Circular Entrepreneurship: Creating Responsible Enterprise

Antonella Zucchella Sabine Urban Circular Entrepreneurship Creating Responsible Enterprise Circular Entrepreneurship Antonella Zucchella • Sabine Urban Circular Entrepreneurship Creating Responsible Enterprise Antonella Zucchella University of Pavia Pavia, Italy Sabine Urban University of Strasbourg Strasbourg, France ISBN 978-3-030-18998-3    ISBN 978-3-030-18999-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18999-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Preface Circular entrepreneurship suggests the idea of a new concept, leading to social responsibility among powerful actors: namely, “entrepreneurs” and enterprises (though possibly also in other kinds of organizations or institutions). This is a challenging topic for several reasons. First, currently enterprises’ objectives seem to be mainly oriented towards economic and financial performances rather than towards social responsibility. Second, the world is entering the so-called “digital revolution” in an era of global and dense interconnections in all domains—the economy, science, art, politics and so on—opening huge opportunities for socioeconomic handling, with more or less relaxed controlling systems. Thus, the sense of responsibility may be tendentiously reduced (think for example of fiscal optimization decisions). Third, the open economy reinforces competition among worldwide actors. The voluntary acceptance of responsibility