Cross-Functional Collaboration in Sustainability Contexts: Exploratory Studies in Remanufacturing Companies

A plethora of remanufacturing research investigates production planning and control; however, there remains a lack of understanding regarding managerial and organisational issues in remanufacturing, in particular how the different functions of remanufacturing companies collaborate. In a conventional manufacturing context, cross-functional collaborations have not been much investigated, while in a remanufacturing context the lack of understanding of this topic is even worse. Motivated by this research gap, this study attempts to investigate cross-functional collaborations in remanufacturing companies. To do this, the author presents a review of current literature to identify gaps, and thereafter proposes a set of research questions. The research design and methods are discussed, as well as a justification of why they were chosen. The main contributions of this study are twofold; first, it identifies areas within remanufacturing companies that require cross-functional collaboration. These collaborations are unique and cannot be found in conventional manufacturing companies. Second, the study describes how these collaborations work. Some differences between these collaborations and those within conventional manufacturing are also discussed. In the last section, the author concludes and summarises the contribution to knowledge, the implication for practical fields and potential limitations of this study that can be addressed in future investigations.