Sustainable Export Competitiveness of SMEs Through Circular Economy and Digital Economy

This paper aims to identify the critical factors that can enhance the digital economy through circular economic models (CE) within Indian manufacturing companies and further model the determinants of sustainable CE. A systematic literature review was done to identify the factors driving CE in the context of emerging country including India and used as an input in the reliability, factor, regression and correlation (RFRC) model and structural equation modeling (SEM) technique. This study discovered that the key challenges to sustainable exports through CE adoption in the Indian manufacturing industry are driven by science and technology innovation, R&D in CE, enhancing investment in foreign direct investment (FDI), commercial diplomacy, and cooperative marketing strategy, which dramatically impacts the sustainable exports and thus needs to be prioritized. The unique contribution of this study is the sustainable approach used in theory building based on CE model especially. The challenges to SMEs export competitiveness (SEC) were identified in the context of emerging country including India and further the interrelationships among the determinants were presented. The findings will be helpful for managers, international markets and policymakers.