Co-creating or Confounding? Hybrid Legitimacy Evaluation of Circular Business Models in the U.K. Plastics Sector
研究英国塑料行业价值链参与者如何评估他们共同创造的循环商业模式，发现当价值主张看似合理但价值创造和获取存在争议时，参与者采取动态警惕立场，其建议、贡献、游说和试验工作可能阻碍循环经济及相应商业模式的发展。
Despite the importance of business models for enabling a circular economy at a systems level, little is known about how value chain actors assess the circular business models that they are co-creating and how this assessment shapes their behaviour. Framing circular business models as a subject of legitimacy, this study explores how value chain actors respond when the value proposition of a circular business model seems proper, but the value creation and capture are debated. Based on interviews and workshops with 16 U.K. plastics sector organizations, this study shows how value chain actors respond to this hybrid legitimacy judgement by assuming a position of dynamic vigilance. This position affects the advising, contributing, lobbying, and trialling work that actors do to shape emerging circular economy institutions. We argue that the actors’ dynamic vigilance and advocacy work might be impeding a circular economy and corresponding business models.