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This chapter highlights how implementing circular economy principles can help companies working with sustainability to move from a reductionist and waste management approach to marketing competitive circular value propositions that intentionally design out waste (e.g. emissions and pollution) by rethinking, reinventing and redesigning the value chain. Schijvens, a Dutch family-owned corporate fashion textile company, acts as a case for exemplifying successful implementation of circular economy principles as a marketing strategy in a sector that struggles with finding solutions to the ethical challenges of producing and marketing textile fashion. The textile industry has, for many years, been accused of production that is based on environmentally harmful processes and conditions that are not socially fair. Circular economy principles provide a range of suggestions to address the ethical challenges occurring from covering the human needs of having clothes to wear. Yet, implementing circular economy principles is not a panacea. It is not only a question of delivering a technological quick fix but also a question of managing the new processes and human mindset guiding the actions in the value chain. This chapter, therefore, outlines reasons for a different perspective on the traditional linear value chain and related implications managers face when undertaking a journey from sustainability based on a reductionist approach to a closed-loop approach. It is argued that implementing circular economy principles by pro-actively managing the value chain processes based on eco-centric dynamic capabilities can provide even more radical changes than the incremental reductionist approach often associated with being a green sustainable company.

As one of the most influential theories in strategic management, Hambrick and Mason’s Upper Echelons Theory has yielded significant conceptual and empirical advancements linking executive characteristics and perceptions to decision-making. Specifically, work on this theory consistently shows that CEOs’ decisions are biased by personal characteristics to the benefit and detriment of firms. While this stream of research links executive decision processes to outcomes such as executive dismissals, analyst evaluations, and press coverage, surprisingly little is understood about if and whether the information CEOs convey is subject to the same filtering process by a firm’s key evaluators. Thus, in this chapter, we aim to extend Upper Echelons Theory by positing that a double filtering process occurs whereby the cognitive aids CEOs use can be informed by not only their cognitive base and values but also the characteristics and priorities of those who evaluate the nonverbal and verbal signals they send. To do so, we build on recent conceptual and empirical advancements to make a case for the decision-making biases and tendencies that influence signal interpretation by three key evaluator groups internal and external to the firm: boards of directors, financial analysts, and the media. We conclude by considering the implications of evaluators’ information filtering and how this more holistic view of Upper Echelons decision-making can enable executive teams to be strategic with the cognitive aids they use to influence evaluations.

This book chapter takes an institutional perspective on competing logics in global markets concerned with sustainability values and how market actors in the form of buyers and sellers attempt to solve these conflicting situations. We do this by identifying competing institutional logics in global market contexts aiming for sustainability values, together with techniques for navigating these competing institutional logics in the organizational field studied. As an empirical illustration, we use a case study of buyers and sellers in two different markets where sustainability has come into focus for their market relationships. This viewpoint allows us to better understand how global market actors deal with the competing institutional logics in their market context. We make three contributions with this research: firstly, we identify the institutional logics in global markets towards sustainability; secondly, we demonstrate how global market actors prioritize among the competing logics and their market relationships and thirdly, we outline what this means for the relationship between buyers and sellers in global markets towards sustainability.