| Abstract [eng] |
Businesses face political, economic, environmental, and social pressures to act in a sustainable and circular manner. Circular economy (CE) emerges as an alternative to the linear way of producing goods and services and seems to successfully respond to the current need of companies to generate profits and be sustainable simultaneously. For those companies already established in the market and making use of linear models, the transition means a major challenge. This is especially relevant for the European region, due to its high levels of industrialization. In many cases, the problems that arise during this transition are not identified in advance and in some cases occur without the responsible managers being aware of them. Previous research has focused mostly on the field of industrial ecology, but few studies have analyzed the barriers that companies need to overcome from a managerial perspective. For this reason, the theoretical methodology available to explain, predict and understand challenges and opportunities (C&O) from a manager´s point of view, is limited. In addition, existing literature has demonstrated the central role of digital data technologies (DDT) as enablers in the transition and their potential to create sustainable competitive advantages (SCA) for the respective enterprise. |
