Abstract
The literature on the Circular Economy (CE) has shown considerable expansion over recent years, with various studies striving to guide corporate entities in transitioning from linear to circular production paradigms. While larger businesses and multinational corporations have been a central focus, a significant gap exists in understanding the transformation journey of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) towards circularity. This research aims to enhance the existing body of knowledge by mapping the knowledge at the intersection of SMEs and the CE. This study utilizes an exploratory approach and leverages network analysis and content analysis to scrutinize 126 academic papers indexed on Scopus. The findings indicate that the field is bifurcated into nascent and early-growth stages. Although CE appears as the prevalent theme in most of the papers surveyed, an emerging group of academics has begun to delve into the domain of SMEs and CE. Further to identifying thematic clusters, this research explores the main references from these two phases by exploring their contents. The study provides a series of recommendations for future research alongside methodological guidelines for theoretical and empirical investigations.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 100149 |
| Journal | Cleaner and Responsible Consumption |
| Volume | 11 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2023 The Authors
Funding
Some initial studies on sustainability targeting SMEs date back to the 2000s, when the CLSC perspective was more addressed. Medina-Muoz and Medina-Muoz (2000), when analyzing the SMEs from the Canary Islands, identified that these companies demonstrated to be more willing to implement sustainable actions when they receive governmental support from public policies narrowing environmental activities. Another study by Lawrence et al. (2006) evidenced that New Zealand's economy is almost all formed by SMEs. Moreover, most surveyed SMEs affirmed that they do not formalize their environmental practices on reports. Moreover, participants reported that little pressure from the government led SMEs to undertake sustainable practices (Lawrence et al., 2006). The third study by Williams and Schaefer (2013) underlined that, in the English SMEs, managers already noticed the relevance of environmental actions, and their implementations depend on the manager's values.
Keywords
- Circular economy
- Circular economy ecosystem
- Exploratory network analysis
- Small and medium-sized enterprises
- Sustainability