Consumers’ appraisal of Digital Circularity: bridging IS and circular economy research to prevent negative outcomes

ABSTRACT

Digitally enabled circular models represent one new phenomenon that heavily rely on the power of computing and advanced digital technologies. Digital Circularity implies digitally supported day-to-day practices, more complex IT landscapes as well as higher monitoring and management skills from both users and customers. Although the literature on consumers in circular models has looked into the incentives and drivers of adopting circular consumption, little is known about their perception of the digital technologies that support the circular business models. Building both on IS research on the digitisation of the individual and the analysis of 20 interview data provided by knowledge workers, the paper provides an original take-on the negative sentiments that consumers in circular models are likely to develop toward such technologies. We propose an application of the results of our data from organisational contexts to CE environments and further discuss how exploring consumers’ perceptions of IT-mediated actions is crucial to the success of the transition to CE.

KEYWORDS:

• Circular economy
• consumption
• digital technologies
• appraisal
• digitisation of the individual

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).