Are circular economy strategies economically successful? Evidence from a longitudinal panel

Antecedents and consequents of circular economy adoption: A meta-Analytic Investigation

This paper aims to integrate and empirically assess the antecedents and consequents of circular economy (CE) adoption to remove ambiguity existing in the literature and clarify divergent views. This study uses meta-analysis methodology to validate the research framework, considering 106 empirical studies with 210 effect sizes. Based on these studies, we establish twelve antecedents and three consequents related to CE. Antecedents are categorized in a technological-organizational-environmental framework and consequents in the sustainability outcomes. The result suggests that organisational factors are more prominent in driving CE practices, followed by environmental and technological factors. In the organisational category, the three most influencing factors are managing product returns, green manufacturing, and environmental strategy. In the environmental category, coercive pressure is the most influential factor, followed by mimetic and social pressures. Emerging I4.0 technologies are the most prominent factor in the technological category. Our study suggests that CE helps to achieve sustainable performance by significantly enabling economic, environmental, and social outcomes. This study further analyses how contextual factors such as national culture (masculinity) and economic regions influence the various relationships with CE using subgroup analysis. The moderation results show that low masculine culture and developing economies are more effectively using the I4.0 technologies to drive CE adoption than high masculine culture and developed economies. Additionally, different dimensions of sustainability are also influenced by the variations in masculinity and economic regions.

Trust (in)congruence, open innovation, and circular economy performance: Polynomial regression and response surface analyses

Engaging partner firms in open innovation is critical to overcoming internal resource/capability constraints to achieve firm and supply chain circular economy (CE) performance, yet scholars have not examined this link empirically. Further, while researchers have repeatedly emphasized trust as a key driver of open innovation performance, little is known from a dyadic trust perspective (e.g., congruence vs. incongruence, high-high congruence vs. low-low congruence). To fill these gaps, we propose a theoretical model based on the social exchange theory (SET) and test it using a dyadic dataset of listed Chinese manufacturing firms. The results suggest that 1) rather than unilateral trust from the focal firm or its partners, trust congruence is more predictive of successful open process and product innovations, 2) regarding congruence types (low-low vs. high-high), congruence at higher levels of trust facilitates open product innovation more than low-low trust congruence; interestingly, such an effect is not significant for open process innovation, 3) open process innovation has a positive influence on the focal firm's CE performance, but its impact on supply chain CE performance is not statistically significant, and 4) open product innovation has a significantly positive impact on the focal firm and supply chain CE performance. Our findings still hold after analyzing time-lagged models and alternative measurements as robustness checks. Our study provides meaningful theoretical contributions to the literature and useful, practical insights for managing inter-organizational relationships, open innovation, and CE performance.

Scaling up the transition: The role of corporate governance mechanisms in promoting circular economy strategies

This study examines the role of corporate governance (CG) mechanisms in promoting Circular Economy (CE) strategies among non-financial listed companies in manufacturing industries, which is still a relatively unexplored topic in the CE literature. Our findings indicate that the presence of stakeholder engagement practices, sustainability reporting, and environment management teams have a direct impact on the adoption of CE strategies, while the presence of a CSR committee, adherence to the United Nations' Global Compact, and executives' compensation linked to environmental, social, and corporate governance performance do not have a direct effect but support CE strategies through other mechanisms. Overall, this study provides valuable insights for policymakers and managers as it shows that CG mechanisms can be used to promote the adoption of CE business models, thus contributing to climate risk mitigation objectives.

The effects of digital technology application and supply chain management on corporate circular economy: A dynamic capability view

Developing circular economy capability has emerged as an effective response to environmental pressures on firms. The proliferation of digital technology has created uncertainty in developing corporate circular economy capability. Although research has begun to focus on the impact of digital technology application on corporate circular economy capability, empirical evidence remains absent. Simultaneously, few studies have concerned corporate circular economy capability obtained from supply chain management. The answer to the correlation between digital technology application, supply chain management, and circular economy capability is unavailable in current research. Based on a dynamic capability view, we investigate how digital technology application affects corporate circular economy capability through supply chain management regarding supply chain risk management, collaboration, and integration. This underlying mechanism was verified with 486 Chinese-listed industrial firms and the mediating model. The findings demonstrate that digital technology application and supply chain management significantly affect corporate circular economy capability. The mediating channel whereby the digital technology application provides circular economy capability can facilitate the positive impact of supply chain risk management and collaboration while undermining the adverse effects of supply chain integration. These mediating channels differentiate in heterogeneous growth firms and are more pronounced in low-growth groups. It presents an opportunity to use digital technology to reinforce the positive impact of supply chain risk management and collaboration and mitigate the negative effect of supply chain integration on circular economy capability.