Circular business strategy challenges and opportunities for Industry 4.0: A social media data‐driven analysis

Abstract

This study contributes to state-of-the-art circular business strategies (CBSs) for Industry 4.0 (I4.0) by designating the critical indicators since the advent of I4.0 and demonstrating the business challenges and opportunities for the global development of circularity-based operations. Social media big data-driven analysis is used to compare geographical regions, and suggestions are made to promote CBSs among regions. CBSs for I4.0 are receiving increasing attention, but a holistic viewpoint and an understanding of the indicators influencing their effective and successful implementation in each region are still lacking. To fill this gap, this study aims to determine the definitive CBS indicators for I4.0 and their opportunities and challenges across regions. As an enormous amount of multisource information is obtained from capitalizing on social media data analytics, firms can adopt social media data-driven analysis, including content analysis, normal distribution tests, and the entropy weight method, to detect opportunities and challenges connected with the transformation to a CBS for I4.0. There are 28 validated indicators from the original set of relevant hashtags. The results show that the top indicators with a high level of difference among world regions selected for further discussion include waste management, vanguard leadership, deep learning, strategy execution, and collaboration. The findings of this study are a reference for decision-makers to determine a suitable direction for CBS implementation, thus gaining sustainable competitive advantages.