Framing circular economy: a problematizing review of the assumptions

Dzhengiz, Tulin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7909-6612, Miller, Elizabeth, Ovaska, Jukka-Pekka and Patala, Samuli (2021) Framing circular economy: a problematizing review of the assumptions. In: 81st Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (AOM 2021): bringing the manager back in management, 30 July 2021 - 03 August 2021, Online.

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Abstract

This paper reviews the diagnostic, motivational and prognostic circular economy framing of business and management scholars and makes the assumptions embedded in their framing explicit benefiting from a problematizing review. The review demonstrates various in-house assumptions about the circular economy with emphasis business models, business case, circular economy-corporate sustainability relationship, root metaphor assumptions about circularity, industrial relationships resembling that of biological metabolisms, and waste, finally ideological assumptions of natural capitalism that guide scholarly thinking about growth, profit maximization, consumption, ownership. The paper discusses these assumptions' implications for the growing circular economy literature within business and management and opens this domain with new conversations drawing on ecological economics and industrial ecology.