ABSTRACT Global warming issues call for urgent actions from individuals and organizations to actively engage in the circular economy. This study examines the mechanism by which circular economy practices improve innovation and export performance and further investigates the moderating role of Industry 4.0 Technologies in this mechanism. A quantitative method is adopted in this research with a total of 362 firms participating in the questionnaire, which were then analyzed using SPSS and SmartPLS 4.0. Two key findings can be drawn from the study. First, adopting circular economy practices leverages innovation outcomes and further leads to export performance on the international market. Second, the role of Industry 4.0 Technologies was found to moderate the relationship between circular economy practices and innovation performance and between innovation performance and export performance. The impact of Industry 4.0 Technologies was contradicted in two relationships. Adopting technology negatively affects the improvement from circular economy practices to innovation outcomes, while it fosters the success of export performance from innovation performance. These results yield implications for both scholars and especially practitioners when adopting Industry 4.0 technologies throughout the supply chain to achieve profitability.
Bich et al. (Fri,) studied this question.