Circular Ecosystem Development: From isolated partnerships to system integration

Consumer goods industries are increasingly under pressure to better retain economic value and mitigate ecological impact in their downstream value chain. The circular economy (CE) proposes repair, reuse, refurbishing, and recycling as key service strategies for extending a product life cycle. But manufacturers and distributors usually have limited internal competencies in circular service development, making collaboration with specialized service providers in innovation ecosystems essential. Research on how such ecosystems can be developed, orchestrated, and used for experimenting with circular services is in its infancy. Against this background, this paper explores how a large German telecommunication operator orchestrated an ecosystem for experimentation with circular smartphone service offerings. We utilize a longitudinal and embedded case study design to analyze the ecosystem orchestration process. Our results are twofold. First, we present ecosystem development in three phases: from 1) limited compliance relationships, via 2) circular strategy-specific subsystems, to 3) circular system integration. Second, we show how distributed agency across various internal departments contributes to ecosystem orchestration. Overall, we contribute to the emerging literature on inter-organizational and cross-sector collaboration in circular ecosystems.