Master thesis in Sustainable Development 2021/16
Examensarbete i Hållbar utveckling
Re-commerce to ensure circularity
through social media
Saleh Arman
DEPARTMENT OF EARTH SCIENCES I N S T I T U T I O N E N F Ö R G E O V E T E N S K A P E R
Master thesis in Sustainable Development 2021/16
Examensarbete i Hållbar utveckling
Re-commerce to ensure circularity through social
media
Saleh Arman
Supervisor:
Cecilia Mark-Herbert
Copyright © Saleh Arman and the Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University. Published at Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University (www.geo.uu.se), Uppsala, 2021.
Table of contents
1. Introduction ... 1
1.1 Problem background ... 2
1.2 Aim and research scope………..2
1.3 Outline of the research………3
1.4 Delimitation of the research……….………3
2. Method ... 4
2.1 Literature review ... 4
2.1.1 Conducting bibliometric analysis……….……….5
2.2 Interview ………,……….……6
2.2.1 Planning, forming and conducting focus group interview ... 6
2.2.2 Tools used for focus group interview…….……….……….7
2.2.3 Thematic analysis……….………..7
2.3 Ethical aspects……….…………...………..8
3. Background empirics ... 9
3.1 Concept of circular economy, social media and re-commerce………..9
3.1.1 Concept of circular economy……….……….9
3.1.2 Concept of social media………13
3.1.3 Concept of re-commerce……….………..…14
3.2 Bibliometric analysis of circular economy and social media…………..…….………15
3.2.1 Performance analysis……….………15
3.2.2 Science mapping……….……...18
4. Conceptual framework ... 22
4.1 Social Practice Theory (SPT)………22
4.1.2 Materials block of SPT……….…….…24
4.1.3 Competences block of SPT……….……….……..24
5. Results ... 25
6. Discussions………32
6.1 Re-commerce practices for assuring circularity………..……….…..…32
6.2 Re-commerce practice model……….…………..33
7. Conclusions……….35
7.1 Limitations………....35
7.2 Contributions………35
7.3 Implications………..35
7.4 Suggestions for future research………..……….36
8. Acknowledgement……….36
Re-commerce to ensure circularity through social media
SALEH ARMANArman, S., 2021: Re-commerce to ensure circularity through social media. Master thesis in Sustainable
Development at Uppsala University, No. 2021/16, 57 pp, 30 ECTS/hp
Abstract:
Responsible consumption (SDG 12) practice is crucial to turn waste into zero and extending the usability of products through reusing from the consumer end helps to less dependent on virgin materials. People exchange second hand products which are fully functioned but not used anymore which is called re-commerce. Financial gain is not the issue but to utilize the usability of the product is significant in this aspect. This aspect is vital to establish the cradle-to-cradle system of ensuring circular economy philosophy. Re-commerce conducts in both physical and online marketplaces. Due to the ongoing Covid 19 pandemic, where physical marketplaces have limited capacity to accommodate clients, the online Customer to Customer (C2C) marketplaces have no such boundary to limit users. Facebook is considered the most popular re-commerce platform in today’s world due to their large number of users. The study selected Facebook as the unit of analysis to assess the re-commerce practice of Facebook users of Bangladesh to ensure circular economy. For doing the review of existing literatures, the study conducted bibliometric analysis of published research documents in social media and circular economy which were indexed at Scopus database. After conducting literature review, the study considered Social Practice Theory as the required conceptual framework. The study conveniently selected 26 Bangladeshi individuals who were familiar with re-commerce practice on Facebook and formed four focus groups based on product categories (electronics, furniture, jewelry and women’s attire) they dealt with. The study conducted focus group interview through Facebook Messenger and Zoom. The study conducted thematic analysis using NVIVO12 and developed a re-commerce practice on Facebook using the theoretical framework of Social Practice Theory. The study concluded that, re-commerce practice is vital to ensure the circular economy from the consumer end to encourage responsible consumption of making the future world sustainable. Keywords: Bibliometric Analysis, Facebook, Regenerative Economy, Social Practice Theory, Sustainable Development, Thematic Analysis.
Re-commerce to ensure circularity through social media
SALEH ARMANArman, S., 2021: Re-commerce to ensure circularity through social media. Master thesis in Sustainable
Development at Uppsala University, No. 2021/16, 57 pp, 30 ECTS/hp
Summary:
Responsible consumption (SDG 12) practice is crucial to turn waste into zero from the consumer end. Extending the usability of products through reusing from the consumer side helps to less dependent on virgin materials. Using virgin materials for producing different end products create countless carbon emission in each production step, degrade environment and being dependent on non-renewable natural resources. Although, an end user can’t control such thing as it is entirely depending on producers, but s/he could play a vital role of extending the usability of products through re-commerce, which means, exchanging unused but fully functioned products at the consumer level to make the demand of purchasing new product. Financial gain is not the issue but to utilize the usability of the product is significant in this aspect. This aspect is vital to establish the cradle-to-cradle system of ensuring circular economy philosophy. Re-commerce conducts in both physical and online marketplaces. Due to the ongoing Covid 19 pandemic, where physical marketplaces have limited capacity to accommodate clients, the online Customer to Customer (C2C) marketplaces have no such boundary to limit users. Facebook is considered the most popular re-commerce platform in today’s world due to their large number of users. The study selected Facebook as the unit of analysis to assess the re-commerce practice of Facebook users of Bangladesh to ensure circular economy. In order to conduct literature review, the study conducted bibliometric analysis of published research documents in social media and circular economy which were indexed at Scopus database. The study considered Social Practice Theory as the required theoretical framework. This theory considers every day and routine performance of social practices of mankind such as cooking meals, driving a car, washing clothes in washing machine, shopping behavior in an online marketplace or playing cricket. The study conveniently selected 26 Bangladeshi individuals who were familiar with re-commerce practice on Facebook and formed four focus groups based on product categories (electronics, furniture, jewelry and women’s attire) they dealt with. The study conducted focus group interview through Facebook Messenger and Zoom. The study used 6 phase model of thematic analysis. The study analyzed the information derived from focus group interviews through NVIVO12. After conducting developed a re-commerce practice on Facebook using the theoretical framework of Social Practice Theory. The study concluded that, re-commerce practice is vital to ensure the circular economy from the consumer end to encourage responsible consumption of making the future world sustainable.
Keywords: Bibliometric Analysis, Facebook, Regenerative Economy, Social Practice Theory, Sustainable Development, Thematic Analysis.
1
1.Introduction
This section introduces with the research background on re-commerce practice to ensure circular economy and how Facebook can play a role in making the responsible consumption practice at the country level. This section also contained the aim and research scope of the thesis project, research questions addressing to the re-commerce practice of Bangladesh using Facebook.
People use different kinds of products for satisfying their wants. For producing those products, producers from the different corners of the world use countless types of raw materials. In most of the cases, those materials are single-used and cannot be usable for multiple times. Sustainable development practitioners urge producers to limit using virgin materials but seldom the producers keep attention to their requests. Consumer involvement in creating the society of sustainable consumption gains attention to provide a solution to the problem. Behavioral pattern shift from single-ownership to multiple-single-ownerships of products is crucial to reduce the usage and demand of virgin materials in the long run. Addressing the sustainable consumption at the consumer level would help to establish a closed-loop of products which would facilitate waste reduction and resource utilization. Human deliberately engage in exchanging second hand products without knowing the fact that such activities have a positive impact on the planet. One’s unloved and unused product could be loveable and useful to other. Now, in the era of rethinking everything in sustainable ways, this second-hand product exchange movement is gaining momentum. People have both physical and online marketplaces to exchange second hand products and the invasion of social media make this process more popular and interactive. Like business promotion by entrepreneurs, any individual can use it for the purpose of buying and selling second hand products. Social media (SM) is now considering a popular place of re-commerce, a customer to customer (C2C) social commerce process of second-hand products, where both parties can interact at their own convenience to exchange their products. With the estimation of 42.3% world population in 2022 or about 3.29 billion users, social media is one of the defined technologies in the present time that gains people attention from all segment in the world (Appel et al., 2019, p. 79). From the statistics, it depicts that almost half of the world population would use social media in 2022 and its impact in different human activities cannot be denied at all. People are using social media for second hand product exchanging (buying and selling, product swapping, donating, sharing etc.) mainly on Facebook (marketplace, groups and pages). This exchange is called the reusing phase of circular economy at the consumer level in an alternative model of consumption (Korhonen et al., 2018). According to Ellen Macarthur Foundation, circular economy establishes on the principles of designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2021a). Circular Economy (CE) or the 3R principle: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle (Kirchherr et al., 2017) makes the product circular and cradle to cradle (Allwood, 2014; Minunno et al,. 2020;) and many scholars believe that Reusing is considered better than recycling due to extending product life, reducing waste, reducing production process, reducing carbon footprint associated with reproduction and enhancing the product utility (Demestichas and Daskalakis, 2020).
Sustainable development is assumed to be enhanced by well-developed use of social media (SM), as an enabling technology that supports the reuse of resources. Efficient usage of social media, as an enabling technology, in reusing resources is the key to ensure circularity of materials which could reduce all sort of negative externalities due to producing virgin materials and enhancing better greener and circular economy.
2
1.1 Problem Background
Social media let individual users sharing their digital content in different social media platforms with the principles of use of advertising in social media, attitudes about and exposure to advertising, targeting, User Generated Content (UGC) in advertising, electronic word of mouth in advertising, consumer-generated advertising, and further advertising effects (Chu et al., 2020). Social media also influencing in developing different agendas of SDGs in many ways (ElAlfy, 2020; Fathehkia et al. 2020). Facebook, the largest social media in the world (Statistica, 2021), establishes Facebook marketplace where users can post advertisements. In 2020, about 800 million people are using Facebook marketplace which can be availed either for free or for paying subscription and people are posting ads to sell their used but redundant products with ease by providing necessary information (Eaton, 2020). End consumer involvement in engaging reusing activities of circular economy is called “Re-commerce” coined by George F. Coloncy in his interview to New York Times in 2005 which means exchanging pre-owned goods (Gillil, 2019; New York Times 2005). In other words, it can be said that, re-commerce is a kind of Customer to Customer (C2C) commerce process where second hand items are traded by people which are not for the purpose of business. Effective end consumer involvement assures proper circular activity of customers and environmental concern of customers is the key to make the product offering green and less environmental impact and social media plays a significant role in developing green consciousness of customers (Apaydin et al., 2017; Pop et al., 2020; Tripathi and Bhattacharjee, 2016). The concept of Re-commerce and Facebook’s role in this concept is still under theoritized. So, research in this area would be beneficial to pave the way of ensuring better circular society of the world through ensuring a sophisticated, sustainable and interactive C2C business.
While using Facebook for doing re-commerce users encounter fraudulent activities and fake ads which is a concern of trust issues (Rais and Widodo, 2019; Wu et al., 2015). Different sorts of second-hand products advertisement are flooding on Facebook and it has been observed that transparency is the issue in product selling in different sorts of information like the origins of the product, purchasing price, present market value of the product, product condition, product valuation, mode of delivery and payment method. These negative things are creating barriers in doing Re-commerce activities of Facebook users which ultimately results hindrances in ensuring circular economy. Resolving those issues would make customers involved in more circular concerned. These problems need to be identified and resolved to make the Re-commerce offerings smoother, user friendly and transparent. The research would like to develop a model (Miller and Salkind, 2002) of re-commerce influence on circular economy through Facebook. The study considers Facebook because people are utilizing Facebook for their re-commerce activity.
1.2 Aim and Research Questions
The aim of this research project is to explain how social media may contribute to re-commerce practice in Bangladesh as part of assuring circular economy philosophy. As a unit of analysis, this research project has considered Facebook. The research has conducted thematic analysis of interviews that are conducted as focus groups and developed a model of how re-commerce practice can be influenced by Facebook to ensure circular economy.
The research questions of particular interest for this study are:
RQ 1: How users do re-commerce in Facebook?
RQ 2: How re-commerce process towards assuring circular economy can be framed in a theoretical
3
1.3 Outline of the research
The outline of the research is as follows:
3. Background empirics
1.Introduction 2.Method 4. Conceptual Framework 6. Discussion 7. Conclusions 5. Results
Fig 1. A presentation of the structure of the thesis report.
1.4 Delimitations of the research
Stating delimitations is setting up the boundary of the research and identification of inherited shortcomings while conducting the research to make it authentic and transparent (Chambers, 1960; Nederhof, 1991). In doing so, the study considered Facebook only in assessing Re-commerce activities by end consumers through Facebook Marketplace, different groups and pages located in Bangladesh. The study consulted different published scholarly papers. Also, the study observed social media activities in reusing products however it only limited to certain area-based marketplace and Facebook groups and pages.
As the unit of analysis, I only considered Facebook as a social medium and assessed the re-commerce behavior on it. In doing my bibliometric analysis, I only considered Scopus database because Scopus updates on daily basis.
The study considered Social Practice Theory in the conceptual framework of the research in re-commerce practice through Facebook in order to ensure circular economy. According to Reckwitz (2002), the Social Practice Theory (SPT) doesn’t consider individuals being the subject of analysis, e.g., re-commerce in ensuring circular economy through Facebook, but rather sees individuals as carriers of a practice, i.e., re-commerce practice in ensuring circular economy through Facebook. This theory considers ecologically damaging forms of consumption not as a problem of individual consumer behavior, but rather understand it as embedded within the prevailing practices (ibid). SPT considers the attention towards the ‘doing’ of various re-commerce practices (Hargreaves, 2011; Shove and Warde, 2002). In turn, the consumption of different products is related to the collective development of what people take to be ‘normal’ ways of life (Shove, 2012).
4
2. Method
This chapter discussed the qualitative methods of my research. For doing a literature review, I did bibliometric analysis and for analyzing the re-commerce practice I considered focus group interview method.
The researcher is influenced in selecting his or her research topic based on prior academic and/or work experience in order to strive objectivity, transparency and reflectivity (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2017). Every research has one or more methods; however, it contains trade off in choosing which method(s) should a researcher utilize (Bryman, 2014).
This study has qualitative research design in nature due to the flexibility throughout the thesis project and the researcher himself is the instrument of qualitative data collection (Male, 2015). The reason behind selecting qualitative research design is the nature of the thesis project because it explains the behavior of the social media users in re-commerce activities (Creswell, 2003; Flick 2021; Lowhorn, 2007) and based on that the research would like to develop a theory (Trochim, 2000) of social media in re-commerce towards Circular Economy.
In qualitative research, selection of the unit of analysis and unit of observation is important. A unit of analysis is the focus entity that a research wishes to say something about at the end of the study and a unit of observation is the item that you observe, measure, or collect while trying to learn something the unit of analysis (De Carlo, 2018; Torchim et al., 2006, Torchim, 2000). According to Trochim (2021), there are 5 types of units of analysis and unit of observation and based on that, social media is fall under social phenomena and each user of social media is the unit of observation. The research considered the users of Facebook as the unit of analysis to determine the Re-commerce behavior influenced by social media in achieving circular economy. In choosing Facebook, the researcher has considered its number of users, availability in re-commerce activities (Facebook Marketplace), user friendliness (easy to post advertisement), interactivity with associated social media with Facebook (Facebook Messenger, Instagram).
The study would consist two methods: i) Literature Review and ii) Interviews
2.1 Literature Review
Literature review is the process of collecting and synthesizing of previous research (Snyder 2019;
Tranfield et al., 2003) to develop a research theory (Snyder 2019; Tranfield et al., 2003). In conducting literature review, the study would follow systematic literature review for identifying and critically appraising relevant business research in the field of social media, circular economy, reusing in circular economy and different IoT intervention the systematic literature review would avail the feasible evidence, minimize research bias and derive reliable findings for drawing conclusions and making decisions (Davis et al., 2014; Snyder 2019).
According to Cronin et al. (2008), there are four types of literature review study: traditional or narrative, systematic, meta-analysis and meta synthesis. The study has followed the narrative literature review. Consultation, manual search and computer-based search are the three methods in conducting the Literature Review. Manual search has been conducted by looking back previous course materials, books and lecture sheets. Computer-based search has been conducted through searching on the Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar in order to conduct a bibliometric analysis on the topic of circular economy, social media and re-commerce. For conducting the bibliometric analysis, the research only considered the published documents at Scopus.
5
2.1.1 Conducting bibliometric analysis
According to Donthu et al. (2021, p. 285), scholars of different fields of study use bibliometric analysis
to uncover emerging trends in article and journal performance, collaboration patterns, and research constituents, and to explore the intellectual structure of a specific domain in the extant literature. The bibliometric methodology contains the application of quantitative techniques (i.e., bibliometric analysis—e.g., citation analysis) on bibliometric data (e.g., units of publication and citation) (Broadus, 1987; Donthu et al. 2021). Bibliometric analysis has two categories: (1) performance analysis which examines the contributions of research constituents to social media, circular economy and re-commerce through publication related metrics, citation related metrics and citation and publication related metrics. (2) science mapping which shows the relationships between research constituents by citation analysis, co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, co-word analysis and co-authorship analysis (Cobo et al., 2011; Donthu et al., 2021). These two categories have several metrics which I considered while conducting my bibliometric analysis (ibid). While conducting bibliometric analysis, I use the following formulas to calculate some metrics (ibid).
Table 1. Formulas of bibliometric analysis metrics
NAME OF METRICS FORMULA
Productivity per active year of publication (PAY) Total publications (TP) ÷ Number of active
years of publication (NAY)
Average citations (AC) Total citations (TC) ÷ Number of years
Collaboration index (CI) (NCA ÷ TP) ÷ TP
Here,
NCA = Number of contributing authors
Collaboration coefficient (CC) 1 – (TP ÷ NCA)
Proportion of cited publications (PCP) NCP ÷ TP
Here,
NCP = Number of cited publications
h-index (Hirsch, 2005) h number of publications of a discipline cite at
least h times
g-index (Egghe, 2006) g number of publications of a chosen discipline
receive at least g2 citations
i-10 index (Eldermire, 2021) i number of publications cited at least i times
6
For conducting literature review, reputed databases like, Scopus, Web of Science have been used by researchers (Antons et al., 2021). I used Scopus database to find out the relevant literatures of circular economy, social media and re-commerce. There are other popular databases, like, Web of science. However, I preferred Scopus database than Web of science because the former updates on the daily basis, whereas the latter updates on weekly basis (Joshi, 2014).
For doing the bibliometric analysis, I used the search key “Circular Economy” and “Social Media” on the Scopus database on May 29, 2021. I found 24 documents. I tried to incorporate “reuse”, “re-commerce”, “c2c” and “customer to customer social commerce” but couldn’t find any paper on the Scopus database (For screen dump, see Appendix 1.2). All documents were written in English and were on the final stage of publication.
2.2 Interview
The study follows naturalistic observation method (Cieselska et al., 2018) in seeing the user behavior in dealing with second hand items and their problems by observing different Re-commerce places on Facebook (Marketplace, Facebook Groups and Pages) located in Bangladesh.
The study conducted focus group interviews, consisting of six to seven members who have experience (Krueger and Casey, 2000; Rabiee, 2004) in using Facebook for Re-commerce, about identifying the factors influencing their Re-commerce behavior on Facebook, problems they encountered and their suggestion about technological intervention to decrease the problems.
2.2.1 Planning, forming and conducting focus groups interviews
I observed different Bangladeshi based second-hand product exchange Facebook groups. People exchanged lots of items through Facebook Re-commerce platforms, mostly which were not perishable items. In order to form focus groups of different product categories, I worked as a voluntary group moderator of two Bangladeshi based second hand item exchange groups named “Recycle Bin” (163k members) and “Swap” (145.5k members). There, I closely observed the Re-commerce behavior of members which helped me to identify the product category. For selecting my focus group participants, I used couple of steps. I identified my potential focus group members, who were at least 18 years of age, had active Facebook profile, were regular members of those groups, were exchanging items of at least 5 times as an either buyer or seller and maintained good interaction with other members. I developed rapport with many them by asking their reasons of selling and buying second hand items, exchanging process, their overall experience of dealing with others, any embarrassing situation, if any, they faced. As I was the moderator of those groups, so it was convenient for me to interact with them. They also shared with me their experience of exchanging second hand items.
In order to finally form the focus groups of my research, I approached 105 members who were regular members of those groups, who exchanged at least 5 products through Facebook and had good interactions with other members. I shared my expression of taking interviews online and asked at least 1 hour from their busy schedule. Most of them denied me because they didn’t want to be a part of a research due to, i) time constraints, ii) family restriction of not talking to strangers for a long time and iii) no idea about Re-commerce and Circular Economy. Moreover, I mostly got a negative response from male member and out of my 26 respondents of four focus groups, only two were male.
These four focus groups consist such 26 members who conduct both buying and selling products of at least 5 times. So, they had a clear-cut understanding about Re-commerce process on Facebook to ensure circular economy. Most of them have exchanging experience of more than one product category. For example, respondent J7 has experience in buying and selling second hand products of all categories considered by the research. But I request that respondent to take any product category
7
and that respondent take “Jewelry” as per convenience. However, I considered my focus group member limit within 6 to 7, so I also expressed my heartfelt request to a couple of my respondents to take a particular product category in order to fill up my focus group team. For the sake of interview, I requested them to take either a “buyer” or a “seller” role based on their own preference. After their choosing role, total 17 participants took the “buyer” role and 9 participants took the “seller” role. On the basis of the positive responses from my target population to be the part of focus groups, I have formed four focused groups based on the category of products which are given below:
Table 2. Focus Groups (FG) at a glance
NUMBER PRODUCT CATEGORY CONTENTS OF PRODUCT CATEGORY MEMBERS MEMBER S’ CODES BUYER ROLE SELLER ROLE FG 1 Electronics
(E) Electronic e.g., cellphone, items, television etc. 6 E1, E2, E3, E4, E5, E6. E2, E3, E4, E6 E1, E5 FG 2 Furnitures (F)
Chair, table, bed etc. 6 F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6
F1, F3, F4, F5, F6
F2 FG 3 Jewelry (J) Ethnic jewelry items
of Bangladesh, e.g., bangles, ear ring, pendant etc.
7 J1,J2,J3,J
4,J5,J6,J7 J1, J3, ,J5, J6 J2, J7 J4, FG 4 Women’s
Attire (W)
Ethnic dresses, e.g., Salwar Kameez, Saree and western outfit. 7 W1,W2,W 3,W4,W5, W6,W7 W2,W3, W4, W6, W1,W, W7 n = 26 17 9
All interviewees in the four focus groups were Bangladeshi and lived in Bangladesh. They usually spoke in Bangla. While participating, they used both Bangla and English in discussion. While asking about the definition Re-commerce, Circular Economy and Social Media in their own point of view, they gave answers in English which made me easy to transcribe and coding. I wrote their full responses in English on Microsoft word files. Those word files were used in my further analysis.
2.2.2 Tools used for focus group interview
The ongoing pandemic doesn’t let me to conduct focus group interviews on face-to-face basis. I conducted focus group interviews online. All focus group interviews lasted one and half hour. I used ZOOM. They spoke Bangla and I wrote their responses in English on Microsoft word document. I used those word documents in NVIVO 12 for doing thematic analysis of Re-commerce behavior. According to Braun and Clarke (2006), thematic analysis is a popular method of analyzing qualitative data and I followed the recommendations for a theoretical thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006; p. 84) to assess the re-commerce behavior on Facebook from Social Practice Theory perspective (with inspiration from Hess et al. 2018).
2.2.3 Thematic Analysis
According to Braun and Clarke (2006), thematic analysis has six interconnected phases. Phase 1 is data familiarization which is the interpretative qualitative methodology (Bird, 2005: 227), and
8
recognized as an interpretative act, where analysis to the research question and literature, producing a scholarly report of the analysis. Using thematic analysis this data familiarization provides spoken sounds on paper (Lapadat and Lindsay, 1999). According to Braun and Clarke (2006, p.88), the time spent in transcription is very productive, as it informs the early stages of analysis, and the researcher will develop a far more thorough understanding of his or her data through having transcribed it. Re-commerce, circular economy and Facebook are integral concepts of my research works and these words are connected in the respondents’(n=26) responses of four focus groups. While conducting the interviews, I transcribed their verbal responses into written way on Microsoft Word documents. I used separate word document for each respondent. As I didn’t collect their personal information for ensuring anonymity, I provided unique codes to all of my respondents. For example, a member of Focus Group 1 – Electronics, has identified as E1. Their responses were well connected with my key concepts and it is important to know the connectedness of these concepts throughout the respondents’ talks. Phase 2 is generating codes from the focus group interview texts (Braun and Clarke, 2006, p.88). On the primary stage, I generated 80 codes from the texts by NVIVO 12. After that, I merged some codes into one and finally, I considered 18 codes for doing my thematic analysis (See Table 8 in result chapter). Phase 3: searching themes, phase 4: reviewing themes and phase 5 naming themes were done by considering three blocks of Social Practice Theory (SPT), i.e., meanings, materials and competences (Shove et al., 2012). The last phase is the discussion of thematic analysis in the light of SPT.
2.3 Ethical Aspects
I didn’t take any personal information from any interviewee. I ensured their anonymity. Instead, I used an unique code for each of my respondents. Also, I didn’t consider anybody who had any personal relationship with me, e.g., my family members who always love to exchange second hand items only for environmental purpose, but I didn’t consider them for the sake of avoiding any personal influence in my research. Due to ongoing Covid19 pandemic, the interview was conducted online. I wrote their responses on word file instantly and didn’t record our audio and video conversation for ensuring the utmost anonymity of my respondents.
I was fully aware of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) | IT Governance Sweden, 2021). Although, I stayed and conducted interviews of Bangladeshi Facebook users regarding re-commerce practices in ensuring circularity, but as a student of Uppsala University, I was bound to comply with GDPR. For this reason, I didn’t collect and store any personal information from any respondent. Before starting each interview, I showed the GDPR acts related to my research, regarding data collection, analysis, report writing and presentation. This regulation helped me a lot to gain trust from my respondents.
9
3. Background Empirics
This chapter discussed the published works on the concepts of circular, economy, social media and re-commerce in SCOPUS indexed journals. Bibliometric analysis has been conducted based on the Scopus indexed papers on those concepts. The last check of those papers on Scopus was May 29, 2021.
3.1 Concept of circular economy, social media and re-commerce
Circular economy and social media are growing trends of research among scholars. These fields are multidisciplinary in nature, i.e., these fields gain attention to scholars of different school of thoughts (e.g., computer science, earth and planetary sciences, business and economics and so on) which reflects on the Scopus database while searching documents on those areas. Re-commerce, however, a little-known term which has only 2 papers (published in 2009 and 2016). On the Scopus database: Total number of papers on Circular Economy up to May 29, 2021: 99446
Total number of papers on Social Media up to May 29, 2021: 10118 Total number of papers on Re-commerce up to May 29, 2021: 2 I have given the screen dumps of those information in Appendix 1.
Based on the data derived from the Scopus database publications, I made the following bar chart showing the 5-year publication statistics on Circular Economy and Social Media.
Fig 2. Publications in Scopus on the topic of circular economy and social media (2017-2021).
From figure 1, it showed that, both series had upward trends of publication which means these fields are popular in the present time. New thoughts, like re-commerce, would be a perfect inclusion in this aspect of keeping this momentum high.
3.1.1 Concept of circular economy
Although, a popular concept in the different fields of study based on Scopus database, Circular Economy (CE) has been creating an enormous appeal for a long time due to its multidisciplinary
2017 2018 2019 2020 1-1-2021 to 29-5-2021 Circular Economy 752 1268 2008 2944 1819 Social Media 10450 12476 14282 18228 7567 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 No o f p ub lic at io ns Year
Year-wise Publication on Circular Economy and Social Media
10
nature. The origin of this concept is unknown, however, early practitioners of different fields contributed in multifaceted ways which were found similar with the circular economy concept (Winans et al. (2017). As it is a multidisciplinary in nature, the concept of CE is quite vast. In order define the concept of Circular Economy, I would like to quote the definition provided by Kirchherr et al.(2017) who analyzed 114 definitions of Circular Economy. According to them, Circular Economy is a distinctive economic system which replaces the traditional ‘end-of-life’ concept with extensive applications of reducing, alternatively reusing, recycling and recovering materials in production/distribution and consumption processes which can be connoted as ‘cradle-to-cradle’ by Mcdonough and Braungart (2002). They further stated that, this economic system can successfully operate at the different levels like, micro level (products, companies, consumers), meso level (eco-industrial parks) and macro level (city, region, nation and beyond), in order to accomplish sustainable development, thus simultaneously creating environmental quality, economic prosperity and social equity, to the benefit of current and future generations (ibid). This economic system transforms the societal production-consumption systems that maximizes the service produced from the linear nature-society-nature material and energy throughput flow and creates a win-win situation for emphasizing positive impact on economic, environment and social dimensions (Korhonen et al.,2018; p. 38). CE is considered as the dual-loop regenerative system which focuses on the effective and efficient utilization of resources in the ecosystem, that is valuable to the optimization environmental and economic performance (Alhawari et al.,2021). Dual CE initiatives allow firms to increased resource eco-efficiency, as well as resource effectiveness. According to Korhonen et al. (2018; pp. 37-39), circular economy can synonymously be discussed in the following manners and based on their discussion I prepared the following table (Table 2) with consulting more literatures:
Table 3. Synonymous use of terms to capture the concept of circular economy
SYNONYMOUS
TERMS DEFINITION SOURCE NO. OF SCOPUS
DOCUMENTS Eco-efficiency Eco- efficiency is a ratio of some measure
of economic value added to some measure of environmental impact. The higher the value added, the more efficient is the use of environmental services. Miranda de Souza et al. (2021); Saber et al. (2021); Xue et al. (2021) 2967
Eco-intensity Eco intensity calculates the environmental impact divided by the economic benefit generated by an economic activity.
Giraldo-García & Hernández-Hernández (2020); Zabelina (2021) 21
Ecolonomy Ecolonomy envisions the world of human businesses from the perspective of considering the economy is a living entity created by the human being, as a skill-answer to the nature's "graspingness".
Popescu et al., (2017); Wilkinson (1997) 4 Industrial ecosystem
… an industrial system where the actors use each other's waste material and energy as resources and in doing so, it would be possible to minimize the system virgin material and energy input, as well as
Burström et al. (2021); Morris et
al. (2021); Soto et al. (2021)
11 the waste and emission output. Industrial
ecology
Industrial Ecology is a systemic,
comprehensive, integrated view of all the components of the industrial economy and their relations with the biosphere.
Coenen et al. (2021); Morris et al., (2021); Ogunmakinde et al. (2021) 3430 Industrial
metabolism Industrial Metabolism says about the materials and energy flows circulation which extensively linked to human activity, from their initial extraction to their
inevitable reintegration, sooner or later, into the overall biogeochemical cycles.
Ayres (1989); Erkman, (1997); Zhou et al., (2013) 204 Industrial
symbioses Industrial Symbioses are the collective approaches to competitive advantage involving physical exchange of materials, energy, water and byproducts.
Thani & Al-Ansari (2021); Bin et al., (2015); Chertow and Ehrenfeld, (2012); 1227 Cleaner
production Cleaner production is the combination of two types of goals: low cost (e.g., improvement of management system, employees' environmental
conscientiousness) and high cost
(redesigning the production process, using cleaner energy) goals to achieve the sustainability of the production process.
Fresner (1998); Kjaerheim (2005); Korhonen et al., (2018) 3841 Circular
materials flows …. ways of thinking relating circulation and storage of high-quality valuable materials in regenerative ways. Gonçalves et al. (2021); Haas et al. (2015) 19
Cradle-to-Cradle Cradle-to-Cradle models human industry on nature's processes, where materials are viewed as nutrients circulating in healthy, safe metabolisms. Braungart and McDonough (2002); Braungart et al.(2012) 484 Regenerative
system The system strives to make the end result is ‘plus ultra’ – a surplus that can be used at other transect scales or bartered in some manner outside the community.
Alhawari et al. (2021) ;Cole (2012); Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2021b) 606 Restorative system
.. To store various materials to a previous state in an improved condition.
Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2021b);
Morseletto (2020) 406
12
Capitalism 3.0 Capitalism 3.0 is intentional and inclusive ecosystem economy that upgrades the capacity for collaboration and innovation across all sectors and systems.
Scharmer (2010) 1
Redistributed manufacturing system (rdm)
RdM is shift from ‘centralised’ to ‘decentralised’ production system by technological advances which constitute a reversal of conventional production process logic. Haddad & Salonitis (2018) ;Moreno and Charnley (2016) 2
Biomimicry Biomimicry is the imitation of natural models, systems, processes and other elements in pursuit of solving complex human problems. Benyus (2002); Mathews (2021) 1714 Social-ecological system resilience
…incorporates the idea of adaptation, learning and self-organization in addition to the general ability to persist disturbance.
Li et al., (2020); Tidball & Krasny (2011)
47
The
performance economy
The performance economy strives to generate more growth and more jobs in combination with substantially reduced resource consumption.
Blomsma (2018); Clube & Tennant (2020)
24
Natural
capitalism Natural capitalism eliminates the concept of waste, shifts focus on the creation of service and flow, reverse the planetary destruction and properly value the ecosystem services. Lovins et al. (2018); Sariatli (2017) 48 Net zero
emission .. promotes energy system that does not add any CO2 to the atmosphere.
Davis et al. (2018); Di Bartolo
et al. (2021)
228
From Table 2, it can be said that, circular economy concept is well recognized in diverse disciplines from scholars in focusing the waste minimization, life cycle extension and reduction of materials used in the production process According to Potting et al. (2017, pp. 14-17), there are 10 R’s, which are called circular economy strategies, that are vital for transitioning towards circular economy. The 10Rs are as follows in chronological order: R0: Refuse, R1: Rethink, R2: Reduce, R3: Reuse, R4: Repair, R5: Refurbish, R6: Remanufacture, R7: Repurpose, R8: Recycle and R9: Recover. According to them (p. 16), reuse phase of circular economy in the production chain is used both in consumer phase with the distribution chain of second-hand items and in the forms of refill in the manufacturing process. I would like to consider the reuse phase of circular economy in the consumer phase for my research purpose.
13 3.1.2 Concept of social media
Human is a social being and they incorporate technological means to communicate each other. Social media are designed to facilitate engagement between individuals not limited to any geographical boundaries. In doing so, social media is the latest phenomenon of interaction among people through virtual connected network, called social networking sites (Leonardi et al.,2013; Obar and Wildman 2015). From the Scopus database, it has been seen that, research in social media is a multidisciplinary in nature and often synonymous to the following terms (Table 3).
Table 4. Synonymous terms used when talking about of social media
SYNONYMOUS
TERMS DEFINITION LITERATURE SUPPORT NO. OF SCOPUS
DOCUMENTS Computer
supported social networks (CSSN)
Computer supported social networks (CSSNs) link people and machines. They become social networks.
Aichner et al. (2021); Wellman (1996) 13 Online social networking services
Online social networking services are Internet websites that allow individuals to learn about and communicate with others. It enables people to post their opinions and sentiments about anything in the form of short text messages.
Dong et al. (2019); Kothandan & Murugesan (2021); Xu et al. (2020) 182 Social networking sites (SNS)
Social networking sites (SNS) are online community that relies on user contributions, e.g., connects and presents people based on information gathered about them, as stored in their user profiles. Cunningham et al. (2021); Saleem et al., (2021); Wang et al. (2021) 1200
Social web sites Social Web Sites allows users to stay connected with their friends, discover new “friends,” and to share user-created contents, such as photos, videos, social bookmarks, and blogs.
Baghdadi (2016); Ganesan, et al. (2021); Zhou et al. (2021) 105 Social media
platforms Social Media Platforms is used for communicating with peers or collecting and organizing resources coming either from the Web or from any third-party repository. Bucher and Helmond, (2018); Pasquini, et al. (2021) 8156 Virtual
communities Virtual communities can be defined as groups of people with common interests and practices that communicate regularly and for some duration in an organized way over the Internet through a common location or mechanism Aichner et al. (2021); González-Anta (2021); Xun et al. (2021); Yang (2021) 5234
Web 2.0 Web 2.0 platforms such as YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter that focus on data sharing, communication, community, and co-production.
Lieponienė (2021); Pathak et al. (2021)
14485
As shown in Table 3, social media is a well-known phenomenon in the era of internet where people love to connect in virtual place. Facebook is the most popular social media all over the world (except
14
the restricted countries and territories) based on user statistics and as of January 2021, the total users of Facebook was 2.740 billion, followed by YouTube (2.291 billion users) (Statistica, 2021). According to Oberlo (2021), there were estimated 3.78 billion social media users as of January 2021. They (Oberlo, 2021) also said that, 91% of the social media users avail social media sites using mobile devices.
3.1.3 Concept of re-commerce
Re-commerce practices have been seen for a long time in exchanging and reselling used products (e.g., electronic devices, clothes, furniture, books) on physical (e.g., in the street markets or in a shopping mall) and virtual marketplaces (like, Amazon, Olx). A complete definition of re-commerce has been provided by George F. Colony (2005), who said that, re-commerce or reverse commerce is the selling of previously owned, new or used products, mainly electronic devices or media such as books, through physical or online distribution channels to buyers who repair, if necessary, then reuse, recycle or resell them. The synonymous term of re-commerce provided in Table 4.
Table 5. Synonymous terms used for the concept of re-commerce
SYNONYMOUS
TERMS DEFINITION LITERATURE SUPPORT NO. SCOPUS OF
DOCUMENTS Reverse Logistics Reverse logistics activities include
collection, inspection/separation, re-use, remanufacturing, recycling, redistribution and disposal.
Alshamsi and Diabat (2015); Bal and Satoglu (2018); Fu et al.(2021); Ogunmakinde et al. (2021)
3782
Reverse
Commerce In reverse commerce model, it is the customer who will call for a purchase. i.e., the supply comes before demand.
Bal and Satoglu (2018); Chu et al. (2021); Laskowski and Poszewiecki (2015)
1
Re-ecommerce Re-ecommerce is a practice of purchasing and selling of old goods in an e-commerce platform, e.g., Amazon, Flipkart etc.
Pahwa (2020) 0
Customer-to-customer E Commerce
Customer-to-customer (C2C) model allows customers to exchange goods or services, and get their money through fully or
partly direct
transactions and depends on mediate companies.
Huynh et al. (2020); Joshi & Kumar (2020); Libai et al., (2010); Gruen et al.(2006)
14
Reverse
Marketplace In reverse marketplace, the buyers place ads for products they wish to buy, and sellers then make offers to sell.
Arora et al. (2007); Pahwa (2020) 1
From the discussion presented in Table 4, it can be said that, re-commerce is the process of exchanging fully functioned used product at the consumer level. In the case of not available publication at Scopus
15
database, I searched on Google Scholar and found the relevant peer review publications. Both physical and digital marketplaces are popular all over the world. The study focused only on the re-commerce practice in Facebook. It can be considered a typical form of customer-to-customer F commerce for using of Facebook as a platform for facilitating and executing sales transactions (Leung et al., 2018).
3.2 Bibliometric analysis of circular economy and social media
3.2.1 Performance analysis
For conducting publication related metrics of doing performance analysis, the overall publication related information is needed, i.e., year of publications, documents affiliation, author affiliation, country and territory etc. (Donthu et al.,2021).
Up to May 29, 2021, there are 24 research documents on CE and SM at Scopus (See Appendix 1.2). Year wise publication data provided in Figure 3:
Fig 3 Publications in Scopus on the topic of circular economy and social media (2017-2021).
From Figure 3, it can be seen that, publications that cover both social media and circular economy had 24 documents and the graph represented the upward trend from 2018. On Scopus, the number of active year (NAY) is 5, i.e., from 2017 to 2021. The 2021 bar represented the publication data of up to May 29, 2021.
The formula of productivity per year of publication (PAY) is TP ÷ NAY (Donthu et al., 2021) and by following this formula, the PAY is 24 ÷ 5 = 4.8.
Publications in the areas of circular economy and social media were multidisciplinary, ranging from computer science to earth and planetary science. The publication based on subject area have provided in Figure 4. 0 10 20 30 0 5 10 15 20 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 Cu m ul at ive N um ber Nu m be r o f P ub lic at io ns Publication Year
Yearwise Publication
Series2 Series316
Fig 4. Scopus database publication based on subject area up to May 29, 2021
Figure 4 showed the diversity of circular economy and social media and specialists of these subject areas consider CE and SM
There were three types of documents found where circular economy and social media were discussed. That information provided on Table 5.
Table 6. Different types of documents on Scopus database up to May 29, 2021
DOCUMENT TYPE NUMBER OF
PUBLICATIONS PERCENTAGE
Conference Review 9 37.5%
Article 8 33.3%
Conference Paper 7 29.2%
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, a book series, had published 9 documents covering social media and circular economy. Journal of cleaner production had 2 documents. Rest of them, e.g., bioresources, business strategy and the environment had 1 document each.
There are 10 papers which have more than one author, that is called co-authored publications (CA). And, there are 8 papers which have only one author, that is, single authored publications (SA). On Scopus, there are 33 contributing authors (NCA) who published their research papers in different Scopus indexed journals, either individually (SA) or jointly (CA), had 1 publication each. Figure 4 represented the information of up to 15 documents.
13 9 7 6 3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1
Publication based on subject area
Computer Science Mathematics
Environmental Science
Business Management and Accounting Energy
Engineering Social Science
Economics, Econometrics and Finance Agricultural and Biological Sciences Chemical Engineering
Decision Sciences
Earth and Planetary Sciences Physics and Astronomy
17
Fig 5. Documents by authors in alphabetical order (up to 15 authors)
In terms of research affiliation, there were 27 institutions regarding circular economy and social media. University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius leads the list of 2 documents.
The name of 14 countries, according to Scopus, have been found based on author’s location and affiliation place. Slovakia had 4 research publications in CE and SM, followed by France and Italy (2 documents each). Rest of the country had one. The documents by country list presents below:
Fig 6. Documents by country/territory
For analyzing citation-related metrics (ibid), the total number of citations (TC) and average citations (AC) is needed. The paper entitled “Sustainable consumption in the circular economy. An analysis of consumers’ purchase intentions for waste-to-value food” authored by Coderoni S. and Perito M.A. (2020) has 34 citations. The next position hold by Camacho-Otero et al. (2019)’s “User acceptance and adoption
18
of circular offerings in the fashion sector: Insights from user-generated online reviews” has 12 citations. The AC score per year of both papers is: (34/2) = 17 and (12/3) =4
Results of Citation-and-publication-related metrics are as follows (Donthu et al.,2021; Elango, 2012). Table 7. Results of Citation-and-publication-related metrics
METRICS INTERPRETATION RESULT
Collaboration index The extent of collaboration of circular economy and social media.
0.06 Collaboration
coefficient (CC) Measures the strength of collaboration among the authors who contributed to the circular economy and social media literature 0.94
Number of cited
publications (NCP) At least one citation attracted by a paper on circular economy and social media in another Scopus publication. 8
Proportion of cited
publications (PCP) Share of cited publications on circular economy and social media among total publications. 0.33
Citations per cited publication (CCP)
Total citations of NCPs on circular economy and social media. 66
The Hirsch index or h-index (Hirsch, 2005) is 4, that is, four papers has been achieved at least 4 citations (See Appendix 2 for h-index graph). The g-index (Egghe, 2006) is 2, that is, 2 papers has received citation at least 4 or more papers. The i10-index indicates the number of academic
publications an author has written that have been cited by at least ten sources (Google Scholar,
2011). The i10 index is 2.
3.2.2. Science Mapping
Citation analysis enables the most influential publications in citation (Donthu et al.,2021) and the following map shows the most citation as per the h-index.
Fig 7. Citation analysis of the most cited papers on CE and SM based on h-index.
The green circle is the biggest amongst all which represents that paper has the most citations. Here, the paper entitled “Sustainable consumption in the circular economy. An analysis of consumers’ purchase intentions for waste-to-value food” written by Coderoni and Perito (2020) has received 34 citations in Scopus. The next one is Camacho-otero et al. (2019), that received 12 citations in Scopus which is blue circle. Papers authored by Giudice et al. (2020) (red circle) and Strothman and Sonneman
19
(2017) (yellow circle) received 5 citations each.
The next figure (Figure 8) shows the co-citation network, two publications of social media and circular economy are connected when they co-occur in the reference list of another publication (ibid).
Fig 8. Co-citation network based on source
Figure 8 showed three sources whose have at least 10 citations and food policy shared co-citation with journal of cleaner production and international journal of consumer studies.
The next diagram (Figure 9) shows the bibliographic coupling, which concentrates on two publications sharing common references are also similar in their content.
20
The paper written by Grover and Kar (2020) entitled “Mining the Social Discussions Surrounding Circular Economy: Insights from the Collective Intelligence Shared in Twitter” shared common references with Pitti et al. (2020) and Urminova and Kosa (2020).
In order to do the co-word analysis of the important keywords of the literatures on circular economy and social media (Donthu et al.,2021), I prepare the following cluster where the significant keywords related to social media and circular economy were co-appeared. Figure 10 considers such keywords which appeared at least 2 times.
Fig 10. Co-word analysis
From the network analysis above, it showed that, there were 4 clusters represented 4 different colors. Circular Economy had the largest links and the biggest circle (13 occurrences) amongst others, followed by social media (9 occurrences), social networking (online) (7 occurrences) and sustainable development (7 occurrences). This co-word analysis also shows that, circular economy is the most frequently used in the selected 24 documents and has close relationship with other words.
Co-authorship analysis determines the interactions among scholars in social media and circular economy (ibid). The next figure determines the co-authorship of different papers which has at least 5 citations.
21
Fig 11. Co-author analysis of social media and circular economy
However, this figure doesn’t show any interaction among those co-author clusters, meaning that, there is no cross-collaboration.
Bibliometric analysis helps to touch upon the concepts of social media and circular economy provides analytical aspects over descriptive discussions through visual interpretation. It also helps to identify the core research themes by showing the connectivity in different themes related to circular economy and social media that would be a great input for conducting further analysis.
22
4. Conceptual Framework
This chapter has discussed Social Practice Theory (SPT) as the conceptual framework. This theory has three blocks: meanings, materials and competences which are the central themes of my analysis. Detailed explanation of each block of SPT has been provided with scholarly references.
Theories in a study are formulated to explain a phenomenon (re-commerce) and, in many cases, to challenge and extend existing knowledge within the limits of critical bounding assumptions (Labaree, 2013). The research would develop the theoretical framework of influential factors of Facebook in re-commerce practices to promote the overall circular economy activities. The behavioral pattern of Facebook users towards exchanging second hand products at the consumer level is considered crucial to ensure circular economy philosophy from the consumer end. For developing theories related to re-commerce in social media, the study considers the Social Practice Theory (SPT) used by Shove, Pantzar and Watson (2012). The Social Practice Theory (SPT) doesn’t consider individuals of a particular territory being the subject of analysis, e.g., re-commerce in ensuring circular economy through Facebook, but rather sees individuals as carriers of a practice, i.e., re-commerce practice in ensuring circular economy through Facebook.
4.1 Social Practice Theory
Social Practice Theory (SPT) is a widely popular theory of assessing behavioral aspects in a societal framework (Hargreaves, 2011). This theory considers every day and routine performance of social practices of mankind such as cooking meals, driving a car, washing clothes in washing machine, shopping behavior in an online marketplace or playing cricket. The practice itself, rather than the individuals who perform them or the social structures that surround them, thus becomes the core unit of analysis. According to Giddens (1986), “the basic domain of study of the social sciences... is neither the experience of the individual actor, nor the existence of any form of societal totality, but social practices ordered across space and time.” (p.2). From this perspective, anti- or pro-environmental actions, and more or less sustainable patterns of consumption, are not seen as the result of individuals’ attitudes, values and beliefs constrained by various contextual ‘barriers’, but as embedded within and occurring as part of social practices (Hargreaves, 2011, p. 82).
According to Shove et al. (2012), various social practices is seen as part of ‘the routine accomplishment of what people take to be ‘‘normal’’ ways of life’. According to Dunlap et al. (2001), Social practice theory considerably diverts attention away from moments of individual decision making, and towards the ‘doing’ of various social practices and the inconspicuous consumption. This theory connotes that, these engagements with practices that individuals come to understand the world around them and to develop a more or less coherent sense of self (Hargreaves, 2011, p. 82; Warde, 2005).
According to Warde (2005), the source of change behavior lies in the development of practice themselves. Writings from the Warde (2005), Hargreaves (2011) and Shove et al. (2012) found that, sustainable consumption of preferring fully functioned second hand products than using new products is not depending on educating people to take different decisions, rather transforming practices is crucial in this aspect.
The model of Social Practice Theory provided by Shove, Pantzar and Watson (2012) is mentioned in Figure 12.
23
Fig 12. Social Practice Theory by Shove, Pantzar and Watson (2012, p.14)
Previous literatures of SPT showed that, historical narratives and technological developments (Shove, 2003), social relations (Gram-Hanssen, 2008), consumption behavior (Hess et al. 2018), green practice (Lamond and Everett, 2019) and individual circumstances (Spotswood et al. 2015). I adopted this theory in analyzing the re-commerce practice of Facebook users of Bangladesh. The detailed discussion of SPT elements provided below:
4.1.1 Meaning Block of SPT
The first block is meaning which consisted of norms, values and wants (Hess et al 2018). According to Shove et al. (2003; 2012), meaning represents the social and symbolic significance of participation at any one moment. Meaning refers to the concept of habitus, which considers that understandings about significance are shared amongst a group, and thus bring the group together. Meanings are specifically directed towards a behaviour or thing (Spotswood, 2015). As Shove et al. (2012) explain, ‘‘theories of practice emphasize tacit and unconscious forms of knowledge and experience through which shared ways of understanding and being in the world are established’’ (p. 12). This explanatory meaning takes the form of an in-built and unreflective sense of what behaviors are ‘right’ or ‘fitting’ towards a particular social practice, i.e., re-commerce practice in Bangladesh (Rettie et al., 2012). A significantly strong concept related to this sense that a practice can be considered ‘right’ is the significance of the number of practitioners routinely performing the practice. If people do not engage with a practice and do not see others engaging with it, they come to understand the world as a place where the practice does not ‘fit’.
Social norms play vital roles in the behavior on social media by the users Hynes and Wilson, (2016); Kim et al. (2015); Marino et al. (2020). According to Reese et al. (2019), social norms are rules of behavior which are being informed by group members how to construe a given situation, how to feel about it, and how to behave in it. Users of Facebook do re-commerce activities in different Facebook groups and the admin panels of those groups set regulations of how to give a sell post. The social norms of those Facebook re-commerce groups are: product name, product description, reasons for selling, picture of products, information about damage (if any), price and mode of delivery (Cash on delivery). Potential buyers get an idea about the product that a seller intends to sell in a group and
MATERIALS Infrastructure and socio
demographic factors MEANINGS
Norms, Values, Wants
COMPETENCES Knowledge, Skills
24 approach it accordingly.
Values are guiding principles in a person’s life and influence a range of beliefs, attitudes, and actions (Ahmad et al., 2020; Schwartz 2012; Stella et al. 2019). Based on the social norms discussed by Stel;a et al. (2019), users of Facebook believe the authenticity of posts. That means, members of a re-commerce group, who give the information as per the rules set by the admins, generally gain positive beliefs among potential customers and they attract more customers than those who don’t give the proper information on the sell post.
According to Hess et al. (2018), wants, desires and intentions are practice specific which denote the degree of certain materials, outcomes, and processes are important to a person, and thus, can explain individual variations in the performance of practices.
4.1.2 Materials Block of SPT
In Social Practice Theory, ‘materials’ are not just communicators of symbolic meaning (Warde, 2005), status or identity (Shove & Pantzar, 2005), but are often ‘‘directly implicated in the conduct and reproduction of daily life’’ (Shove & Pantzar, 2005, p. 44). However, ‘‘products alone have no value. They do so only when integrated into practice and allied to requisite forms of competence and meaning’’ (Shove & Pantzar, 2005, p. 57). All three elements must exist for the performance of the practice. Materials are objects, infrastructures, tools, hardware, and the body itself (Hess et al. 2018). Devices of social media (e.g., PC or Mobile), internet connection, availability of courier service, convenient payment service are important materials of operating re-commerce activities. Also, socio-demographic factor played a role in this aspect. For example, a particular buyer, whose income is low, want to purchase a second-hand product because s/he doesn’t effort a new product due to financial constraint.
4.1.3 Competence Block of SPT
According to Shove (2003), competence means knowledge and skill of a particular issue. ‘Competences’ refer to ‘embodied knowledge’, like the concept of re-commerce, circular economy and Facebook. Shove et al. (2003) describe competences as ‘‘multiple forms of understanding and knowledgeability’’ (p. 23) and use the shorthand of ‘skills’ to denote that this type of knowledge is required for the carrier to ‘succeed’ at the performance of the practice.
According to Hess et al. (2018) and Tobler et al. (2012), knowledge about a particular issue, e.g., circular economy and how it contributes for the betterment of all livings in the world, may influence the users to engage more in conducting the behavior (that is, re-commerce).
According to Correa (2016), four types of skills required in social media operations more effectively. The first one is operational skill, which denotes the ability to operate hardware and software; information skill, which refers to the capacity to search, select and process information in a computer; strategic skill, which is the ability to use the computer and the Internet to attain particular goals; and formals kills which refer to the capacity to navigate in a hypermedia context, e.g., Facebook (Correa 2016, p.1097).
Hargreaves (2011, p. 84), reported that, Social Practice Theory raises a series of radically different questions about how to create more sustainable patterns of consumption. In line with this statement, the focus is on how re-commerce practices form, how re-commerce are reproduced, maintained, stabilized, challenged and ultimately killed-off; on how re-commerce practices recruit practitioners to maintain and strengthen them through continued performance of ensuring circular economy, and on how Facebook plays a vial to more sustainable re-commerce practices (ibid).
