Digital technologies and circular economy in supply chain management: in the era of COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This empirical study aims to identify the importance of Digital Technologies (DT) as an enabler in the Circular Economy (C.E.) based business model, especially during Covid-19. The concept of 'circular economy' has now been advocated as a methodology to stimulate economic growth in line with the environmental sustainability. Hence, the practices of recycling, reduction, reuse/re-manufacture, and repairing (4R's) are deemed to be the core of a circular economy. Recently, the advent of the pandemic Covid-19 has forced the nations of the world to resort to alternate resource use in their manufacturing and trading of goods and services as the supply chains have almost remained disrupted since Covid-19 appeared. We investigate the impacts of Covid-19 upon the use of technological innovation (T.I.), circular economy practices (CEP), and organizational performance (ORP) incorporating the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Our results show that Covid-19 significantly impacted the adoption of technological innovation, circular economy, which leads toward organizational performance. Moreover, the practices and operations under the circular economy framework also appear to influence organizational performance significantly. Our study findings bring forward meaningful insights into improving CEF-cum-technology based practices in developing and emerging markets in Asia, and convey significant implications for the business community, policymakers, and researchers.

Circular Economy Research in the COVID-19 Era: a Review and the Road Ahead

“…Disruptions in business activities alongside limited mobility, suspension of industrial operations, and obstacles in achieving the 2030 agenda for sustainable development are merely a few examples of COVID-19’s repercussions [ 7 – 9 ]. According to Liu et al [ 10 ], the COVID-19 pandemic has urged many countries to turn to alternative resources in their manufacturing and trading of products and services due to recurrent supply chain disruptions since the spread of the virus. The pandemic has also altered the world’s operating principles, exposing the extreme lack of resilience and weakness of the prevailing economic model to adapt to unforeseen crises and shocks [ 1 ].…”

Antecedents of digital supply chains for a circular economy: a sustainability perspective

“…The study highlighted different strategies to mitigate barriers to the effective integration of DSC and CE. Liu et al . (2022) performed an empirical investigation to identify digital technologies as an enabler for circular business models.…”

“…The study highlighted different strategies to mitigate barriers to the effective integration of DSC and CE. Liu et al (2022) performed an empirical investigation to identify digital technologies as an enabler for circular business models. The study analyzed the impact of impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on adoption of technological innovation and CE using the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach.…”