Exploration of decision-contexts for circular economy in automotive industry

Research emphasizes that existing approaches to identify drivers and barriers for implementing CE in organizations pay little attention to the roles of actors and their specific decision-contexts. Here, we identify research gaps in existing literature regarding the goals of actors, methods used and forms of collaboration in relation to CE. To address these gaps, we use the case of implementing CE for Electric Vehicle batteries at an automotive manufacturer in Germany to explore decision contexts for CE. Based on a number of internal stakeholder interviews, we identify four key decision contexts for CE, which we characterize in terms of goals, methods and forms of collaboration. Thereby, we provide novel insights into how implementing CE is linked to context-specific conditions in terms of transparency, plannability, integration in product development and entrepreneurial culture. Lastly, we discuss the findings in relation to existing literature and derive directions for future studies in the field of CE assessment and implementation.