The fashion industry has for several years been driven by fast cycles of cheap industrial mass production and unsustainable consumption. At the same time the burden on the environment has been significant. New business models to prevent the environmental impact have therefore been developed, and circular business models have gained interest. Remanufacturing as one of the central activities within circular business model is not a new concept for the fashion and apparel industry, but there is a lack of focus of how to prioritise and develop the concept. The focus of the study is to understand the relative importance of the challenges and the enabling conditions that influence the adoption of remanufacturing as transition towards a circular economy within the fashion and apparel industry. The purpose is also to show the practitioners’ perspective on a relatively new phenomenon within the fashion and apparel industry, which can clarify how to further prioritise and direct the development of the concept. Furthermore, it is also expected to identify and investigate what might be the main challenges and the enabling conditions within remanufacturing. This research is conducted through a mixed method with a deductive approach where knowledge about generic challenges and the enabling conditions within remanufacturing was collected from a systematic literature review, as a modification of a Delphi method. An utilisation of online questionnaires led to verify relative importance of challenges and the enabling conditions for an adoption of remanufacturing as a transition towards a circular economy within the fashion and apparel industry. The result from the online questionnaire was analysed through finding consensus among the collected data. The result shows that the most important perspective for an adoption of remanufacturing was related to business model-, costs- and consumer perspective. Specifically, the challenge with how to change the business model seemed to be essential, and the lack of financial benefits and influencing the consumer behaviour was received to be of great importance. Identified enablers were collaborations and communication. There was no agreement among the most important challenges and the enabling conditions. However, the operations- and core- perspective where considered important by many. Significant consensus was found between the practitioners and their opinion about what influences an adoption of remanufacturing as a transition towards a circular economy. The practitioners’ verification and opinions of challenges and the enabling conditions can serve as support for managers in an adoption of remanufacturing, and provide guidance regarding what is essential to consider for an transition towards a circular economy. This study highlights and identifies what motivates and makes the adoption of remanufacturing attractive, as a way to transition towards a circular economy, in particular it provides support and guidance regarding how strategies can be developed and where to focus further development.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:26:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Jorge Tenorio Fernando.pdf: 544179 bytes, checksum: a07e6ce74f644e85cced599765c1c65c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-02-03 / This paper bears upon the quest and interest to deepen the comprehension of the myriad of concepts emerging from the field of knowledge creation and management by cutting them in such a way as to allow for verification of its practical results when applied to an organization s day-to-day activities. First, a brief description of the organizational knowledge is done, aiming to identify some of its meanings and perspectives in the literature for the management of an existing knowledge, as well as for the creation of a new knowledge, be it individual or organizational. Next, to illustrate the theoretical findings, providing it with concrete legitimacy, a field research is presented, in format of a case study of a consumer goods industry, seeking to analyze the organization knowledge creation standpoint in terms of its enabling conditions and the SECI process as developed by Nonaka (1994) and Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), in order to highlight its main elements, circumstances and effects on the operational level, namely, the product development team. Thus, at the end, hoped is to have detached some of the multiple facets of the knowledge management, its difficulties and possibilities as an strategic resource, and, above all, pointed out real creation and use dimensions for that knowledge by examining its application to the product development process in a consumer goods company in Brazil. / Este trabalho se pauta pela inquietude em aprofundar a compreensão dos inúmeros conceitos que emergiram no campo da criação e gestão do conhecimento, dando-lhes um recorte que permita verificar seus resultados práticos quando aplicados no dia-a-dia de uma organização. Neste estudo será realizada, em primeiro lugar, uma breve descrição da taxonomia do conhecimento nas organizações, visando identificar algumas de suas perspectivas e acepções descritas pela literatura não só para a gestão do conhecimento existente, mas também para a criação de um novo conhecimento, quer individual, quer organizacional. Para ilustrar o estudo teórico, conferindo-lhe concretude, é apresentada pesquisa de campo, em forma de estudo de caso, de uma indústria de bens de consumo, objetivando analisar a etapa da criação do conhecimento na organização do ponto de vista de suas condições capacitadoras e do processo SECI desenvolvidos por Nonaka (1994) e Nonaka e Takeuchi (1995), para então observar seus principais elementos, circunstâncias e efeitos no nível operacional, isto é, nos grupos de desenvolvimento de produto. Ao final, espera-se haver depreendido algumas das múltiplas facetas do conhecimento organizacional, suas dificuldades e possibilidades de uso enquanto recurso estratégico, e, sobretudo, assinalado dimensões de criação e emprego real desse conhecimento, mediante o exame de sua aplicação ao processo de desenvolvimento de produtos em uma indústria de bens de consumo no Brasil.