Transition to the Circular Economy: Implications to Program Management

Programmes are seen as vehicles for (internal) strategy implementation. However, organisations are existing within society, and their activities effect this society. Society itself also faces ‘strategic' challenges. One of these is the transition to a circular economy which requires organisations to organize themselves along circular business models (CBM). It can be expected that organisations would apply program management to pursue these CBM. A systemic transformation approach distinguishes multiple societal levels that need to evolve jointly over time. The research question is how this would influence the program management discipline. Therefore, a conceptual mapping of the circular economy and program management was performed. The findings reveal that taking a societal view on programs would urge PgM to address this challenge at multiple levels, within multi-dimensions and a system thinking perspective. It requires to position programs between the stakeholders at the meso-level and adopt to an explicit sense-making and learning cycle benefiting from short iterative interventions.