Manufacturing faces growing regulatory and market pressures to reduce the use of primary raw materials and preserve value throughout a product's lifecycle. In the metalworking sector, cemented carbide cutting tools present a high-value circular opportunity as they contain critical raw materials. However, successful recovery depends on tight coordination across a fragmented ecosystem that includes global tool manufacturers, small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) machining firms, reconditioning service providers (RSPs), and recyclers. In practice, this coordination is often weak. Due to unclear decision rights, misaligned incentives, and trapped lifecycle data, cutting tools are frequently discarded before full utilisation or routed to lower-value recovery channels.

This thesis explores how the metalworking industry can transition from fragmented, single-firm initiatives to systemic ecosystem orchestration. Employing a Design Science Research approach combined with an embedded case study of a metal-cutting tools ecosystem in southern Sweden, the research is structured around two interconnected studies.

The first study investigates current collaboration dynamics and structural constraints across the value chain to answer the first research question. It demonstrates that ecosystem collaboration is not a binary state but a developmental continuum. This analysis culminates in the Circular Collaboration Maturity Ladder, which shows that progressing from transactional exchanges to true network orchestration requires clarifying decision roles, standardising comparable evidence, and institutionalising feedback loops.

The second study addresses the second research question by translating these empirical constraints into formal orchestration requirements across governance, information, and operational domains. It introduces the Circular Collaboration for Ecosystem Opportunities Mapping Canvas. This diagnostic artefact helps organisations systematically pinpoint internal capability gaps, search for optimal ecosystem partners, and align their collaborative actions with appropriate governance models. Furthermore, the study introduces the concept of minimum viable evidence, arguing that robust circular verification does not require heavy, comprehensive digitisation. Instead, it requires proportionate, low-friction datasets that protect SME data sovereignty and fit naturally into existing shopfloor workflows.

Theoretically, this thesis extends the application of dynamic capabilities from an internal actor’s organisation strategy to ecosystem orchestration. It helps bridge the gap between macro-level focal-firm ambitions and the micro-operational realities of the SME shopfloor. Industrially, the research offers frameworks intended to help practitioners design incentive-aligned service models that can support circularity as a more viable and secure choice across the metalworking supply chain studied.