Exploiting 3-D Printing for Designing Circular Business Models: A Novel Framework

Circular economy has gained much interest over the last decade as an industrial approach aimed at overcoming the traditional “take-make-dispose” economic model. Several studies argue that the implementation of circular economy principles by companies may require them to design a circular business model. Designing a circular business model implies the adoption of managerial practices that address the business model dimensions of value creation, value transfer, and value capture. Existing research highlights that such practices can be adopted by exploiting digital technologies such as 3-D printing. Moreover, earlier scholarly research shows that the ability of a digital technology such as 3-D printing to enable a specific managerial practice depends upon its features. However, a full understanding of the role that 3-D printing can play in enabling the adoption of these managerial practices—by leveraging its peculiar features—is still lacking. Therefore, in this article, we aim to investigate the relationship between 3-D printing features and managerial practices for circular business model design. To this aim, an interactive and interpretive research approach inspired by the design research methodology has been carried out. Leveraging such an approach, this article proposes a novel framework linking the 3-D printing features to the managerial practices that can be adopted in each business model dimension. The framework has been developed and validated through an application case conducted with a company operating in the manufacturing industry.