Circularity Brokers: Digital Platform Organizations and Waste Recovery in Food Supply Chains
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Circularity Brokers: Digital Platform Organizations and Waste Recovery in Food Supply Chains Francesca Ciulli1 · Ans Kolk1 · Siri Boe‑Lillegraven1 Received: 9 July 2018 / Accepted: 11 April 2019 © The Author(s) 2019
Abstract In recent years, researchers and practitioners have increasingly paid attention to food waste, which is seen as highly unethical given its negative environmental and societal implications. Waste recovery is dependent on the creation of connections along the supply chain, so that actors with goods at risk of becoming waste can transfer them to those who may be able to use them as inputs or for their own consumption. Such waste recovery is, however, often hampered by what we call ‘circularity holes’, i.e., missing linkages between waste generators and potential receivers. A new type of actor, the digital platform organization, has recently taken on a brokerage function to bridge circularity holes, particularly in the food supply chain. Yet, extant literature has overlooked this novel type of brokerage that exploits digital technology for the transfer and recovery of discarded resources between supply chain actors. Our study investigates this actor, conceptualized as a ‘circularity broker’, and thus unites network research and circular supply chain research. Focusing on the food supply chain, we adopt an interpretive inductive theory-building approach to uncover how platform organizations foster the recovery of waste by bridging circularity holes. We identify and explicate six brokerage roles, i.e., connecting, informing, protecting, mobilizing, integrating and measuring, and discuss them in relation to extant literature, highlighting novelties compared to earlier studies. The final section reflects on contributions, implications, limitations and areas for further research. Keywords Circularity brokers · Digital platforms · Food waste recovery · Supply chains
Introduction According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO 2017), one-third of the food annually produced for human consumption in the world is wasted. As emphasized by scholars and practitioners, food waste is profoundly unethical in view of the fact that one billion people in the world currently suffer from food deprivation (Ribeiro et al. 2018; World Bank 2014). In addition, food waste has significant negative impacts on the environment, due to disposal and landfilling, as well as the overproduction and overexploitation of natural resources that it implies (Devin and Richards 2018; FAO 2011). Until recently, the issue of waste in the food industry, and in other sectors, was seen as an inevitable externality. Over the last few years, * Ans Kolk [email protected] http://www.anskolk.eu 1
University of Amsterdam Business School, Plantage Muidergracht 12, 1018 TV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
however, the waste problem has increasingly been acknowledged as an indication of failure of the existing economic model. This understanding has been particularly triggered by the emergence of a new economic paradig
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