Applying a thematic analysis in identifying the role of circular economy in sustainable supply chain practices

The terms sustainability in the supply chain has increasingly received significant attention in academia and industries in recent years, which obliges the government and private sectors to adhere sustainability. In this regard, businesses are responsible for their activities’ social, environmental, and economic aspects, named triple bottom line. This paper studies sustainable supply chain practices in the mobile industry aiming at exploring sustainable supply chain practices under context of big data. In addition, the relationship of circular economy versus sustainability is under discussion and remains ambiguous. This research contributes to this discussion by providing new insight into exploring the role of circular economy in basic and advanced sustainable supply chain practices. The main focus of this paper is to investigate customers’ points of view since it is desirable and imperative to reach their expectations. From customers’ point of view, sustainability governs their health and environment resulting in persuading decision makers’ sensitivity to customers’ perceptions and pressures in formulating supply chain strategies. Therefore, we conducted a thematic analysis, a powerful method that strives to understand experiences and opinions on social media from August 2017 to July 2019 looking over customers’ perceptions patterns. The findings reveal that environmental practices in the basic and advanced categories have the most significant attention compared to other triple bottom line dimensions by customers on social media. The findings reflect strong relation between advanced sustainable supply chain practices and circular economy. This study will conclude that mobile phone companies consider circular economy as a means to improve their advanced sustainable supply chain practices.