3. Methods The study was carried out in collaboration with the main actors of the project, and external researchers, practitioners from retailers that work within circular business models and large fast fashion companies, and end-customers interested in remanufactured apparel. The study followed different methods for the three sub-studies. For the first two sub-studies, a mixed methods approach was taken, where the qualitative and quantitative data support each other, while in the third sub-study the focus is on analysing quantitative data for economic feasibility analysis.
3.1 Data collection and analysis The following sections describe the data collection and analysis specific to each of the sub-studies.
3.1.1 Business strategy implementation The sub-study follows a modified Delphi approach, where the systematic literature review is forming the foundation for identifying enabling conditions to transitioning towards circularity with remanufacturing as a business strategy. The Delphi method is a consensus development tool applicable in topics with limited evidence (Avella 2016), and the knowledge from a practical perspective from professionals working in the industry is relevant (Hsu and Sandford 2007). As Delphi has already been used by other researchers as a key method for identifying factors of business model transformation (Melynk et al. 2009), it was found to be applicable to this study, by using online surveys for data collection. The systematic literature review follows explicit criteria for article inclusion, to ensure a focus on the topic of this study, and quality of the data collected. ABI/INFORM was utilised as the primary database, and Science Direct and Scopus as secondary databases to improve the reliability of the data collected (Oghazi & Mostaghel 2018). The initial sample consisted of 129 peer-reviewed articles, of which 28 were selected based on analysing the abstract. The final sample from the literature review consisted of 12 articles, that were categorised after the aim, focus and used methods in order to obtain a descriptive analysis of each. The step was followed by categorisation of the collected data following a modified three-level model introduced by Kurilova-Palisaitiene et al. (2018), that is industry-level, system-level and process-level. The propositions, representing the enabling conditions and challenges for transitioning to circularity, were developed as an outcome of the key points presented under each category. The online survey was piloted for content validity, reliability and feasibility (Gill et al. 2013) to two externals, of which one of them had knowledge in the field investigated, and one with limited knowledge. The survey was delivered using SurveyMonkey, and included information about the purpose of the study. The first two rounds of the survey entailed the probability of the proposition, its impact on the industry, and desirability of the outcome, with controlled feedback provided to the participants in the second round. The third round offered the same controlled feedback from the first round, while focusing on ranking the propositions instead, in order to understand which of the propositions the participants thought were most relevant for transitioning towards circularity through remanufacturing.
11
Remanufacturing of deadstock and customer claims apparel
