Ferdinand Revellio, Erik Hansen,
"Value Creation Architectures for the Circular Economy: A Make-or-Buy Analysis in the Smartphone Industry"
, Serie Centre for Sustainability Management Working Paper Series, Nummer September 2017, Centre for Sustainability Management (CSM), Lüneburg, Germany, 2017, ISBN: 978-3-942638-67-8
Original Titel:
Value Creation Architectures for the Circular Economy: A Make-or-Buy Analysis in the Smartphone Industry
Sprache des Titels:
Englisch
Original Kurzfassung:
Smartphones make intensive use of precious metals and so called conflict minerals in order to reach their high performance in a compact size. In recent times, sustainability challenges related to production, use and disposal of smartphones are increasingly a topic of public debate. Thus, established industry actors and newly emerging firms are driven to engage in more sustainable practices, such as sustainable sourcing of materials, maintenance services or take-back schemes for discarded mobile phones.
This working paper explores sustainability practices in the smartphone industry from the perspective of the circular economy (CE) and related strategies for slowing and closing resource loops. In order to analyze these new industry arrangements, transaction cost theory (TCT) and the related make-or-buy analysis is used to derive circular value architectures. Combining TCT with the concept of a CE is a novel research approach that enables the empirical analysis of relationships between focal actors (e.g. manufacturers) and newly emerging loop operators (e.g. repair and recycling organizations).
We explore five case studies which stem from the Innovation Network on Sustainable Smartphones (INaS) at Leuphana University of Lüneburg, a living lab in which practitioners, scientists and non-governmental organizations collaborate to develop solutions for circular smartphone production and consumption systems.
Our core findings are four generic circular value creation architectures (cVCAs) for closing the loops in a CE: 1) vertically integrated loops, 2) cooperative loop networks, 3) outsourcing to loop operators and 4) independent loop operators. This work thus provides evidence that circular economy activities do not necessarily have to be managed by focal actors in the value chain. Rather, circular practices can also be put forward by specialized loop operators or even independent actors such as repair shops.
Sprache der Kurzfassung:
Englisch
Veröffentlicher:
Centre for Sustainability Management (CSM)
Verlagsanschrift:
Lüneburg, Germany
Serie:
Centre for Sustainability Management Working Paper Series