IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/sajbmc/v10y2021i1p50-62.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Sustainable Circular Economy: Exploring Stakeholder Interests in Finland

Author

Listed:
  • Maili Marjamaa
  • Hanna Salminen
  • Johanna Kujala
  • Riikka Tapaninaho
  • Anna Heikkinen

Abstract

A circular economy (CE) is a promising solution to the looming sustainability crisis. Previous research has shown that a systemic transition from a linear economy to a CE requires stakeholder collaboration across all levels of society. Yet, little is known about stakeholder interests in a CE. The purpose of this study is to examine stakeholder interests regarding a sustainable CE in Finland. The data of 26 expert interviews is analyzed with qualitative content analysis. The study contributes to previous CE research by adding a stakeholder perspective in the examination of a sustainable CE. Stakeholder interests are explicated in terms of value-based motivations, expectations and stakes. We conclude that the consideration of stakeholder interests is relevant for understanding stakeholder collaboration in the CE context. The study shows that the economic, ecological and local social perspectives are emphasized in a sustainable CE. More attention to global social sustainability issues is needed. Research questions: The purpose of our study is to examine stakeholder interests with regard to the sustainable circular economy in Finland. Link to theory: The theoretical framework of the study builds on stakeholder theory, and uses the issue-focused stakeholder approach. We explore stakeholder interests as value-based motivations, expectations and stakes. Thereby, we advance the theoretical and empirical understanding of stakeholder interests and stakeholder collaboration in the context of CE. Phenomenon studied: Stakeholders have a prominent role in promoting the transition to the sustainable CE. This study focuses on a core issue in stakeholder theory: stakeholder interests. In doing so, the study creates knowledge on the nuanced interests and collaboration towards the sustainable CE. Case context: The context of our study is Finland, the northernmost member state of the European Union. Finland provides with an interesting research context as the target of the Finnish government is to make Finland a global leader in the circular economy by 2025. Findings: The findings indicate that the key stakeholders share a joint interest in promoting a sustainable CE. Stakeholders are active in shaping actions towards a sustainable CE, too. Stakeholders emphasize the economic and ecological interests, while social interests - especially wider global social sustainability perspective - remains less important especially among companies and partly industrial organizations. Discussions: Building on stakeholder theory, the study provides a nuanced understanding of how stakeholder interests can be defined and examined as value-based motivations, expectations and stakes. The study demonstrates that stakeholders simultaneously pursue their own CE interests as well as shared interests to promote the sustainable CE in Finland. Moreover, the study suggests that stakeholder interests can be used to create understanding of the dimensions of sustainable development that constitute the sustainable CE. More specifically, the study shows that economic, ecological and local social perspectives related to the sustainable CE are predominantly emphasized. Analyzing stakeholder interests is important since they create a foundation for stakeholder engagement, stakeholder relationships and value creation.

Suggested Citation

  • Maili Marjamaa & Hanna Salminen & Johanna Kujala & Riikka Tapaninaho & Anna Heikkinen, 2021. "A Sustainable Circular Economy: Exploring Stakeholder Interests in Finland," South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases, , vol. 10(1), pages 50-62, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:sajbmc:v:10:y:2021:i:1:p:50-62
    DOI: 10.1177/2277977921991914
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2277977921991914
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/2277977921991914?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Korhonen, Jouni & Honkasalo, Antero & Seppälä, Jyri, 2018. "Circular Economy: The Concept and its Limitations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 37-46.
    2. Alan Murray & Keith Skene & Kathryn Haynes, 2017. "The Circular Economy: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of the Concept and Application in a Global Context," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 140(3), pages 369-380, February.
    3. Johanna Kujala & Anna Heikkinen & Hanna Lehtimäki, 2012. "Understanding the Nature of Stakeholder Relationships: An Empirical Examination of a Conflict Situation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 109(1), pages 53-65, August.
    4. Gupta, Shivam & Chen, Haozhe & Hazen, Benjamin T. & Kaur, Sarabjot & Santibañez Gonzalez, Ernesto D.R., 2019. "Circular economy and big data analytics: A stakeholder perspective," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 466-474.
    5. Julia Roloff, 2008. "Learning from Multi-Stakeholder Networks: Issue-Focussed Stakeholder Management," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 82(1), pages 233-250, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Riikka Tapaninaho & Anna Heikkinen, 2022. "Value creation in circular economy business for sustainability: A stakeholder relationship perspective," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(6), pages 2728-2740, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Miranda, Bruno Varella & Monteiro, Guilherme Fowler A. & Rodrigues, Vinicius Picanço, 2021. "Circular agri-food systems: A governance perspective for the analysis of sustainable agri-food value chains," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    2. Kamble, Sachin S. & Belhadi, Amine & Gunasekaran, Angappa & Ganapathy, L. & Verma, Surabhi, 2021. "A large multi-group decision-making technique for prioritizing the big data-driven circular economy practices in the automobile component manufacturing industry," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    3. Luthra, Sunil & Kumar, Anil & Sharma, Manu & Arturo Garza-Reyes, Jose & Kumar, Vikas, 2022. "An analysis of operational behavioural factors and circular economy practices in SMEs: An emerging economy perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 321-336.
    4. Arfaoui, Nabila & Le Bas, Christian & Vernier, Marie-France & Vo, Linh-Chi, 2022. "How do governance arrangements matter in the circular economy? Lessons from five methanation projects based on the social-ecological system framework," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    5. Millar, Neal & McLaughlin, Eoin & Börger, Tobias, 2019. "The Circular Economy: Swings and Roundabouts?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 11-19.
    6. Anna Barford & Saffy Rose Ahmad, 2021. "A Call for a Socially Restorative Circular Economy: Waste Pickers in the Recycled Plastics Supply Chain," Circular Economy and Sustainability, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 761-782, September.
    7. Mohammadreza Akbari & John L. Hopkins, 2022. "Digital technologies as enablers of supply chain sustainability in an emerging economy," Operations Management Research, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 689-710, December.
    8. Concepción Garcés-Ayerbe & Pilar Rivera-Torres & Inés Suárez-Perales & Dante I. Leyva-de la Hiz, 2019. "Is It Possible to Change from a Linear to a Circular Economy? An Overview of Opportunities and Barriers for European Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Companies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-15, March.
    9. Andrea Cecchin & Roberta Salomone & Pauline Deutz & Andrea Raggi & Laura Cutaia, 2021. "What Is in a Name? The Rising Star of the Circular Economy as a Resource-Related Concept for Sustainable Development," Circular Economy and Sustainability, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 83-97, June.
    10. Chembessi Chedrak & Gohoungodji Paulin & Juste Rajaonson, 2023. "“A fine wine, better with age”: Circular economy historical roots and influential publications: A bibliometric analysis using Reference Publication Year Spectroscopy (RPYS)," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 27(6), pages 1593-1612, December.
    11. Yasanur Kayikci & Yigit Kazancoglu & Nazlican Gozacan‐Chase & Cisem Lafci, 2022. "Analyzing the drivers of smart sustainable circular supply chain for sustainable development goals through stakeholder theory," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(7), pages 3335-3353, November.
    12. Gilbert Silvius & Aydan Ismayilova & Vicente Sales-Vivó & Micol Costi, 2021. "Exploring Barriers for Circularity in the EU Furniture Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-25, October.
    13. Qinglan Liu & Adriana Hofmann Trevisan & Miying Yang & Janaina Mascarenhas, 2022. "A framework of digital technologies for the circular economy: Digital functions and mechanisms," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(5), pages 2171-2192, July.
    14. Frank Figge & Andrea Stevenson Thorpe & Siarhei Manzhynski & Melissa Gutberlet, 2022. "The us in reUSe. Theorizing the how and why of the circular economy," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(6), pages 2741-2753, September.
    15. Isabel Mendes, 2020. "The Circular Economy: an Ancient Term that Became Polysemic," Working Papers Department of Economics 2020/02, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    16. Alejandro Padilla-Rivera & Sara Russo-Garrido & Nicolas Merveille, 2020. "Addressing the Social Aspects of a Circular Economy: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-17, September.
    17. Ginevra Balletto & Mara Ladu & Federico Camerin & Emilio Ghiani & Jacopo Torriti, 2022. "More Circular City in the Energy and Ecological Transition: A Methodological Approach to Sustainable Urban Regeneration," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-18, November.
    18. Deborah Sumter & Jotte de Koning & Conny Bakker & Ruud Balkenende, 2020. "Circular Economy Competencies for Design," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-16, February.
    19. Osei, Vivian & Bai, Chunguang & Asante-Darko, Disraeli & Quayson, Matthew, 2023. "Evaluating the barriers and drivers of adopting circular economy for improving sustainability in the mining industry," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(PB).
    20. Hervé Corvellec & Alison F. Stowell & Nils Johansson, 2022. "Critiques of the circular economy," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 26(2), pages 421-432, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:sajbmc:v:10:y:2021:i:1:p:50-62. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.