We are pleased to highlight the doctoral work of Andrea Beye, a team member of the HEPHAESTUS project at Copenhagen Business School (CBS). His PhD research explores the concept of circular economy from a novel perspective, focusing on how it is experienced and enacted in practice.
In his thesis, “Circular economies as lived experiences of organizing sustainability: Towards an ethnographic sensibility in Circular Economy research,” Andrea Beye examines how circular economy is understood and implemented through everyday organizational practices. His work contributes to ongoing discussions by offering a critical and experience-based perspective on sustainability transitions.
Invitation for PhD defense
Andrea Beye
Circular economies as lived experiences of organizing sustainability
Towards an ethnographic sensibility in Circular Economy research
The thesis engages with the epistemic field of circular economy by examining and discussing lived experiences of circular economy as modes of organizing sustainably. It argues that the conceptual openness of circular economy produces plural and sometimes conflicting ways of knowing it, exposing both the limits and the implications of overarching definitions. Building on a critical review of dominant epistemic approaches, the thesis advances an alternative perspective of knowing circular economy centered on lived experience. Through three empirical studies, it shows that circular economy becomes situationally stabilized through heterogeneous and conflicting modes of organizing (un)sustainably, and that ethnographic sensibility is needed to address the lived experiences of circular economy.
Primary Supervisor:
Associate Professor Marius Gudmand-Høyer | Department of Business Humanities and Law | Copenhagen Business School
Secondary Supervisors:
Associate Professor Marta Gasparin | Department of Business Humanities and Law | Copenhagen Business School
Associate Professor Cristiana Parisi | Department of Accounting | Copenhagen Business School
Professor Juliana Hsuan | Department of Operations Management | Copenhagen Business School
Date: 7 May 2026
Time: 10:00 – 12:00
Online: /TEAMS