The role of digital technologies in supporting the implementation of circular economy practices by industrial small and medium enterprises

Alessandra Neri, Marta Negri, Enrico Cagno, Simone Franzò, Vikas Kumar, Tommaso Lampertico and Carlo Andrea Bassani

Business Strategy and the Environment, 2023, vol. 32, issue 7, 4693-4718

Abstract: The adoption of Industry 4.0's digital technologies can enable the implementation of circular economy practices. Nonetheless, current indications for industrial practitioners on how to exploit the broad set of technologies for circular transition appear unclear. This issue is even more challenging for small and medium enterprises, which are typically endowed with more limited resources than larger firms and are characterised by both a digital and circular divide. This present study contributes to the academic debate by offering an exploratory empirical analysis—based on semi‐structured interviews—that involved 10 Italian industrial small and medium enterprises to deepen the knowledge of the supporting role played by digital technologies in implementing circular economy practices by small and medium enterprises, also considering the potential synergies among such technologies. Results are of interest also to industrial decision‐makers, allowing them to exploit their firms' resources towards the adoption of those digital technologies that could be more effective to foster the circular transition.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.3388

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:32:y:2023:i:7:p:4693-4718

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://onlinelibrary ... 1002/(ISSN)1099-0836

Access Statistics for this article

Business Strategy and the Environment is currently edited by Richard Welford

More articles in Business Strategy and the Environment from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().