Putting Circular Ambitions into Action : The Case of Accus, a Small Swedish Sign Company

Summary, in English

This chapter presents a case study of how Accus, a small Swedish company, worked on developing a circular business model for light sign production and installation to become more sustainable. Drawing on Actor Network Theory (ANT), the Accus case shows that circular business model development is a cooperative endeavor that rests on bringing together a large and changing array of human, as well as non-human, actors in a development process that is hesitant, imprecise, provisory, contingent, and reversible. The case exemplifies the difficulties for a small company to enroll other actors in a transition to circular business, and initiate a shift toward a parsimonious material order that challenges, transforms, and replaces worked-in linear supplier-customer relationships. Good intentions only reach up to a certain point. If more than exceptional firms are to successfully find partners to translate their circular ambitions into circular business practices, the competitive strength of linear solutions needs to be drastically reduced and delegitimized.

• Author: Hervé Corvellec; Maira Babri; Herman I. Stål
• Editor: Miguel Mendonca Reis Brandão; David Lazarevic; Göran Finnveden
• Department/s: Department of Service Studies
• Publishing year: 2020
• Language: English
• Publication/Series: Handbook of the circular economy
• Document type: Book chapter
• Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
• Topic: Business Administration
• Status: Published
• Project: Framtidens skyltar visar vägen 2 (Signs of the future show the way 2)
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISBN: 9781788972710