An innovative approach for circular data-driven decision-making in the new normal scenario: Opportunities for the agri-food sector

This conceptual paper aims to develop an approach that integrates the circular economy paradigm (4-R) with the new pathway proposed by McKinsey & Compa-ny for the post-Covid-19 renaissance (5-R) to reimagine the post-pandemic context as a new normal scenario. From an ecosystem perspective, the authors highlight the interconnections between this approach and the widely adopted theories in circular economy studies – the Stakeholder Theory and the Resource-Based View Theory – to provide a resilient model for decision-makers. In this context, the paperspotlight on how digital technologies can represent the enabling factor for implementing the newly proposed approach. In particular, the authors suggest that this approach could be applied within the agri-food sector, characterised by complex supply chains, to cope with future challenges and become more resilient in the new normal scenario. Our contribution is crystallised into a series of research propositions on the intersection between circular economy and digital technology in the data-driven decision-making literature.