ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
This study aims to explore the perception levels, priorities, and management of owner-managers in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of barriers to CE adoption in Malaysia. Despite national policy increasingly encouraging CE adoption, there are a multifaceted range of financial, organisational and institutional barriers that are rarely considered en masse by looking at how they are experienced and negotiated by the owner-managers of SMEs. The study was qualitative and multiple case design with grounded theory perspective which was guided by interpretivist philosophy. Seven owner-managers from six sectors (food and beverage, construction, creative industries, circular economy and waste management, financial technology and healthcare) were interviewed in person or (in one case) via written response. Reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2022) was used in the analysis of the data, drawing from four sensitising lenses: Resource Based View, Institutional Theory, Theory of Planned Behaviour and Stakeholder Theory. Results show that most respondents understood CE in terms of practical, material and waste-based applications rather than in terms of strategic business-model transformation and that CE was only perceived as relevant in the context of dealing with physical materials. Financial constraint was the most frequent constraint and had an amplifying effect on the other constraints cited, rather than being a constraint. Outside pressures were not constant but polarised in origin and intensity and are thus reflected as a lever, and gaps in ecosystem infrastructure, regulatory enforcement, family governance and composition of the workforce, together with perceptions of symbolic compliance, influenced how decisions were made on adoption. The study provides a grounded and cross-sectoral perspective of the CE adoption decision-making process and provides practical recommendations for SME owners, regulators and certification bodies.
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