The role of consumers - or product users - in achieving a realized Circular Economy (CE) remains insufficiently explored. Likewise, a comprehensive understanding of what it means to be the recipient of fully implemented CE strategies is missing. This paper introduces the “Circular Economy Behavior Process” (CEBP) Framework, an integrative conceptualization of the “human side” of the commonly depicted product lifecycle. Drawing on inter- and transdisciplinary perspectives, the CEBP Framework comprises seven process stages (e.g., “search” and “end-of-use”) and four behavioral pathways (Reduce, Acquire, Own, Access), capturing product user actions and choices along these pathways – hence, the holistic implications for the everyday life of product users. Through a Delphi survey involving 17 experts in CE and sufficiency, from a wide range of backgrounds, the framework was refined and validated. The CEBP Framework advances understandings of what a fully realized CE can entail for product users, providing both theoretical insight and foundation for practical guidance. Specifically, it serves as a tool for policymakers and practitioners to design interventions that foster and enable consumer engagement in CE behaviors. Moreover, the framework offers a structured means to bridge the long-standing divide between sustainable consumption (behavioral perspectives) and sustainable production (design and engineering). This integration enhances comprehension of the dynamic interactions among technology, business models, infrastructure, consumption, and policy, which are key to achieving sustainable, systemic outcomes.
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have become part of the product portfolios of many brands, ranging from individual creators to established firms. Yet, we currently have a limited understanding of how NFTs should be designed, launched, and managed effectively over their lifecycle journey. To fill this gap, we explore the distinctive lifecycle of this novel digital product category. Rather than focusing on the macro-view of the product lifecycle at the aggregate product category level (e.g., introduction, growth, maturity, and decline), our work offers a micro-view of the lifecycle at the individual NFT level, focusing on the relevant decisions to be made and activities to be performed by a creator or a firm. Drawing on the product lifecycle management literature and field exemplars, our proposed NFT lifecycle consists of three main stages: (1) Inception (featuring content creation, minting, and dropping), (2) Circulation (involving experience, trade, and commercial exploitation), and (3) Termination (including timed expiration, regeneration, and retirement decisions). Our conceptual work contributes to the emerging literature on blockchain assets by developing an original and integrative lifecycle framework. It also offers marketers actionable insights into how to manage each of the different lifecycle stages of a decentralized digital offering like NFTs, broadening the focus from short-term activities (e.g., Inception and Circulation) to the long-term ones (e.g., Termination).
Mariachiara Restuccia, Achilleas Boukis, Charles Hofacker et al.· Academy of Marketing Science...· 1 citation
The transition from a recycling-based economy to a circular economy requires more than isolated improvements in materials, energy efficiency or end-of-life treatment. Especially in the early stages of product development, the fuzzy front end, interdisciplinary teams of engineers and product designers face high uncertainty while making decisions that strongly shape the product system. Existing approaches provide valuable support for lifecycle-oriented analysis or selected circular design strategies but still lack an integrative and practical framework that enables interdisciplinary teams to reflect on the current product system and derive actionable design directions. This paper addresses this gap by proposing an operational framework for circular product design grounded in the derived guiding principle of “Less and Longer”. The framework combines lifecycle thinking, multidimensional evaluation and a control-oriented perspective in a Circular Design Matrix supporting early-stage decision-making in circular product development. It facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration and supports reflective, creative dialogue among technical and creative disciplines. The Circular Design Matrix assess the product system across seven dimensions and five lifecycle phases with “control” as an enabling layer for a strategic re-design. Embedded in a collaborative framework, the approach was explored in an initial evaluation using three product cases: smartphones, washing machines and child car seats. The findings indicate that the framework is particularly valuable in interdisciplinary workshop settings, where it supports structured reflection, the identification of optimization potential and an iterative, holistic reconsideration of the product system from a circular economy perspective.
Franziska Braun, Oliver Schweizer· AHFE International· 0 citations
The growing convergence of digital transformation and sustainability is reshaping value creation across industries, particularly in the fashion sector, where the transition towards circular business models has become increasingly important. Although research on circular economy, digital transformation, and servitization has expanded considerably, limited attention has been devoted to how digitally enabled service systems support circular value creation during the post-purchase stage of the product lifecycle. This study examines how digital servitization is operationalised within the fashion ecosystem through a qualitative, theory-informed multiple-case study based on systematic website content analysis of 14 Italian B Corp organisations. It proposes a dual-cycle analytical framework comprising a Product–Service–Product (P-S-P) material loop and a Service–Product–Service (S-P-S) information loop, representing complementary mechanisms of material recirculation and digitally enabled lifecycle information exchange. The findings indicate that digital servitization is more frequently operationalised through material-oriented service mechanisms than through digitally enabled lifecycle information infrastructures, suggesting uneven development of the two complementary architectures. Observable implementation also differs across value chain positions, with downstream organisations exhibiting more customer-facing lifecycle service configurations, whereas upstream actors primarily contribute through enabling capabilities that are only partially captured by the framework. The study contributes by introducing an analytical framework that distinguishes complementary material and informational mechanisms of digital servitization, providing an exploratory basis for analysing observable circular service configurations across the fashion value chain.
The digital transformation of business organizations is primarily changing how businesses acquire, manage, and retain talent. A thorough understanding of the rationale, effects, and adoption challenges is crucial. The purpose of this article is to conceptualize responsible technology adoption in digital organizations by utilizing empirical viewpoints from professionals of selected organizations. This is presented as a dynamic, recursive, and responsibly governed process that addresses gaps in existing technology acceptance models (TAMs). A grounded theory approach was used to categorize verbatim data collected from human resources (HR) professionals working in Indian consulting and IT organizations, viz., HCL, IBM, Cesim, Infosys, and TCS. A semi-structured questionnaire was developed and used during the interviews. The qualitative data were analyzed via open, axial, and selective coding. The findings show that responsible technology adoption significantly enhances operational capability, organizational sensemaking, governance, and accountability, which interact to shape sustained technology usage. The identified themes are synthesized into the 5R framework (Readiness, Realization, Regulation, Results, and Responsibility). The novelty of the framework lies in its recursive view of technology adoption. The study offers a theoretically grounded, process-oriented model for responsible transformation focusing on HR operations. Future research can further validate the 5R framework using structured quantitative research that explores cross-sectoral comparisons and examines inclusive artificial intelligence (AI) design for underrepresented employee groups to promote sustainable digital transformation.[La transformación digital de las organizaciones empresariales está cambiando principalmente la forma en que las empresas adquieren, gestionan y retienen el talento. Es fundamental comprender en profundidad las razones, los efectos y los desafíos asociados a la adopción de estas tecnologías. El propósito de este artículo es conceptualizar la adopción responsable de tecnología en organizaciones digitales mediante el uso de perspectivas empíricas de profesionales de organizaciones seleccionadas. Este proceso se presenta como dinámico, recursivo y sujeto a una gobernanza responsable, abordando las lagunas existentes en los modelos de aceptación de tecnología (TAM, por sus siglas en inglés). Se empleó un enfoque de teoría fundamentada para categorizar datos textuales recopilados de profesionales de recursos humanos (RR. HH.) que trabajan en organizaciones indias de consultoría y tecnologías de la información, concretamente HCL, IBM, Cesim, Infosys y TCS. Se desarrolló y utilizó un cuestionario semiestructurado durante las entrevistas. Los datos cualitativos se analizaron mediante codificación abierta, axial y selectiva. Los resultados muestran que la adopción responsable de tecnología mejora significativamente la capacidad operativa, la construcción de sentido organizacional, la gobernanza y la responsabilidad institucional, factores que interactúan para configurar un uso sostenido de la tecnología. Los temas identificados se sintetizan en el marco de las 5R (Readiness, Realization, Regulation, Results y Responsibility; preparación, materialización, regulación, resultados y responsabilidad). La novedad del marco reside en su visión recursiva de la adopción tecnológica. El estudio ofrece un modelo fundamentado teóricamente y orientado a procesos para una transformación responsable centrada en las operaciones de recursos humanos. Investigaciones futuras podrán validar en mayor medida el marco de las 5R mediante estudios cuantitativos estructurados que exploren comparaciones intersectoriales y examinen el diseño inclusivo de la inteligencia artificial (IA) para grupos de empleados infrarrepresentados, con el fin de promover una transformación digital sostenible].
A. Kaur, Tilottama Singh, Aashish Dhiman· The International Journal of...· 0 citations
This work aims to understand the role played by Industry 4.0 (I4.0) base technologies and circular economy–oriented human resource management (
CE
‐HR) in the advancement of the circular economy (
CE
) performance. The present study builds on the natural resource‐based view to propose and empirically test three hypotheses. A survey‐based research through a questionnaire was used to collect data from focal firms in the Spanish manufacturing sector. The theoretical model was tested using structural equation modeling. Findings indicate that there is a direct relationship between I4.0 base technologies and
CE
‐HR management, and between
CE
‐HR management and the
CE
firm performance. Furthermore, the results confirm the mediating effect of
CE
‐HR management as an underlying mechanism bridging the use of I4.0 base technologies and improved
CE
firm performance. From these findings, it can be inferred that an effective transition toward circularity cannot be achieved solely through the adoption of I4.0 base technologies; rather, it requires HR management that is oriented toward the principles of the
CE
.
Diéssica de Oliveira‐Dias, Javier Carrillo‐Hermosilla, José Moyano‐Fuentes et al.· Business Strategy and the En...· 0 citations
The manufacturing industry faces transformative challenges toward a circular economy. A key challenge in circularity is creating value for all value chain partners. In this study, the focus is on the aerospace industry and the challenge of creating resilient solutions with suppliers, given the product’s long lifespan of about 30 years, a long production period of about 20 years, and a long product and technology development time of about 7 years. The overall goal of this research is to increase partners’ capabilities to create and develop long-term, sustainable, resilient, and circular solutions within a value chain.
Building on a longitudinal study conducted within an aerospace company, this research applies and further develops a systematic approach for identifying key stakeholders in sustainable product development, now extended to incorporate a circularity dimension. The research methodology consisted of three methods: identifying stakeholders in the life cycle, classifying the key stakeholders using the stakeholder salience model, and conducting interviews. The stakeholder mapping was conducted using a longitudinal approach at two time points: 2015 and 2025, at the same case company. It was conducted through several workshops. Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2025 with key stakeholders representing different parts of the aerospace value chain.
The study indicates an increasing complexity in the company’s value chain. Compared to ten years ago, the context now reflects a stronger emphasis on sustainability and circularity, requiring broader engagement and collaboration. In addition, some key factors are identified that facilitate effective collaboration among the key stakeholders in aerospace for a resilient and sustainable product development.
The proposed stakeholder analysis method can provide a structured approach to identifying, classifying, and prioritizing key stakeholders within complex value chains, thereby supporting product design teams in developing strategic plans for circular solutions. The method helps understand which actors are most critical to collaborate with when developing sustainable and circular solutions. Furthermore, the method enables discussion of how stakeholder roles may need to evolve to support more circular and resilient value chains and identifies stakeholders that have the potential to either drive or hinder the implementation of circular solutions.
S. Hallstedt, P. L. Y. Léonard, Moa Aldèn et al.· Frontiers in Sustainability· 0 citations
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