Sophia Daubner

Sophia is currently finishing her master studies in International Business Administration at the University of Vienna with a specialization in Production and Supply Chain Management. In the scope of her master thesis she will evaluate consumers’ acceptance of innovative business models that target future scarcity of resources, thus business models that encourage a Circular Economy. In addition to her masters’ program, she is currently working at a risk broking company in client relations management.

Since the industrialization, the western world has been following a linear model of resource consumption. This has been very successful because resource prices were low and boosted economic growth. Since the 2000s however, the threat of resource scarcity is extremely present and it is necessary to rethink our way of consuming and discarding valuable resources. Therefore, research proposes a circular economic system, which creates new value for companies by decoupling their growth from scarce resources.

Different innovative business models are suggested to contribute to achieving a Circular Economy. Research depicts them as follows: Circular Supplies, Resource Recovery, Product life extension, Sharing and Product as a Service. In her master thesis Sophia would like to investigate consumers' acceptance of these new business models, using smartphones as a case study. She is going to use choice-based conjoint analysis in order to evaluate consumer preferences and derive value propositions for a circular economic system.