Platform Thinking as a Catalyst for Circular Innovation in Low‐ and Medium‐Tech Industries
研究了平台思维如何帮助低技术和中技术行业（如建筑业）提升吸收能力，从而支持循环经济创新，基于对20位欧洲行业从业者的访谈。
ABSTRACT Growing pressures to replace linear with circular models challenge organisations to innovate continuously and to absorb new knowledge. While platform thinking has been examined as an enabler of innovation in high‐tech industries, its relevance in low‐ and medium‐tech industries, like construction, remains underexplored. Existing research emphasises digital platforms, leaving other forms of platform thinking largely unexamined. This study addresses these gaps by investigating how platform thinking can enable absorptive capacities to support innovation for circular economy in low‐ and medium‐tech industries. Drawing on an analytical framework inspired by platform literature in high‐tech industries, it applies these insights to the construction context. Based on 20 semistructured interviews with European industry stakeholders, the study offers four contributions: linking platform thinking, innovation and circularity in a low‐tech industry; illustrating how platform thinking mitigates fragmentation and builds absorptive capacity; revealing opportunities for circular innovation; and introducing ecocentric absorptive capacity.