Multinationals in Transnational Social Spaces and Communities:Circular Economy Transition in Global Value Chains

The circular economy (CE) transition has implications for economic and social relations in global value chains that links brands, suppliers, and circularity-related actors from the global North and the South. Much of the existing literature on MNEs and the transition to a CE tends to adopt an economic perspective with an MNE-centric approach considering them to be key protagonists pushing for a more circular economy. By doing so, those literatures tend to downplay how socio-economic relations amongst MNEs, and a broad range of other national and transnational actors, known as transnational social space (TSS), shape MNEs and their supplier’s effort to move towards a more circular economy system. Drawing on the concepts of TSS and transnational communities (TC) we examine how the multi-tier organisational and<br/>global stakeholders’ collective initiative complements MNEs effort to move their supply chains to a circular economy. Using two TSSs in Bangladesh’s apparel industry i.e. ‘Circular Fashion Partnership’ and ‘SWITCH2CE’, as embedded case studies, our study explores three emergent properties (i.e. drivers): (i) actors shared purposes, (ii) shared cognition and logics, and (iii)symbolic change and transformation that shape TSS’s effort to move MNEs supply chain towards a circular economy, potentially leading TSS to a TC. The TSS and TC concepts<br/>facilitate an embedded and contextualized view of MNEs, placing MNEs as one amongst a group of actors; instead of a central actor, who come together to work on a common, yet sometimes contested goal. We, thus, explore the ‘emergent properties’ of moves, by TSS, towards a circular economy in MNEs’ global supply chains; and thereby heed the call by Marano et al. (2024), and present an alternative perspective to IB literature to understand the<br/>multi-tier and multi-stakeholders collaboration in transitioning towards a CE.