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Toward resilient organizations after COVID-19: An analysis of circular and less circular companies

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2022.106681Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Circular companies and sole proprietorships score significantly higher on crisis-resilience and overall-resilience than less circular companies and sole proprietorships.

  • Companies and sole proprietorships need fiscal measures, support for innovation and collaboration, and public procurement, among others, in order to become more circular.

  • Larger companies have a significantly higher resilience score than smaller companies, except during crises.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic had large repercussions for our economy and organizations. Improved resilience can give organizations the ability to withstand crises and build back better and faster. This article assesses resilience of organizations and sole proprietorships in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic with eight circular strategies as explanatory variables. Furthermore, these eight circular strategies are also used to assess the organizations’ and sole proprietorships’ resilience outside of the COVID-19 pandemic. This analysis is conducted to explain how circular strategies can help companies and sole proprietorships maintain stability. The analysis was performed by means of a survey conducted between May and June 2020 in Flanders (Belgium), using a sample of 542 respondents. After performing a regression analysis combined with expert opinions collected through interviews, we find that companies and sole proprietorships with a higher circularity score have a significantly higher resilience score during crises and during normal times, compared to less circular companies. Furthermore, we find that the size of the company does not matter during a crisis to adapt and react flexibly, while it is important when there is no crisis. Finally, we argue that it is the combination of different circular strategies which yields to the highest results for the organizations’ resilience and we provide policy recommendations based on the most asked support measures.

Keywords

Circularity
Resilience
COVID-19
Regression
Companies
Crisis

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