Constraints and Enablers for Industrial Symbiosis between SMEs in the Swedish Agri-Food Sector

Sammanfattning: Research conducted on industrial symbiosis often brings up the importance of trust and collaboration related constraints and enablers if inter-organizational efforts are to be pursued. This is also found in literature related specifically to Sweden and its agri-food sector. There are limited examples of collecting empirical evidence on trust in relation to IS and even less so with a focus on SMEs. This study works from a supposition that applying collected empirical data to an analytical framework on the interchanges between trust, knowledge, awareness, and willingness (TKAW) will increase understanding whether synergies can exist between them and thus it will also test the usability of this analytical framework. This study conducted content analysis through a literature review and collected qualitative data on TKAW and on constraints and enablers through semi-structured interviews and surveys with five agri-food case-company SMEs and two facilitators in Skåne, Sweden and input findings into the TKAW analytical framework. The results showed that a theoretical network of synergy would exist between them as per the frameworks logic. Constraints and enablers relevant to the companies that were both additional to and in line with the literature examined were discovered such as the importance of information access, cooperation between actors and the importance of trust. These findings provide useful insight for other practitioners to understand key enablers and constraints to plan for industrial symbiosis opportunities, and to help facilitators focus and target their support for the companies they are working with. The work concludes that the TKAW framework can be used together with empirical data collected through case studies, and thus provides opportunities for future input to more complex modelling applications such as agent-based modelling.