Abstract

African manufacturing firms operate within production environments characterised by infrastructure instability, imported-input dependence, logistics disruption, foreign-exchange constraints, waste accumulation and limited access to replacement components. Circular production is commonly discussed as an environmental strategy, but this framing underestimates its operational value in economies where firms must secure materials and sustain production under recurrent disruption. This paper develops a conceptual explanation of circular production as a resilience capability. It adopts an integrative, theory-synthesis and framework-development approach grounded in the natural resource-based view, organisational resilience theory, resource dependence theory, closed-loop supply-chain logic and the theory of constraints. The paper argues that repair, reuse, remanufacturing, recycling, industrial symbiosis, design for disassembly and reverse production flows can convert waste, returned products and used components into strategic production resources. It proposes a Circular Production Resilience Framework in which circular production capability strengthens resource security, resource security supports production flexibility, and flexibility improves resistance, continuity, recovery and adaptation. Digital traceability, local supplier integration, top-management commitment and regulatory support enable this pathway, while infrastructure volatility increases the strategic value of circular practices but may also constrain implementation. Ten propositions are developed for future empirical testing. The paper concludes that circularity should be integrated into production planning, materials management, maintenance and industrial policy as a means of reducing external dependence, improving input continuity and strengthening both operational and environmental performance in African manufacturing.