A Practitioner-Oriented View of the Barriers to Open Innovation in the Circular Economy

The purpose of the study was to detect the potential barriers to the development of forms of open innovation (OI) collaboration in the circular economy (CE). The literature review allowed us to detect a set of topics related to the barriers to OI and CE to be further investigated and to propose an interpretative model to be subsequently empirically tested. Then, some circular entrepreneurs were involved in deepening the issues not yet explored in the literature, adopting the so-called ‘Key informant technique.’ The study highlighted the perspective of circular entrepreneurs and allowed the comparison of theoretical contributions on barriers to OI collaboration with entrepreneurs’ positions on innovative collaboration for CE. Finally, the study provided theoretical and policy implications, as well as managerial recommendations and suggestions for future research trajectories.