Organizing for Circularity: Lifecycle Assessment, Systems Thinking, and Future-Orientation

This panel symposium builds on existing work on circular economies by exploring approaches that support transitions toward circularity within and among organizations. To motivate research in this area, the panel symposium will unfold some of the complexities involved in organizing for circularity, focusing on three approaches: lifecycle assessment, systems thinking, and future-orientation. While each of these three approaches provides distinct ways that organizations can engage to achieve circularity, their clear interrelationships portray the complexities organizations face as they work to manage and organize their operations to reduce waste and ‘close the loop,’ and ultimately support resiliency in ecological systems. With a joint conversation and discussion among the panelists and audience, the symposium will challenge management scholars to consider how we can further develop management and organization research that advances circularity in organizations’ business models, practices, and processes, both in theory and practice.