How to Draw a Circle: Investigating Relationship Management in Circular Business Companies

Sammanfattning: Despite the recent surge in circular business model (CBM) research, the discipline is still in its infancy. The field is primarily driven by practitioners and lacks suggestive frameworks, which complicates current CBM trials. As a result of the broader purpose guided by the triple bottom line and more complicated material processing, current frameworks fail to address certain pivotal aspects of CBM operations. Recent research highlights the differences between relationship management for CBMs and linear companies, and given the importance of innovation and ecosystems, relationship-building is a crucial aspect in the research field. The purpose of this paper is to examine CBM relationship management and create a theoretical proposition to address the topic. Using a Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT) approach, this study integrates a literature review, expert consultations and an empirical case study to create a holistic model that describes a Swedish steel CBM's relationship management. By integrating three data sources in a developing research field, authors also aim to simplify and encourage future studies. The final outcome of the CGT consists of the RFC model, which describes three identified core success factors. Observations also suggested that in order to address all three areas of the RFC model, companies must find a balance between organisational growth and signalling innovative capabilities - by balancing size and story, and leveraging a large network to offset their small size.