Validation of the Measurement Scale for the Circular Economy: a proposal based on the precepts of innovation

Objective: This article is a research report that is part of a study that aims to build a measuring scale for circular economy business models based on the precepts of innovation and validation of the structural model. The report presented consists of the pre-validation of the research instrument, adopted as the stage of development and validation of the final scale of the research.

Method: The validation of the research instrument is part of the procedures adopted for refining and enabling the presentation of the final scale. The theoretical research analysis model consists of four constructs (Innovation, Resource Recovery, Circular Economy Business Models and Value Proposition), for which four questionnaires were created with a pool of 149 initial items.

Originality/Relevance: The relevance for carrying out the study is associated with the need to expand knowledge about the field of circular economy, based on valid and reliable metrics. The initiatives advance towards measuring circular economy indicators. However, the issue of constructing measurement scales remains obscure and subject to different concepts, which do not always converge. Therefore, this study bears a conceptual, theoretical and scientific advance in this field, by proposing the construction of a wide measuring scale in circular economy.

Results: The scale was applied to companies in the service sector. The questionnaire items were generated from systematic literature reviews focusing on circular economy, innovation and sustainability. 149 initial scale items were generated, distributed among the dimensions Business Models of Circular Economy, Resource Recovery, Innovation and Value Proposition. From the exploratory factor analysis, 48 scale items that did not present satisfactory factor loading were excluded. The questionnaires were applied to a total sample of 223 respondents, distributed into four groups.

Theoretical/methodological contributions: This article contributes to the field of circular economy and innovation by proposing the construction and validation of a measuring scale for circular economy and innovation. In a search performed in the Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, Emerald, Google Scholar, Wiley Online Library, Sage, Springer, Taylor and Francis and JSTOR databases, the existence of studies on the validation of scales in circular economy was revealed. The development of academic works in gray literature, including national and international dissertations and theses, with searches operated in the Google Scholar databases and in the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations, also did not allow us to identify works with the configuration of scale validation in circular economy in the broad sense.