Raymond L. Paquin

The Evolution of Facilitated Industrial Symbiosis

While much work has been done on the conditions surrounding the emergence and establishment of industrial symbiosis (IS), new attention is being paid to understanding the evolution of IS over time. We demonstrate empirically how a new, facilitated IS initiative developed and evolved over an 8‐year period. We explore its network evolution by considering how the facilitators actions enabled and precluded two fundamental network processes - serendipitous and goal‐directed processes. We discuss implications for a more generalized theory of IS development by exploring why and how different evolutionary trajectories may unfold.

Blind Dates and Arranged Marriages: Longitudinal Processes of Network Orchestration

Using longitudinal qualitative and network data capturing five years of evolution of an interorganizational network, this paper explores network orchestration – the process of assembling and developing an interorganizational network. In particular, we analyze shifts in the network orchestrator’s actions and the network’s structure and composition. We find that an orchestrator builds the capacity to assemble a network over time through the accumulation of resources and specialized expertise. However, as the network develops, an orchestrator faces an evolving set of dilemmas arising from the need to demonstrate value for various members and audiences. To resolve these dilemmas, orchestrators may shift their actions, moving from initially encouraging serendipitous encounters between network members (“blind dates”) to increasingly selecting members and more closely influencing their interactions (“arranging marriages”). We discuss implications of our findings for a processual understanding of orchestrated network assembly and growth.

The Engagement of Firms in Environmental Collaborations Existing Contributions and Future Directions

The engagement of firms in environmental collaborations has become a ubiquitous phenomenon in today’s business landscape. Yet much of the research to date is fragmented across multiple disciplines and lacks a clear framework to support future study. The authors consolidate and synthesize existing contributions into a conceptual map comprised of antecedents, consequences, and contingencies to better understand environmental collaborations. This map offers a perspective on how firms develop strategies, structures, and capabilities to manage and balance environmental and economic performance and increasing demands for environmental sustainability from multiple stakeholders and society. The authors then highlight existing gaps in the extant literature and outline a future research agenda, including key questions and issues needing additional study.

Organizational Perspectives of Industrial Symbiosis A Review and Synthesis

Industrial symbiosis (IS) is a collaborative environmental action whereby firms share or exchange by-products, materials, energy, or waste as a way to economically reduce aggregate environmental impact. Research in IS has flourished over the past two decades, and the time is ripe for a coherent review of organizational perspectives on the topic, particularly since the practice of IS is rife with difficulties often attributed to “social” factors. We review the organizational perspectives found in IS literature using a two-dimensional framework considering the antecedents, consequences, lubricants, and limiters of IS assessed through institutional, network/system, organizational, and individual levels of analysis. Our framework highlights what organizational perspectives have been adopted so far and also points to avenues of future scholarship of this unique phenomenon.

Facilitating regional industrial symbiosis: Network growth in the UK’s National Industrial Symbiosis Programme

In the years since the discovery of Kalundborg’s long-lived network of resource exchanges, industrial symbiosis, and its potential for reducing the environmental impact of industrial activity on a local or regional scale, has been the subject of intense interest. Industrial symbiosis is defined as the enlistment of geographically proximate facilities in the “physical exchange of materials, energy, water, and by-products” (Chertow, 2000: 314). While some industrial symbiosis occurs between firms that are closely co-located, such as those in the same industrial park (see Chapters 4 and 6), other efforts to develop industrial symbiosis are undertaken on regional geographic scales. This chapter considers regional-scale industrial symbiosis, and, in particular, the development of a network of industrial symbiosis facilitated by a single brokering organization.

Sustainable Development in the Building Sector: A Canadian Case Study on the Alignment of Strategic and Tactical Management

Increasingly, organizations view sustainable development principles as a key tool in aligning their strategic plans with specific objectives and procedures used for managing projects. However, more research is needed to identify how sustainable development contributes to aligning longer-term strategic management of clients in the building sector with their short-term needs for construction project management. We present a multicase study of three construction projects conducted by an institutional client in Canada, developed through a review and evaluation of project feasibility studies, construction project meeting transcripts, contract documentation, organization and policy documents, and seven semistructured interviews of managers involved in these projects. We found that the principles of sustainable development transcended both short-term needs and long-term responsibility, facilitating the alignment of the strategic and tactical plans.

Is There Cash in That Trash

Past work on industrial symbiosis (IS) includes a wealth of case studies across diverse settings, including industrial estates, economic regions, and IS networks. Though this work provides needed insight into factors shaping IS, much of it has been descriptive in nature. Relatively few findings have been subjected to hypothesis development and testing. In this study, we develop and empirically test a number of hypotheses on factors influencing IS exchange development, using a unique national‐level IS data set of 1,322 individual material resource‐based exchanges facilitated through the United Kingdoms National Industrial Symbiosis Programme. Our findings affirm and extend the literature in a number of ways. In particular, we found that a firms number of identified waste streams decreased the likelihood of initiating an exchange, but increased the likelihood of completing it once initiated. We also found, counter to the literature, that diversity among partnering firms reduced the likelihood of both initiating and completing an IS exchange. Finally, we found that higher economic value exchanges were more likely to be initiated, but less likely to be completed. We discuss implications and conclude with a number of avenues for future research.