Unsustainable consumption and production systems (Dobbs et al. 2011; Mudgal et al. 2012)
Need for change recognised (Murray, Skene, and Haynes 2017; European Commission 2011)
Businesses are under pressure (Scott 2013; Bonviu 2014; Gregson et al. 2015; Bocken et al. 2016; Schulte 2013; Rifkin 2009)
Circular Economy models gaining traction (Bocken et al. 2017; Gregson et al. 2015; Haas et al., 2015; Ghisellini et al. 2016)
Emerging area of research and its perspectives are quite appealing, however, at the micro level, only a few studies deal with diffusion, adoption and effects of this production and consumption model (Ghisellini et al. 2016)
In this, it has remained outside the purview of business strategy research
Building a theoretical foundation for operationalizing circular economy through coopetition
1. Rumy Narayan
Department of Management
03.10.2017
Building a theoretical foundation for
operationalizing circular economy through
coopetition
(ERSCP, 2017)
2. 203.10.2017
University of Vaasa | Department of Management |
ERSCP 2017
Contents
• Introduction
• Circular Economy & IS
• Problem
• Coopetition as a Strategy
• Research Questions
• Conceptualizing Energy
• Relevance of Coopetition
• Research Process
• Discussions & Further Research
3. Introduction
• Unsustainable consumption and production systems (Dobbs et al.
2011; Mudgal et al. 2012)
• Need for change recognised (Murray, Skene, and Haynes 2017;
European Commission 2011)
• Businesses are under pressure (Scott 2013; Bonviu 2014; Gregson et
al. 2015; Bocken et al. 2016; Schulte 2013; Rifkin 2009)
• Circular Economy models gaining traction (Bocken et al. 2017;
Gregson et al. 2015; Haas et al., 2015; Ghisellini et al. 2016)
• Emerging area of research and its perspectives are quite appealing,
however, at the micro level, only a few studies deal with diffusion,
adoption and effects of this production and consumption model
(Ghisellini et al. 2016)
• In this, it has remained outside the purview of business strategy
research
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4. Circular Economy & IS
• Objective of CE is to re-design the linear economic models
to a circular one where wastes become resources thus
enabling a more equitable solution by prioritizing a balance
between economic, environmental and social aspects
(Gregson et al. 2015; Haas et al., 2015; Ghisellini et al.
2016)
• Digital technologies have always acted as important tools
for businesses looking for increasing efficiencies and
technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) are becoming
important in the implementation of CE models (Spring and
Araujo 2017; Stahel 2016)
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5. Problem
• Firms put competiveness at the
heart of what they do
• Product centricity
• Making sense of data
The manner in which businesses
think and act has to change
significantly in order to address
such systemic issues and
challenges and collaboration
across diverse groups of
stakeholders is crucial for
sustainability to be effective
(Bocken, Rana, and Short 2015)
“The difficulty lies, not in the
new ideas, but in escaping
from the old ones, which
ramify, for those brought up
as most of us have been, into
every corner of our minds.”
-John Maynard Keynes, The
General Theory of Employment,
Interest and Money (13 December
1935)
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6. Coopetition as a Strategy
• In management literature, coopetition (simultaneous
cooperation and competition) reflects the need for
managing the growing complexity of business relations
• Within strategic management, coopetition, described as
collaboration among competing firms, has been
championed for its perspective that allows managers to
overcome the traditional competitive thinking by
collaborating with competitors in order to create as well as
appropriate value (Tidström and Rajala 2016; Bengtsson
and Kock 2014; Ritala and Tidstörm 2014; Bengtsson et al.
2010; Brandenburger and Nalebuff 1995, 2011)
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7. Research Questions
• Is coopetition is a relevant strategy for making a
transition to CE models?
• How will such a strategy enable competing firms to
collaborate for the transition process?
Objective: To broadly conceptualize how coopetition could be
a relevant transition strategy for firms adapting to CE models.
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8. Conceptualizing Energy
• CE models imply adoption of cleaner production, increase in
producer and consumer responsibility and awareness, use of
renewable materials and technologies while simultaneously
adopting tools and policies that enable this (Ghisellini et al.
2016)
• The CE perspective can be used to visualize products within a
distributive network instead of being defined by the final
producer, thus presenting entrepreneurial opportunities at
various stages of transition from singular materials and
components into objects and vice versa (Spring and Arajuo
2017)
• This distributes the responsibility of the final product through
the entire value circle making each entity a stakeholder in the
process.
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9. Conceptualizing Energy (cont)
For instance:
• Evidence linking international trade to biodiversity threats
in developing countries (Lenzen et al. 2012)
• Species threats from global supply chains (Moran and
Kanemoto 2017)
• Undermining national emission targets (Kanemoto et al.
2014)
Therefore, in order to address these challenges, there is a
need to understand their systemic nature and one way to
conceptualize this is through the energy system.
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10. Relevance of Coopetition
Coopetition in Business
Networks
• Coopetition provides insights into
engagements at individual and network
levels
• The types of tensions that arise out of
coopetition
• As a result of coopetition
• Prior studies on types of tensions in
coopetitive business relationships have been
related to roles, knowledge (as a competitive
advantage), power and dependence and
opportunism
• Different kinds of tensions can be managed
by applying different styles of management
• Such interactions have been studied within
the context of business networks but could
offer useful guidelines for activating,
managing and maintaining interactions
across diverse networks as firms embark on
the transition process
Activating Coopetitive
Strategies
• Organisations could replace the market with
organisational fields (DiMaggio and Powell 1983;
Bourdieu 1992)
• This would endow each actor with distinctive
capabilities and unique constraints
• Appropriate in this context as it redirects attention
away from the market towards the actors who shape
the organization’s behaviour (Uzzi 1996)
• For firms transitioning to CE models- market based
competition could open up new business
opportunities, but realising the goal of circularity
depends on a network of actors
• A model where firms are embedded within a wide
network of ties spanning social, environmental and
economic spheres
• The ability to trace how resources operate across
these networks
• Also allow actors to identify and locate the pre-
existing elements that characterize the network in
order to help understand why those elements exist
within the network, thus creating the space for
balancing value creation with value appropriation
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11. Research Process
Methods
• Data collection consisting of unstructured interviews,
research notes, YouTube videos, podcasts, news
reports and reports
• An inductive approach using grounded theory (Glaser
and Strauss 1967; Lincoln and Guba 1985; Strauss
and Corbin 1998) as it provides a certain depth and
richness to the theoretical descriptions of the contexts
within which organisational phenomena unfold
(Gioia, Corley, and Hamilton 2013)
• Following Gioia et al.’s (2013) approach, in addition
to the assumption that the organizational world is
socially constructed, it was also assumed that people
doing so were experts or ‘knowledgeable agents’ who
were well aware of their thoughts, intentions and
actions
• Research process was informed also by engagement
with managers who are trying to make sense of CE
within the context of their own businesses, trying to
find bridging strategies that will not disrupt the
current position of business significantly yet provide
opportunity to drive the change necessary
Objective
• To get a sense of the state of CE
globally and also lend an added
perspective to the way managers view
and talk about CE to gain a deeper
knowledge of the dynamics of how CE
is conceptualized by organizations
• Enabled studying the means by which
actors were constructing and
understanding their experiences of CE
and the role of IS within CE
• Choose arenas where experts get
together and discuss their experiences
• Exploring not just a bridging strategy
but also present a way of thinking that
would help operationalize such a
strategy to its optimum ability
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12. Discussion and Further Research
Offers a two-pronged approach towards change:
- Building a new imaginary using the idea of ‘energy systems’
- Create bridges with some of the boundary spanning ideas that have successfully challenged the status quo
within their own domains
Important to remember:
- The problems that we are encountering are inherent in the way we have conceptualized and designed our
systems
- We build and shape concepts through our narratives and actions within specific frames and ideas and the
manner in which we interact also shapes our worldview and us
- A significant number of discussions about CE revolve around how such models will make continuous
economic growth and profitability possible while addressing social and environmental challenges
- While this is indeed possible, the underlying concepts and practices prevalent within our present system
make this possibility somewhat difficult
- Look for ideas that have enabled new ways of thinking and creating opportunities for change
In the future:
-- Research could look at coopetitive strategies for specific business models, for instance, the optimum levels of
competition and collaboration
-- Maturing models will offer better opportunities for analysis
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