| 1. |
- Assbring, Linda, et al.
(författare)
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What’s in it for industry? A case study on collaborative doctoral education in Sweden
- 2017
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Ingår i: Industry & higher education. - : Sage Publications. - 0950-4222 .- 2043-6858. ; 31:3, s. 184-194
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The knowledge economy and the changing nature of knowledge production, the increased interaction between public agencies, industry and universities, and the changing labour market for doctoral degree holders are forces that together have led to an increased interest in the organization of doctoral education – particularly the role of collaborative doctoral education. Models like the Triple Helix have become important frameworks for conceptually capturing the interactions and dynamics of industry, government and university collaborations at various levels. Yet, empirical research on the motivations of and outcomes for the industrial partners in collaborative PhD education remains scanty. Through a case study conducted in Sweden, this article discusses the perceived industrial benefits of participating in collaborative doctoral education. The analysis shows that the outcomes of industrial participation are highly connected to the organization of the collaboration, and the authors identify four important criteria that are key to ensuring industrial relevance. The article also highlights significant policy implications for encouraging and supporting collaborative doctoral training, as the authors conclude that it is a powerful tool in addressing skills gaps in industry.
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| 2. |
- Berlin, Daniel, 1993-
(författare)
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Industrial Networks : Purposes and Configurations in the Circular Economy
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Today, it is common knowledge that mitigation of and adaptation to climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution require sustainability transitions. An essential sustainability transition, for mitigating and adapting to resource depletion, is the shift from unsustainable to sustainable production and consumption patterns. At the nexus of academic, business, and policy discussions about sustainable resource management is the circular economy concept. Those researching the circular economy advocate that ecosystems in nature should be used as a blueprint for sustainable production and consumption. Ecosystems in nature are complex and dynamic systems which include many diverse and autonomous, yet interrelated and interdependent, parts. Actors will have to search for and establish collaborations with others that control processes that can feed their own or which their own can feed. In other words, actors will depend on a higher degree of relational means, and lower degree of contractual means, when working together.If companies are meant to change how they create and deliver value in the circular economy by configuring circular supply chains that replicate ecosystems in nature, academia needs to produce knowledge on the matter. One requisite is that researchers find ways to study energy and material flows in complex and dynamic systems. Recent literature has emphasized that actors must make apt changes to their supply chain configurations or develop new supply chain configurations that enable collaboration within and across supply chains. Nevertheless, there remains only a limited amount of literature addressing the subject. Several researchers into the circular supply chain have thus identified this as a research gap and argue that there is an urgent need to direct attention to circular supply chain configurations that enable collaboration within and across supply chains. In particular, there are two areas of major importance. Firstly, how collaboration makes actors more dependent on each other and the consequences of this development for issues such as the agency of actors, conflicts between actors, and relationship governance. Secondly, how configuring circular supply chains within and across industrial boundaries need to consider the distance between actors and the effects of product design on the circular supply chain configuration.This thesis, which is located at the intersection of industrial dynamics, industrial networks, and supply chain management, suggests the network as a metaphor for depicting the architecture of such complex and dynamic systems. In particular, interrelations and interdependences between diverse and autonomous parts of the network are studied using the industrial network approach. In essence, the economy is viewed as networks of relationships between the actors which control resources and perform activities. By applying the industrial network approach to supply chain management, this thesis outlines an approach for studying how companies configure circular supply chains for cyclical, restorative, and regenerative energy and material flows.As the state of prior theory was nascent, open-ended inquiries of an exploratory nature were necessary. Accordingly, the research questions were answered using qualitative case studies. The outcome was rich data about unique contexts, which was collected in various ways, such as through interviews, observations, and document analysis. An abductive case study approach, blending inductive and deductive processes, was considered particularly appropriate for studying industrial networks. However, a systematic literature review was also used because parts of the theory behind industrial network configurations in the circular economy are more mature.This thesis makes three main contributions. Firstly, it identifies three purposes of industrial networks in the circular economy. It is shown that industrial networks enable the agency of actors to produce holistic change in the industrial network. However, since an actor’s view of the industrial network is restricted, the actor depends on other actors’ complementary views in order to be able to produce such change. Secondly, this thesis introduces two conceptual frameworks that contribute to the understanding of how to configure industrial networks that enable collaborations within and across industrial boundaries. Thirdly, this thesis supports the idea that product design affects how to configure industrial networks for the circular economy. It also contributes to the literature by arguing that the relationship between product design and industrial network configuration is bidirectional. Product design is a collaborative process which both shapes the future industrial network and is shaped by the current industrial network.
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| 3. |
- Berlin, Daniel, 1993-, et al.
(författare)
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Supply chain collaboration in circular supply chains : The example of Swedish steel recycling
- 2019
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Ingår i: Operations adding value to society. - Helsinki. ; , s. 1657-1666
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of supply chain collaboration between buyers and suppliers in the reverse flow of a system of circular supply chains. The empirical context is Swedish unalloyed steel recycling, i.e. recycling of steel with a low proportion of additional components. The paper applies a framework on mechanisms of coordination and supply chain flows to discuss the underlying rationale for how the Swedish steel recycling industry organizes coordination. At the activity level, it is shown how the inherent uncertainty of reverse flows is handled through voluntary cross-industrial cooperation and standardization.
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| 4. |
- Berlin, Daniel, 1993-, et al.
(författare)
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Supply network collaborations in a circular economy : A case study of Swedish steel recycling
- 2022
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Ingår i: Resources, Conservation and Recycling. - : Elsevier BV. - 0921-3449 .- 1879-0658. ; 179, s. 106112-106112
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Supply network collaboration has been recognised as a vital enabler in the transition to a circular economy. Even so, the existing literature has directed limited attention to the nature of these relationships and the motivation behind them. Hence, there is a need to understand the actual activities of actors engaged in collaboration to address this knowledge gap. The steel industry presents an interesting example. Given that more than one-third of the world's steel production originates from scrap, its supply is essential to the survival of the steel industry. Based on an explorative case study, this paper investigates collaboration of steel producers, a procurement intermediary and scrap dealers to facilitate steel recycling. These actors deal with the practical challenge of variation in the quantity and quality of steel scrap by engaging in various types of collaboration. This paper seeks to analyse the nature of these collaborations and answer the question of why actors engage in supply network collaboration. The paper identifies a complex web of relationships and outlines differing motives for and against collaboration, with specific focus on three types. While quality control is the main motive in dyadic vertical collaboration between a buyer and a supplier, efficiency is the main motive for both horizontal collaboration between buyers and lateral collaboration amongst all actors in the supply network. Thus, this paper adds to the conventional wisdom of sequential, dyadic, linear and vertical relationships, providing a deeper understanding of the types of supply network collaboration from the underexplored context of steel recycling.
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| 5. |
- Berlin, Daniel, 1993-, et al.
(författare)
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The relatedness of open- and closed-loop supply chains in the context of the circular economy; Framing a continuum
- 2022
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Ingår i: Cleaner Logistics and Supply Chain. - : Elsevier. - 2772-3909. ; 4, s. 100048-100048
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The configuration of closed-loop supply chains (CLSCs) for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to recover and remarket products has been discussed as a crucial pathway in the transition towards the circular economy (CE). However, in the context of the CE, circular supply chains (CSCs) have an extended role to recover materials and minimize waste that goes beyond the particular firm’s product recovery and remarketing. Thus, the open-loop supply chains (OLSCs) have an equally important role to play as supply chain configurations where actors other than the OEM engage in product and material recovery. While the literature on CLSC is a mature field, studies that analyze the complementary nature of CLSC and OLSC in addressing the transition to the CE are scant. Based on a systematic literature review (2007–2021), this paper contributes to literature by identifying some of the characteristics of OLSC, providing empirical illustrations, and developing a conceptual framework of the open- and closed-loop supply chain continuum.
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| 6. |
- Brulin, Göran, et al.
(författare)
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Business Networking Learning
- 2001
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Ingår i: Scandnavian Journal of Management.
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Chizarfard, Armaghan, et al.
(författare)
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Managing Structural Tensions in the Transition to the Circular Economy: the Case of Electric Vehicle Batteries
- 2022
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Ingår i: Circular Economy and Sustainability. - : Springer Nature. - 2730-597X .- 2730-5988.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The circular economy (CE) has recently gained attention as a key transformative strategy. However, as with previous transformation processes, the transition towards the CE is not a smooth process since there are underlying structural tensions in incumbent systems that need to be overcome. One industry that is currently undergoing transformative pressure is the automobile industry where the transition to electric vehicles that use lithium-ion bat- teries is creating structural tensions. In this paper, we adopt a multi-actor perspective and analyze the strategies that different actors pursue to manage the structural tensions that are induced by the transition towards lithium-ion batteries with the goal of creating and sus- taining a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) model. Through a case study of the key actors (mining firms, material manufacturers, vehicle manufacturers, and recyclers), we reveal the particularities of managing structural tensions which are influenced by temporal, spatial, and contextual factors. We demonstrate our claim by first expanding the application bound- ary of the concept of structural tensions to show the interconnection between strategic choices made by actors at operational and technological levels; and second, unfolding the dynamics of managing structural tensions in the CE transitions from a multi-actor perspec- tive. The results of this study may support industrial actors to achieve a better understand- ing of the consequences of their short- and long-term CE transition strategies, and resolve conflicts in visions and priorities during the transition process.
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| 9. |
- Chizarfard, Armaghan, et al.
(författare)
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The transformation to a circular economy : framing an evolutionary view
- 2021
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Ingår i: Journal of evolutionary economics. - : Springer Nature. - 0936-9937 .- 1432-1386. ; 31:2, s. 475-504
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The notion of the circular economy (CE) has recently been put forth as a strategy to mitigate climate change. It has gained attention in policy circles and in the engineering and natural science literature. In contrast to the linear model of production, use and disposal, the point of departure for the CE is the creation and sustention of a regenerative system with the goal of minimising resource inputs and emissions. However, although the emerging literature has discussed the ongoing transition process towards the CE, mainly from an ecological perspective, the underlying mechanisms of industrial change including structural tensions have not been discussed. Responding to this gap in the literature, the aim of this paper is to discuss CE as an evolutionary process and to propose a conceptual framework that builds on a development block approach.
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| 10. |
- Chizaryfard, Armaghan, 1985-
(författare)
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The Industrial TransformationTowards the Circular Economy : Dynamics, Drivers and Constraints
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The notion of the circular economy has recently been posited as a vital strategy to mitigate climate change. At the industrial level, the circular economy envisions socio-industrial transformation to closed-loop material systems. Presently, however, discussions of the circular economy do not include an evolutionary view of how industrial transformations may give rise to the changes in institutions and industries, as well as technological innovation. In particular, the existing assumptions in the literature have lacked an understanding of the industrial transformation mechanisms at the value chain and supply chain levels. Moreover, the interplay between actors’ transition strategies and the circularity of material and economic value have mostly been overlooked in static analyses. To that end, I aim to achieve the following objectives in this thesis: (1) framing the transformation forces and opportunities that drive the industrial transition towards a circular economy; (2) providing an understanding of the challenges in managing the transformation mechanisms towards the circular economy and how they influence supply-chain-related decisions; and (3) examining the dynamics of the material and financial flows within evolving supply chain systems enabling or constraining the circular economy strategy of incumbents.Using a mixed-method research approach, in this thesis I expand the boundaries of the theoretical foundation of the circular economy by putting an evolutionary perspective at the center of the transition for both the ecological and industrial sides. The findings indicate that actors adopt different strategies to overcome the transition tensions and capture opportunities based on their perceptions of short- and long-term disruption impacts on their businesses. In addition, actors’ value chain positions influence the implications of transition tensions on their businesses and the complementarities required to overcome them (such as technologies, operational skills and business relationships). This means that actors experience different behavioral and transition dilemmas along the upstream and downstream of the value chain. Above all, the evolving external business environment plays a vital role in actors’ ability to adapt to structural changes and capture business opportunities. When firms adopt circular economy principles at the supply chain level, they constantly revise their assumptions about their financial performance and the possibility of reusing products based on the strategic decisions of other supply chain members. Thus, the circularity of material and financial flows reaches beyond the boundaries of individual firms, and the outcomes of interactions between actors’ circular economy strategies may not necessarily enhance and sustain the circularity of material and economic performance for all actors along the supply chain.This thesis contributes to the theoretical foundation of the circular economy by conceptually framing the industrial transformation towards a circular economy from a systemic and evolutionary perspective. Consequently, it contributes to the current circular economy discourse by expanding the ecological view to an evolutionary view of industrial transformation. Moreover, this study sheds light on the fact that the transformation to the circular economy at the supply chain level comes with dynamic changes in actor positions and roles over time. Transition at the supply chain level is more than just a static view of the optimization of material flows. The research provides implications for policymakers considering the impacts of the upcoming industrial transition to the circular economy at the sociotechnical system level, which requires dynamic business positioning by industrial actors. The results may serve to help actors understand that the interrelationships, misalignments and interplay of their strategies towards the circular economy reach beyond the linear approach of managing customer and supplier relationships.
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