The linear economic model, „take-make-use-dispose”, has been established in Austrian companies since the industrial revolution. The global climate crisis and the necessity of achieving climate targets are intensifying the pressure to transform the entire economic system. Circular Economy (CE) offers a sustainable and progressive solution to this pressing issue. Specifically, transitioning to a circular economy requires a transformation of the production and logistics systems. This entails optimizing and reshaping the entire material and information flow to establish a functioning circular economy.
The Austrian economy is predominantly comprised of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are significantly challenged by the CE transformation. The primary objective of this master’s thesis is to identify the success factors and challenges encountered by Austrian SMEs in the CE transformation, with a particular focus on the production and logistics system. The first section of this thesis comprises a state-of-the-art analysis, which is conducted as a systematic literature review (SLR) in the “Scopus” database by the PRISMA standards. The process involves the analysis of relevant studies based on their titles and abstracts, with the objective of categorising them based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. The studies are then subjected to a descriptive and content analysis to summarise the results in terms of internal and external success factors and challenges. Taking into account the previous literature research and categorization, seven expert interviews were conducted with professionals from the Austrian economic area. These interviews were then processed using content structuring and qualitative content analysis according to Kuckartz. The synthesis of the theoretical results from the SLR and the practical insights derived from expert interviews illustrates the fundamental internal and external success factors and challenges for SMEs in the transition of their production and logistics systems to CE. Through this synthesis, this master’s thesis makes a substantial contribution to supporting the transformation to a circular economy in Austrian SMEs.