Circular Business Models in Contrasting Institutional Contexts: Value Creation, Value Delivery, and Legitimacy in Two Circular Enterprises
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55845/joce-2026-41348Keywords:
Circular Business Models, Institutional Theory, Institutional Alignment, Legitimacy, Comparative Case Study, Bangladesh, SwedenAbstract
Research on circular business models (CBMs) has grown quickly, but we still know too little about how they are enacted under different institutional conditions and what, more precisely, context changes at firm level. This article compares two circular enterprises, an established Swedish energy utility and an emerging Bangladeshi textile firm, to examine how institutional alignment shapes circular value creation, value delivery, and legitimacy work. Drawing on CBM theory and institutional theory, it uses a theory-informed comparative case design based on nine semi-structured interviews conducted in two modes and triangulated with secondary documents. The findings show that institutional alignment does not simply enable or constrain circularity; it redistributes the organisational work required to make it viable. In Sweden, circularity is enacted through infrastructure-supported optimisation, stable coordination, and legitimacy maintenance. In Bangladesh, it depends on adaptive material recovery, brokerage, market formation, and active credibility building. The article's contribution is therefore not the generic claim that CBMs are context-dependent, but a more specific account of how differing degrees of alignment shift the locus of organisational work across value creation, value delivery, and legitimacy.
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