Purpose: Although China can be considered an early adopter of the circular economy, there are few studies of remanufacturing business models (BMs) in the context of the Chinese automobile industry. The purpose of this paper is to investigate viable BMs, summarizes current obstacles and anticipates future development opportunities and directions.Design/methodology/approach: The cross-case analysis considers the roles of value networks and of customer value proposition and interface in circular business models (CBMs) by examining the strategies and tactical measures of two leading remanufacturers. The data are collected from semi-structured interviews, documents, etc.Findings: The analysis identifies the following components of viable BMs of remanufacturers: reclaiming raw material, managing used components, producing new products and marketing. Several current obstacles are summarized from four perspectives: policy barriers and insufficient government support; consumer awareness; related product quality; and technology. The study also identifies future directions and opportunities for the automobile parts remanufacturing industry.Originality/value: This study contributes to the CBM literature by mapping the barriers and opportunities in remanufacturing. The results have shed some light into the field of sustainability in manufacturing firms by empirically testing the theoretical model. The results will help managers to design viable CBMs in different contexts.

The interest in sustainable business models has grown rapidly in recent years. Although some progress has been made in identifying this concept and making the practices more sustainable, little is known about the organizational design that is most appropriate for creating new business models or implementing changes in existing ones towards a sustainability approach. This paper presents a review of sustainable business models in terms of the key factors that influence firm design based on organization theory. We retrieved 394 Journal Citation Reports papers from the WoK and Scopus databases, identifying 19 papers that have addressed the interplay between both constructs. We used the Galbraith Star Model to analyze the selected papers. We discuss three key findings for the cross-fertilization of both literatures: (i) the extension of the design elements outside the firm boundaries at the inter-organizational and ecosystem levels; (ii) the emphasis on certain design elements (strategy, process, people, structure) rather than others (rewards); and (iii) the use of the organizational design construct as a tactic tool for strategy execution of the sustainable business model. We also present theoretical and practical implications for the use and further development of this framework, as well as future avenues of research.

Nowadays, different Industry 4.0 technologies have been implemented into diverse industries. However, these implementations are not standardized across similar industries and countries. Consequently, companies are actively looking for assessment instruments—maturity models, roadmaps, frameworks, readiness assessments—to assist in their digital transformation, to determine their Industry 4.0 level, and to identify technologies and strategies that should be implemented in specific areas, thus developing a feasible implementation plan. A review is conducted following the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Literature Reviews and Meta-Analyses) methodology to analyze the different research works on assessment instruments focused on Industry 4.0. A total of 538 articles, book chapters, conference proceedings, editorial material, reviews, and reports written in the English language were retrieved. Of these, 132 research papers were examined using a mixed analysis format to generate bibliometrics, and 36 articles were then deeply studied for a complete meta-analysis. The findings and insights of this meta-analysis led to a compilation and summary of dimensions, outcomes, enablers, and key components typically involved in Industry 4.0, which are comprehensively integrated to present the best practices for assessing Industry 4.0 and deploying a digital transformation that can impact productivity, flexibility, sustainability, quality, costs, and time.

Purpose: Entrepreneurship is the basis of economic development but is somehow limited by the lack of access to financing sources, especially in the crucial moments of start-up early-stage development. For crossing the so-called “valley of death,” start-ups need to access informal finance sources, such as business angels. This study aims at defining the profile of business angels and comparing it with the existing literature. Design/methodology/approach: A novel methodology for sampling the business angles population has been used, which extracts data from online social media networks. This allows taking a closer look at informal sources of entrepreneurial finance. A total of 500 real business angels, acting worldwide, from the LinkedIn and Crunchbase databases has been retrieved for this study. Findings: Results point out that younger investors seem to be entering the entrepreneurial informal finance market. They are mainly males between 40 and 50 years of age, with a previous entrepreneurial record, and more highly educated than previously stated. They tend to have studies from Business Administration and Economics, although they prefer to invest in the ICT sector. Originality/value: Besides the novel data retrieval technique for analyzing the informal sources of finance, the originality of the work lies in updating the archetype for business angels.

Renewable energy is not simply the cornerstone of a transition, but an entire electric power revolution. However, which are the technologies with which power companies are going to redesign the electricity industry? Interviews were conducted with innovation managers of the biggest power companies in Spain to shed some light on the innovation sources upon which the electric power system of the future is based. The results revealed that renewable electricity represents a complete paradigm shift. Until now, the system’s net electricity balance has been achieved by adjusting power generation to its demand. However, in a renewable system, electricity generation is limited by and depends on environmental resources, so it cannot be sufficiently controlled to meet the demand at all times. Therefore, it is the electricity consumption that must be adjusted to generation. It was concluded that there are currently nine innovation sources that are redesigning the industry: renewable energy, energy storage systems, electric vehicles, Industry 4.0, smart grids, blockchain, distributed and selfconsumption generation, smart client, and demand side response. Moreover, it was found that system regulations established by governments, business sustainability plans, and open innovation by startups play key roles in the development of innovation.