How to Change Entrepreneurs’ Attitudes toward a Circular Economy: An Exploratory Framework to Reduce the Gap between Circular Intentions and Circular Actions
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
This article contains important messages for the Circular Economy community. These are in line with my own experiences (I am a practitioner for Sustainability/CE now for thirty years, worked most of the time for a company which did not want my experiences to be published). In the rewrite following items mentioned are to be stressed : 1)CE is to a large extent related to behavioral commitment/not just 'technicalities'; 2) start at the 'bottom' (see bottom of p 11) and 3) =most of all learning through practice (see p12). The five step act to unleash the process is great stuff! (outside presussure/legislation is not) What did I miss? 1)Benefits: sustainability CE can stimulate (even revitalize) in an enormous way creativity inside conservative/departamentalized organizations. 2)Process: internal value chain to be mobilized first, external value chain later. The 'internal act'is simple; collect physical data about a process or a product . First reaction of people : I never realized that = first start of creativity etc. 3)The external act to follow: show this to your external value chain partners and seek their collaboration etc. 4) What is available in Quebec (and elsewhere even less) is in my opinion still pretty poor with respect to the process you propose. A tool to make a 'material balance'of a process, or to do circularity benchmarking of a product would enrich the toolbox and experiences with such a toolbox would give stronger evidence that introduction of CE thinking in companies can be done substantially better. Finally a remark: CE concepts work better in China because of 'economic dictatorship' but most of all because average income/head is lower! The consumer is an important factor in achieving circularity. High income/head and circularity are in practice often at odds!
Author Response
I would like to express my thanks to the three reviewers particularly to a practitioner of the circular economy who gave new perspectives to this original subject which combines environmental psychology and the still too rare research in circular entrepreneurship.
I agree with not focusing only on the technicalities of the circular economy. This is why we took advantage of psychological research on attitude changes.
Thank you for this remark.
The 5 conditions for implementing non-costly actions that raise awareness in circular economy are not strictly speaking stages. But we could think about this in future research.
The issue of external pressures and legislative changes are essential. They will be the subject of another article.
Learning by doing takes place in communities of practice. It is even an essential dimension of the success of these communities.
There is research on Chinese entrepreneurs in the circular economy. I agree with you - the contexts are different (very authoritarian regime) and you highlight poverty. However, in other contexts of disadvantaged (and also polluted) countries, we do not see as much research in circular economy. I am thinking of India or certain African countries.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The present article is elaborated on an interesting and topical subject. The issue of circular economy resonates in many European and American researches and has been a very strong agenda of the European Commission since 2018.
The article contains a number of fundamental flaws that need to be addressed:
- the structure of the article does not correspond to a scientific paper - the article does not contain a clearly fomulated objective, research design and analytical (research) part.
- of the 17 sources cited, one is from 2023, one is from 2019 and the rest are quite old state - the literature search needs to be brought up to date (updated).
- the abstract of the article is methodologically incorrect, it does not provide the information that the reader will be looking for in it.
- it is not clear from the article what is the real contribution of the author(s) and what has been taken from older literature.
- conclusions and recommendations are not formulated (the article lacks contribution and future research).
In accordance with the standards of our journal, the submitted paper needs to be substantially revised, the state of knowledge needs to be activated and the author's clearly identifiable research contribution needs to be stated.
Author Response
We did not find other research that describes the issues of entrepreneurs' awareness of resource circularization. In addition, there is no research to our knowledge that crosses the literature on Biding Communication theory and the entrepreneur in terms of circularization of resources.
The following sentences have been added :
Contributions
Practically, our major contribution is to admit that communication campaigns addressed to entrepreneurs are more effective if they are combined with the implementation of inexpensive preparatory acts.
In the abstract
We have not found previous research that mixes these two approaches (Biding Communication theories and circular entrepreneurship) and provides a perspective to overcome the gaps between awareness and circular practices in entrepreneurship.
The research objective is therefore to propose a method of changing attitude by taking advantage of the Binding Communication theories for the first time in circular entrepreneurship.
The research design is intended to be analogous and illustrative: we will import concepts from the field of persuasive communication to that of entrepreneurship by illustrating our point through initiatives to raise awareness of circular practices already implemented in a particular territory.
Next research in conclusion
This type of exploratory research must be followed by other experiments which compare groups which have carried out a costly act and others which have not been subjected to this type of preparatory act. However, it is easier to carry out these experimental tests in two groups on consumers or students than on entrepreneurs. One way of doing this would be to administer a questionnaire to raise awareness of the importance of circular practices before and after participation in an inexpensive act.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The authors aim to identify the strategies about how to change attitudes of enterpreneurs to circular economy.
However, the paper has poorly structured. Thus, the author should resolve the following issues related to the paper.
- Practical contributions of the paper should be mentioned at the end of Section 1.
- There are many errors like [Error!Bookmark....] within the manuscript so that these issues should be resolved.
- At the end of Section 2, some research gap of the paper is presented, however, the significance of this gap should also be also mentioned. In this way, the readers will comprehend why conducted research is significant.
- I could not understand the relation of the Section 6 with the rest of the paper. This issue should be clarified or the section should be removed from the paper.
-The biggest problem with the paper is that the study does not utilize any scientific analysis method. It only presents the result of the literature review. Even, there is no section devoted to results. In fact, the paper does not present any results to us. Thus, I strictly recommend authors to use some scientific data analysis. It could be a questionnaire survey or vosviewer etc.
- The paper does lack a conclusion section. The authors should also add some conclusion sections to the manuscript.
Author Response
We did not find other research that describes the issues of entrepreneurs' awareness of resource circularization. In addition, there is no research to our knowledge that crosses the literature on Biding Communication theory and the entrepreneur in terms of circularization of resources.
The following sentences have been added :
Contributions
Practically, our major contribution is to admit that communication campaigns addressed to entrepreneurs are more effective if they are combined with the implementation of inexpensive preparatory acts.
We have not found previous research that mixes these two approaches (Biding Communication theories and circular entrepreneurship) and provides a perspective to overcome the gaps between awareness and circular practices in entrepreneurship.
The research objective is therefore to propose a method of changing attitude by taking advantage of the Binding Communication theories for the first time in circular entrepreneurship.
The research design is intended to be analogous and illustrative: we will import concepts from the field of persuasive communication to that of entrepreneurship by illustrating our point through initiatives to raise awareness of circular practices already implemented in a particular territory.
Next research in conclusion
This type of exploratory research must be followed by other experiments which compare groups which have carried out a costly act and others which have not been subjected to this type of preparatory act. However, it is easier to carry out these experimental tests in two groups on consumers or students than on entrepreneurs. One way of doing this would be to administer a questionnaire to raise awareness of the importance of circular practices before and after participation in an inexpensive act.
In the abstract
The following sentences have been added :
Contributions
Practically, our major contribution is to admit that communication campaigns addressed to entrepreneurs are more effective if they are combined with the implementation of inexpensive preparatory acts.
We have not found previous research that mixes these two approaches (Biding Communication theories and circular entrepreneurship) and provides a perspective to overcome the gaps between awareness and circular practices in entrepreneurship.
The research objective is therefore to propose a method of changing attitude by taking advantage of the Binding Communication theories for the first time in circular entrepreneurship.
The research design is intended to be analogous and illustrative: we will import concepts from the field of persuasive communication to that of entrepreneurship by illustrating our point through initiatives to raise awareness of circular practices already implemented in a particular territory.
Next research in conclusion
This type of exploratory research must be followed by other experiments which compare groups which have carried out a costly act and others which have not been subjected to this type of preparatory act. However, it is easier to carry out these experimental tests in two groups on consumers or students than on entrepreneurs. One way of doing this would be to administer a questionnaire to raise awareness of the importance of circular practices before and after participation in an inexpensive act.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Revised manuscript has made the issues at stake very clear! The 'inexpensive act' approach is very valuable and needs to be widely promoted. (there is too much 'top-down'in sustainability)
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
I have checked entire paper. Unfortunately, the author failed to address my comments. Thus, the paper can not be accepted for publication. Instead, I recommend one more major revision for the paper. The issues are given below.
- The revision in the abstract is improper. That much long abstract is not good for the papers.
-My previous comment was "Practical contributions of the paper should be mentioned at the end of Section 1". The authors just added a single sentence. On the contrary, diverse explanation is required.
-My previous comment was "There are many errors like [Error!Bookmark....] within the manuscript so that these issues should be resolved.". The authors still can not add a proper referencing style that matches with the journal.
-I recommend authors to avoid using the "we" in the manuscript.
- My previous comment was "I could not understand the relation of Section 6 with the rest of the paper. This issue should be clarified or the section should be removed from the paper.". Not a single revision is made upon this comment.
- My previous comment was "The biggest problem with the paper is that the study does not utilize any scientific analysis method. It only presents the result of the literature review. Even, there is no section devoted to results. The paper does not present any results to us. Thus, I strictly recommend authors to use some scientific data analysis. It could be a questionnaire survey or vosviewer etc.". Not a single revision is made upon this comment.
- My prevous comment was "The paper does lack a conclusion section. The authors should also add some conclusion sections to the manuscript.". Not a single revision is made upon this comment.
Author Response
I have checked entire paper. Unfortunately, the author failed to address my comments. Thus, the paper can not be accepted for publication. Instead, I recommend one more major revision for the paper. The issues are given below.
- The revision in the abstract is improper. That much long abstract is not good for the papers
The abstract has been shortened.
Entrepreneurs are aware of the importance of having practices for circularizing their resources. However, the rare previous research specifically in entrepreneurship shows a gap between intentions and implementation with numerous barriers (structural, contextual, and cultural). This article proposes a first framework to reduce this gap between intentions and circular actions. These solutions are based on the theory of attitude changes which states that changes in individuals' attitudes are more significant if they are preceded by an inexpensive act (Binding Communication Approach). As this is a still little-explored subject that mixes circular entrepreneurship and environmental psychology, the research method is exploratory: either based on an analysis of previous writings on these two distinct fields with the proposal of a first formalization to starting from the example of solutions based on inexpensive acts (communities of practices, prizes, and tools). Conclusions are proposed regarding the characteristics of this type of preparatory acts necessary to change entrepreneur attitude toward circular economies practices.
-My previous comment was "Practical contributions of the paper should be mentioned at the end of Section 1". The authors just added a single sentence. On the contrary, diverse explanation is required.
Contributions are described at the end of section 1
The contributions of this article are numerous. First, this is one of the first times that literature on circular entrepreneurship is compared to the previous research in environmental psychology. By mixing these two literatures solutions are found to reduce the gap between actions and intentions. The entrepreneurship literature describes all the barriers (structural, contextual, cultural) which explain this gap. While psychology literature teaches that attitude changes are more effective if they are preceded by inexpensive acts. The type of inexpensive actions is given by the example of a regional experience: community of practice, price, and tools. This article lists in a region the type of inexpensive preparatory acts that entrepreneurs can carry out easily. These inexpensive preparatory acts constitute a framework to the gap between good circular intentions and implementations. This therefore allows us to consider future experimental research on the impact of participation in communities of practice, in prizes and rewards and in the use of specific tools in the circular economy.
Secondly, considering that changes in attitude towards the circular are more effective if they lead entrepreneurs to carry out inexpensive actions as described in the regional experience, this article proposes a first framework for choosing the type of circular acts. Thus, the inexpensive acts explored (community of practice, price and tools) must present a certain number of criteria: Free Will Compliance, Consistency, must be Public, Responsibility and Irrevocability. Here a methodological research framework is provided for future articles on attitude change in the Circular Economy. A practical implication concerns ways of communicating to entrepreneurs to convince them to adopt virtuous practices in terms of optimizing their resources. Communications towards entrepreneurs are doomed to a form of failure that leads to eco-anxiety or skepticism if practitioners do not involve entrepreneurs by making them participate in activities that are inexpensive for them (what is called preparatory acts).
-My previous comment was "There are many errors like [Error!Bookmark....] within the manuscript so that these issues should be resolved.". The authors still can not add a proper referencing style that matches with the journal.
The editors help me to resolve this problem
-I recommend authors to avoid using the "we" in the manuscript.
Done
- My previous comment was "I could not understand the relation of Section 6 with the rest of the paper. This issue should be clarified or the section should be removed from the paper.". Not a single revision is made upon this comment.
Section 6 which provides an analytical framework for inexpensive preparatory acts can be deleted. However, this section helps make concrete the type of preparatory acts that help bridge the gap between intention and circular action. I decided to keep it because this section provides a framework for analyzing the type of preparatory act useful for changing attitude. It also gives ideas for future research with measurements of this gap between intention and action which would be made before and after obtaining inexpensive preparatory acts.
Secondly, considering that changes in attitude towards the circular are more effective if they lead entrepreneurs to carry out inexpensive actions as described in the regional experience, this article proposes a first framework for choosing the type of circular acts. Thus, the inexpensive acts explored (community of practice, price and tools) must present a certain number of criteria: Free Will Compliance, Consistency, must be Public, Responsibility and Irrevocability. Here a methodological research framework is provided for future articles on attitude change in the Circular Economy.
Title of section is changed.
- An Illustration of solutions to reduce the gap between intentions and actions through preparatory acts
- My previous comment was "The biggest problem with the paper is that the study does not utilize any scientific analysis method. It only presents the result of the literature review. Even, there is no section devoted to results. The paper does not present any results to us. Thus, I strictly recommend authors to use some scientific data analysis. It could be a questionnaire survey or vosviewer etc.". Not a single revision is made upon this comment.
This is a fundamental remark. I was hesitant to continue with the reviewing process for this reason. Indeed, this completely changes the approach to this research. And this for two reasons. Indeed, this research is exploratory. We mix two fields of research: entrepreneurship and environmental psychology. At this stage, it is therefore important to carry out a literature review. And I think that literature reviews are in themselves contributions to research. Second, this type of approach in environmental psychology requires experimental methods that are more difficult to implement in entrepreneurship. Hence a first article which sets out the perspective is necessary.
This is an exploratory article on a subject little covered in entrepreneurship. A scientific approach at this stage is to report on what exists. The literature review is therefore very important. I have chosen to illustrate with examples because this provides directions for future research.
The title is changed:
How to change entrepreneur attitude toward circular economy? An exploratory framework to reduce the gap between circular intentions and circular actions
This is one of the first times that literature on circular entrepreneurship is compared to the previous research in environmental psychology. By mixing these two literatures solutions are found to reduce the gap between actions and intentions. The entrepreneurship literature describes all the barriers (structural, contextual, cultural) which explain this gap. While psychology literature teaches that attitude changes are more effective if they are preceded by inexpensive acts. The type of inexpensive actions is given by the example of a regional experience: community of practice, price, and tools. This article lists in a region the type of inexpensive preparatory acts that entrepreneurs can carry out easily. These inexpensive preparatory acts constitute a framework to the gap between good circular intentions and implementations. This therefore allows us to consider future experimental research on the impact of participation in communities of practice, in prizes and rewards and in the use of specific tools in the circular economy.
Considering that changes in attitude towards the circular are more effective if they lead entrepreneurs to carry out inexpensive actions as described in the regional experience, this article proposes a first framework for choosing the type of circular acts.
- My prevous comment was "The paper does lack a conclusion section. The authors should also add some conclusion sections to the manuscript.". Not a single revision is made upon this comment.
A new conclusion is proposed with its own section
- Conclusion
This article focuses on possible changes in the attitude of entrepreneurs regarding circular practices. For one of the first times, he compares the literature in entrepreneurship which is very focused on practices with that in environmental psychology which is interested in psychological mechanisms. The very fact of assembling these two areas is original. This confrontation between two types of research shows that entrepreneurs are aware of the issues of circularization of resources. However, a gap exists between circular practices and implementations. This gap would vary depending on the individual and particularly marked if entrepreneurs have a weak belief in their internal control and if they believe that their position of power in the markets does not allow them to influence these same markets. This gap can be explained by the existence of contextual, structural, and cultural barriers specific to circular innovations - barriers which are described in this article. To provide circular empowerment and reduce these barriers, a perspective from research into attitude change suggests engaging the entrepreneur through inexpensive preparatory acts. For an entrepreneur, carrying out these inexpensive actions would be a solution to reduce the gap between intention and circular action. Then this article proposes to give examples of solutions of this type of inexpensive acts which change the attitudes of entrepreneurs towards the circular. These solutions are taken in the case of a Canadian province: Quebec. These examples of solutions are chosen because they have been implemented. It must be understood that in entrepreneurship where we study real entrepreneurs unlike research in psychology for which students are often the subjects of the experiments, it is more difficult to implement experimental methodologies. Participation in communities of practice, competing for prizes and other rewards and the use of methods and tools promoting better circularization of resources constitute acts that are uncostly for entrepreneurs, and encourages them to adopt more circular practices. In response to previous research which notes a gap between the intentions and circular practices of entrepreneurs, this article proposes to implement inexpensive acts which raise awareness among entrepreneurs more than all communication practices. Acts that enable changes in the attitude of entrepreneurs must present a certain number of criteria: Free Will Compliance, Consistency, Public, Responsibility and Irrevocability. This type of exploratory research must be followed by other experiments which compare groups which have carried out a costly act and others which have not been subjected to this type of preparatory act. However, it is easier to carry out these experimental tests in two groups on consumers or students than on entrepreneurs. One way of doing this would be to administer a questionnaire to raise awareness of the importance of circular practices before and after participation in an inexpensive act.
The interest of this type of research is to confront the entrepreneur with these practices by starting to raise awareness of some of the forms of circularization of resources. Since the entrepreneur has decided to participate freely in these preparatory activities, this entry point appeals to him or her and therefore echoes his or her own concerns. Thus, instead of considering the entire life cycle of the product or service or carrying out a complete analysis of the value chain, the entrepreneur starts from a starting point - admittedly more modest - but more involving for him or for her.
The contributions of this article are numerous. First, this is one of the first times that literature on circular entrepreneurship is compared to the previous research in environmental psychology. By mixing these two literatures solutions are found to reduce the gap between actions and intentions. The entrepreneurship literature describes all the barriers (structural, contextual, cultural) which explain this gap. While psychology literature teaches that attitude changes are more effective if they are preceded by inexpensive acts. The type of inexpensive actions is given by the example of a regional experience: community of practice, price, and tools. This article lists in a region the type of inexpensive preparatory acts that entrepreneurs can carry out easily. These inexpensive preparatory acts constitute solutions to the gap between good circular intentions and implementations. This therefore allows us to consider future experimental research on the impact of participation in communities of practice, in prizes and rewards and in the use of specific tools in the circular economy.
Secondly, considering that changes in attitude towards the circular are more effective if they lead entrepreneurs to carry out inexpensive actions as described in the regional experience, this article proposes a first framework for choosing the type of circular acts. Thus, the inexpensive acts explored (community of practice, price, and tools) must present a certain number of criteria: Free Will Compliance, Consistency, must be Public, Responsibility and Irrevocability. Here a methodological research framework is provided for future articles on attitude change in the Circular Economy. A practical implication concerns ways of communicating to entrepreneurs to convince them to adopt virtuous practices in terms of optimizing their resources. Communications towards entrepreneurs are doomed to a form of failure that leads to eco-anxiety or skepticism if practitioners do not involve entrepreneurs by making them participate in activities that are inexpensive for them (what is called preparatory acts). So many inexpensive acts that can be put in place to reduce the gap between intention and circular actions among entrepreneurs
