our industrialised consumer society. The circular economy (CE) is a way to move away from the linearity of our current industrial and economic systems. The aim of a CE is to keep products, components and materials at their maximum utility and value at all times. The present article provides an actionable path for companies to design, validate, and implement a circular ecosystem with suitable business models that enable sustainable solutions that are beyond the reach of single companies. Our easy-to-navigate framework consists of seven steps.