Innovative platform operations with the use of technologies in the blockchain era

Abstract

With the development of ecommerce and digital technologies, we have witnessed a boom of platform operations. Amid their strong growth prospects, it is observed that platforms have created controversial issues and challenges, which could be potentially solved by the combination of blockchain features. More and more studies exploring the implementation of blockchain in platform operations have appeared in recent years. In this paper, motivated by the industrial practices of different types of product selling and service platforms, we first conduct a holistic literature review of the most representative papers relevant to platform operations. Examining the value of different blockchain features in operations management field, we further review the related works on platform operations with blockchain technologies. Afterwards, we analyse the innovative applications and challenges in platforms such as physical and virtual product selling platforms, rental/sharing and on-demand service platforms. A future research agenda is established which lays the solid foundation for further studies on platform operations in the blockchain era.