Blockchain Papers

Marc Hübschke, Eugen Buss, Elmar Holschbach, Stefan Lier

Abstract Research on blockchain technology in supply chain management has gained significant attention in recent years due to its potential to address critical challenges such as transparency, traceability, and operational efficiency. Despite this interest, the relationship between blockchain implementation and its measurable success has not been thoroughly investigated. This study conducts a systematic literature review of 46 peer-reviewed papers published between 2008 and 2024, synthesizing current research on how blockchain performance is assessed within supply chains. By categorizing the findings across key success factors, research methodologies, and performance indicators, this study provides a structured understanding of blockchain’s role in SCM. Emerging from our review, we develop a dynamic evaluation framework that systematically integrates use cases, objectives, input criteria, research methodologies, and expected outcomes, illustrating their interdependencies. This framework demonstrates blockchain’s capacity to enhance supply chain performance through improved transparency, enhanced traceability, and strengthened sustainability practices. Furthermore, it provides a structured approach to assessing blockchain’s long-term viability, emphasizing its iterative nature, which allows organizations to refine and adapt their implementations in response to evolving business and regulatory landscapes. Our findings underscore the cross-industry applicability of blockchain technology, spanning various sectors and bridging both operational and strategic objectives. However, the analysis reveals significant research gaps, particularly in empirical studies validating blockchain’s long-term impact on supply chain resilience, sustainability, and multi-stakeholder collaboration. Additionally, inconsistencies in performance measurement approaches hinder the comparability of findings across studies. Addressing these gaps through future research will be essential to fully unlocking blockchain’s transformative potential in SCM and ensuring its effective integration into global supply chain ecosystems.

Abhirup Khanna, Sapna Jain, Anushree Sah, Sarishma Dangi · 8 authors

The cold-chain supply of perishable fruits continues to face challenges such as fuel wastage, fragmented stakeholder coordination, and limited real-time adaptability. Traditional solutions, based on static routing and centralized control, fall short in addressing the dynamic, distributed, and secure demands of modern food supply chains. This study presents a novel end-to-end architecture that integrates multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL), blockchain technology, and generative artificial intelligence. The system features large language model (LLM)-mediated negotiation for inter-enterprise coordination, Pareto-based reward optimization balancing spoilage, energy consumption, delivery time, and climate and emission impact. Smart contracts and Non-Fungible Token (NFT)-based traceability are deployed over a private Ethereum blockchain to ensure compliance, trust, and decentralized governance. Modular agents-trained using centralized training with decentralized execution (CTDE)-handle routing, temperature regulation, spoilage prediction, inventory, and delivery scheduling. Generative AI simulates demand variability and disruption scenarios to strengthen resilient infrastructure. Experiments demonstrate up to 50% reduction in spoilage, 35% energy savings, and 25% lower emissions. The system also cuts travel time by 30% and improves delivery reliability and fruit quality. This work offers a scalable, intelligent, and sustainable supply chain framework, especially suitable for resource-constrained or intermittently connected environments, laying the foundation for future-ready food logistics systems.

Aalok Kumar, Sourabh Kumar, Sunil Tiwari

No abstract is available for this record.

Shilpy, A. Senthil Kumar

This research aims to investigate financing decisions of capital-constrained small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) manufacturers and distributors under a Green Supply Chain (GSC) framework. By evaluating the impact of Supply Chain Finance (SCF) instruments, this study utilizes Stackelberg game model to explore a decentralized decision-making system. To our knowledge, this investigation represents the first exploration of game models that uniquely compares financing through trade credit, where the manufacturer offers zero-interest credit without discounts with reverse factoring, while also considering distributor’s efforts on sustainable marketing under the impact of supportive government policies. Our study suggests that manufacturers should adopt reverse factoring for optimal profits and actively participate in distributors’ financing decisions to address inefficiencies in decentralized systems. Furthermore, the distributor’s demand quantity, profits and sustainable marketing efforts show significant increase under reverse factoring, aided by favorable policies. Finally, the results are validated through Python 3.8.8 simulations in the Anaconda distribution, offering meaningful insights for policymakers and supply chain managers.

Fabrice Lumineau, Guangzhi Shang, Jayashankar M. Swaminathan, Gerry Tsoukalas · 6 authors

Blockchain technology, underpinned by distributed ledger systems, has evolved from a novel innovation into a transformative and integral component of enterprise digitization across industries. Since its inception with Bitcoin in 2008, blockchain has expanded beyond cryptocurrencies, with applications in operations management (OM) growing rapidly across industries. Despite its promise, however, the integration of blockchain into OM is not without challenges. Scholars have identified significant barriers to successful implementation, ranging from technological and organizational hurdles to regulatory complexities (Chod et al. 2020; Hanisch et al. 2025; Lin et al. 2022; Lumineau et al. 2021; Sodhi et al. 2022; Zhan et al. 2025). This Special Issue on Operational Perspectives on Blockchain Applications presents cutting-edge research that explores blockchain's opportunities, challenges, and implications for OM. The articles in this issue provide a diverse and empirically grounded examination of blockchain applications across industries and operational contexts. We will discuss each contribution in turn. However, prior to that, it is useful to dig into the operational nuances, opportunities, and challenges presented by the focal context. Our editorial discussion opens accordingly, outlining the technological, organizational, and regulatory challenges while identifying the conditions under which blockchain can deliver value. We also touch on the broader societal implications of blockchain, addressing its political, economic, social, environmental, and legal dimensions before describing how each of the papers in the special issue contributes to understanding, critical to operations management. Finally, our editorial discussion concludes by charting a research agenda, highlighting key questions and interdisciplinary approaches needed to advance both theoretical and practical understanding of blockchain in OM. Working processes need to be discovered, described, and understood before they can be improved, controlled, and prescribed. Quite a bit of work is needed merely to describe some of the important activities, practices, processes, and operating systems utilized in diverse organizations. Only then can we begin to sink our teeth into developing better theories about how best to manage them. For this purpose, Ilk et al. (2021) conceptualize the Bitcoin blockchain (and other mainstream permissionless blockchains) as a two-side dataspace market, where users demand a certain amount of dataspace in a future block to store their transactions, and miners compete to produce such dataspace by creating new blocks. To facilitate this market in a decentralized manner—that is, with no centralized party absorbing demand and controlling supply—users attach a transaction fee (which is higher for users with a higher waiting cost) that becomes one of the miners' sources of revenue. With the increasing popularity1 of Bitcoin and Ethereum, demand frequently exceeds supply, creating contemporaneous system congestions. The congested service pricing literature, which dates back to the management of highway tolls (Naor 1969) and electric power supply (Viswanathan and Edison 1989) and extends in modern days to subscription pricing of cloud services (Cachon and Feldman 2011) and surge pricing of gig economy platforms (Cachon et al. 2017), yields a generalized conclusion. Specifically, “offering multiple service grades that each render a different delay distribution at a different price” improves both perceived customer satisfaction and service provider profit (Van Mieghem 2000, 1249). Permissionless blockchains, as congested service systems, are no exception to this rule. Although no centralized party (i.e., firm or platform) sets the priority price menu, users bid transaction fees to differentiate the service grades (i.e., transaction confirmation speeds) they desire. More details on the process view of permissionless blockchain transactions can be found in Shang et al. (2023, 106–108). Although early Ethereum-based smart contract applications were rarely associated with OM or any other real-world assets, their ingenuity inspired a whole class of permissioned blockchains (also referred to as private or consortium chains), in which only an authorized group of users can participate, setting the stage for enterprise applications (Fan et al. 2024; Pun et al. 2021). While blockchain offers considerable potential, its successful implementation is hindered by technological, organizational, and regulatory barriers. Below, we highlight seven of the most critical challenges to blockchain implementation discussed in the press and in the literature. Low throughput and high transaction fees. The primary reason that mainstream cryptocurrency systems cannot be used for day-to-day payment is their throughput limits: 3 per second for Bitcoin and 13 per second for Ethereum.2 This limitation is in sharp contrast with the processing capacity of established financial systems like Visa, which is capable of handling approximately 5000 transactions per second (Malik et al. 2022). Such scalability limits are largely inevitable for permissionless blockchains that aim to ensure decentralization and security, widely known as the “blockchain trilemma” in the industry.3 The throughput limit results in a frequently congested service system with transaction fee spikes (Ilk et al. 2021; Shang et al. 2023), which has been 2.87 USD per transaction for Bitcoin in 2020. This hinders the economic viability of small value transactions even in situations where network latency is less of a concern (e.g., users with high waiting tolerance). Meanwhile, permissioned blockchains typically do not face throughput limits, as dataspace suppliers are usually the blockchain owners and hence do not have to be incentivized via instruments such as transaction fees. However, due to the lack of public visibility and the corporate ownership of these blockchains, this solution is unlikely to be suitable for all applications. Algorithm fairness. Advocates of permissionless blockchains often highlight their morally significant goal of improving access to money transfer services for unbanked and underbanked populations (Andreasson 2022). Importantly, much of the wealth on permissionless blockchains is created through mining/staking revenue—that is, through participation on the supply side—and small users typically cannot meet the entrance threshold for this revenue stream. Further, while large senders can develop sophisticated algorithms to estimate the desired transaction fee more accurately, small senders typically rely on the free-to-use fee recommendation tools crypto wallets provide. Encouragingly, this disparity is somewhat alleviated by new transaction fee mechanism designs (Zhao, Wu, et al. 2025). Decentralization–efficiency tradeoff. The management of a cryptocurrency system is typically maintained by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). A DAO's daily operational tasks include the development of, voting on, and execution of crowdsourced proposals (Zhao et al. 2022). Yet, not all project decisions are strategic enough to warrant crowdsourcing of ideas from stakeholders, and the inefficiency of doing so affects operational agility and the quality of service provided by the DAO. Further, while decentralization can improve service levels for users and providers, it reduces profits for founders, reflecting a broader tension between decentralization and efficiency (Gan et al. 2023). Governance frictions are compounded by token-weighted voting, where those holding more tokens have greater influence, creating a mismatch between token ownership and subject expertise (Benhaim et al. 2023, 2025; Tsoukalas and Falk 2020). Cross-chain interoperability. A successful blockchain application often requires coordination of activities across multiple chains. This is especially true for enterprise applications, where material flow needs to be traced on a permissioned blockchain (for obvious business confidentiality reasons) and payment of goods should preferably happen on a permissionless blockchain. In general, the lack of universal standards creates a fragmented landscape in which disparate blockchain platforms are developed in isolation. This technical challenge of interoperability is further complicated by the need to integrate blockchain with legacy systems, which typically lack the flexibility to accommodate cryptographic protocols and distributed data synchronization (Babich and Hilary 2019). Standardization of input data. Many of the cargo tracking and supply chain traceability blockchain applications assume the existence of a data on-ramp that is accessible to and standardized across participants. This is far from reality. As Fan et al. (2024, 3) put it, “a small supplier, say, in India or China, is unlikely to have the resources or expertise to set up an arrangement to access blockchain.” Even if such access is set up by a large participant of the permissioned blockchain, such as a superstore retailer, the input data from thousands of small suppliers across the world might not be properly digitized and standardized. Both the invasive and non-invasive approaches to bridging the physical–digital interface in blockchain applications have merits and drawbacks (Klöckner et al. 2023). Buy-in from partner organizations. Lin et al. (2022) highlight buy-in from partners along with information complexity as two important drivers that determine the success of blockchain pilots in real life. They stress the importance of reducing information complexity as well as increasing buy-in among supply chain partners. Critically, the cost and hassle of implementation are borne by all organizations that the cargo passes through, including port authorities, customs agencies, shipment forwarders, trucking companies, and so on. Some of these organizations lack the basic incentive to even digitize their paperwork, let alone upload information onto a blockchain owned by another company. Regulatory uncertainty. Regulatory challenges present another significant barrier to blockchain adoption in OM. The regulatory framework for blockchain is still in a nascent stage, with many jurisdictions lacking clear guidelines regarding its use, especially in non-financial contexts such as OM (Wagner et al. 2025). The cross-border nature of many supply chains makes it even more challenging to reconcile diverse regulatory environments; thereby complicating large-scale implementations (Wamba and Queiroz 2020). In summary, blockchain presents a range of unique characteristics, implementation challenges, and potential transformative impacts. Figure 1 captures many of these, as well as presenting new opportunities to apply common theoretical lenses used by researchers to understand this new technology, including Transaction Cost Economics (TCE), Principal Agent Theory (PAT), and Resource-Based View (RBV). These features are pushing the OM community to consider additional theoretical arguments regarding blockchain-related operational dynamics so as to more comprehensively understand, anticipate, and ultimately contribute to practice and scholarship in this domain. More specifically, traditional theoretical frameworks commonly applied in OM, such as transaction cost economics, principal–agent theory, and the resource-based view, have proven effective for analyzing centralized systems where information is controlled and trust is built through well-established interorganizational relationships. However, blockchain disrupts these conventional relationships by enabling peer-to-peer interactions governed not by a central authority but by cryptographic mechanisms and consensus protocols. For instance, the immutability of recorded transactions and the inherent decentralization of blockchain networks modify the traditional calculus of trust and coordination costs. These features create “trustless” environments where the need for intermediaries is significantly reduced. This shift calls into question the applicability of many preexisting theoretical models that assume reliance on centralized control and interpersonal trust (Lumineau et al. 2023). Given these fundamental differences, one promising direction for future research is to expand network theory and social capital theory in OM by integrating the notion of distributed trust. Whereas social capital theory has been used to explain performance improvements arising from strengthened interorganizational relationships (Saberi et al. 2019), blockchain technology challenges these premises by redistributing trust across the network without necessarily relying on strong personal or organizational ties (Lumineau et al. 2023). Similarly, although transaction cost theory provides insight into how blockchain can lower the costs of verification and contracting by obviating the need for costly intermediaries, the theory does not fully account for the dynamic interplays that arise when trust is engineered digitally and contractual obligations are embedded in smart contracts (Halaburda et al. 2024). As Babich and Hilary (2019) note, new theoretical models need to capture not only the cost-saving benefits of disintermediation but also the potential trade-offs in terms of data insecurity and operational inflexibility. There is also a growing recognition that hybrid frameworks, which merge elements of institutional theory and network governance with emerging blockchain paradigms, may be necessary to understand new organizational forms like DAOs (Zhao et al. 2022). The need for novel theoretical frameworks is particularly critical when considering the impact of blockchain on various stakeholders within the OM ecosystem. Traditional models generally emphasize dyadic relationships between buyers and suppliers, but blockchain enables multi-stakeholder environments in which data transparency, provenance, and auditability permeate complex, global supply networks. For example, Chod et al. (2020) show how blockchain can improve financing in agricultural supply chains by enabling farmers to use harvest inventory as loan collateral. Using multi-signature setups tied to an immutable blockchain, transactions require confirmation from both humans (e.g., lenders or warehouse operators) and automated systems (e.g., IoT sensors). This approach allows for real-time verification of collateral, reduces information asymmetry, and unlocks capital, particularly in settings prone to fraud. Together, the articles in this Special Issue make a multifaceted contribution to OM, demonstrating the impact of blockchain technology in various operational forms on strategic decision-making, worker participation, competitive and network dynamics, and intellectual property protection across different sectors. These studies use robust empirical methods and diverse theoretical frameworks to offer novel insights into the role of blockchain in OM. Some of the studies use qualitative methods for developing theory concerning conditions for successful and failed blockchain adoption. Zhan et al. (2025) develop theory through an inductive, multi-case research design revealing the influence of founder power on blockchain adoption. Meanwhile, Hanisch et al. (2025) use an in-depth, longitudinal case study to explore the centralization–decentralization paradox of a group of studies or designs at the of or a and et al. (2025) on adoption of smart contracts and their operational studies use data from network or blockchain platforms Ethereum, and For example, (2025) and approaches to the operational impact of different consensus protocols on and worker et al. (2025) a by integrating ownership theory, and approaches to explore how decentralized ownership in DAOs et al. (2025) further develop the discussion by analyzing the transformative of blockchain on the protection of in In a et al. (2025) the impact of a on the operational the and et al. (2025) use an to the of on a decentralized and a centralized social These articles theoretical and empirical approaches to blockchain in OM, a on its strategic and operational most of the articles on or methods data from blockchain while a articles case studies and This may be due to the lack of large-scale data on OM Below, we will into the of each Zhan et al. (2025) explore how in dimensions of and ownership the and of blockchain adoption in technology provider that a centralized process and in by integrating insights from traditional to use decentralized approaches and rely on This work contributes to bridging and blockchain in OM, strategic implications for how the successful of supply chain Hanisch et al. (2025) study governance challenges in blockchain the centralization–decentralization paradox in a blockchain on paradox theory, they show that between might arise when and conditions are not These and the that limit the for the blockchain explain platforms and on a study of smart contract adoption and transaction cost economics, et al. (2025) that smart contract adoption improves operational efficiency with to and costs. They also that with high supply chain complexity more from smart contract adoption those with a distributed supply (2025) the critical role of mechanisms in blockchain two consensus and study on the by The that the design of worker participation and the of decentralization necessary for operational empirical that which blockchain as transaction costs and reduces to This study the understanding of blockchain as a organizational and provides OM with a novel on how automated governance mechanisms from consensus protocols can et al. (2025) contribute to this emerging by addressing blockchain's implications in intellectual property protection and particularly in the of work offers a framework through which mechanisms can facilitate and value in industries. The study how as a of both ownership and an between management and operational within OM. et al. (2025) the potential of blockchain to intellectual on the protection of in transaction cost to the the present a of how smart contracts and can while reducing market offer insights into the operational necessary to decentralized protection systems, further the potential of blockchain in traditional OM et al. (2025) the discussion to the competitive of platforms by analyzing the which an while to and participants. The this impact on the operational integrating insights on DAOs with theory, the how a unique of that disrupts traditional centralized The empirical to the mechanisms by which blockchain can market dynamics, demonstrating the broader strategic cost implications for OM. Finally, et al. (2025) how to on decentralized social which lack central authority and rely on community Using an with data from and the and show these methods in decentralized to centralized on decentralized networks and more but in a The research contributes to operations management by decentralized platforms as systems and practical insights for governance and Given the from the most research on the it clear that research questions and that might our understanding of blockchain's application opportunities and potential for OM. research question of in this framework is as do different blockchain governance impact operational efficiency and trust in on this should consider the between permissioned and permissionless blockchain how of decentralization and the role of smart contracts influence both and A study methods might performance data from blockchain with qualitative to how governance models trust among supply chain critical for effective potential of study into how blockchain can be embedded within enterprise and supply chain information systems to the and for more blockchain technology new models for inventory management of that account for customer of et al. 2024). might traditional inventory models with systems, case studies or controlled that improvements in and in with the of operations management such studies should on process details and merely the of technology and such as inventory A further further to is, can blockchain be to in supply chains This of research tracking and smart contracts the for and as well as how this technology can a role by in supply networks. studies that supply chain performance across as well as studies to blockchain's impact under various be particularly question might can blockchain be to in supply or should supply chain be with blockchain technology to or data However, these questions might also more in the of information systems particularly if their is not to operational process In future research in this will from into the multifaceted implications of blockchain technology for OM. research the impact of blockchain governance on operational efficiency and the transformative potential of blockchain for inventory management and supply chain and the capacity to in the face of central to both theoretical and practical an interdisciplinary approach that from public information technology, and organizational theory, future research can develop frameworks that the real-world challenges of blockchain in supply networks. The implications of blockchain in OM are multifaceted and transformative (Klöckner et al. 2022). blockchain challenges centralized power decentralization and it reduces costs and barriers to market financial it also disrupts traditional systems and new blockchain and its benefits on addressing the blockchain offers tools to but challenges to it regulatory frameworks while questions about data and cross-border Blockchain not a technological innovation but a for societal To fully its potential, interdisciplinary among and is addressing its challenges and its blockchain can contribute to practices, and social The future of blockchain in OM will on our to its transformative potential while the complexities of its

Alfred Kuhlman, Arya Wicaksana

Efficient smart contract implementation affects gas fees required for deployment and invocation, contributing to the usability and sustainability of blockchain applications that rely on smart contracts. Optimizing smart contract codes is crucial to curb the continued rise of costs related to deploying and invocating smart contracts. This work proposes an extended version of static smart contract optimizer to reduce unnecessary gas fees caused by inefficient smart contract code implementation. Thirty open-licensed Ethereum smart contract codes in the Solidity programming language are included for optimization using the proposed static optimizer. The results show a decrease of 11,447 gas for deployment and 25 for invocation. Additional optimization using the Solidity compiler optimizer reveals a further gas reduction of 9,331 for deployment. Although there was a slight gas increase of 23 during invocation. These findings demonstrate the contribution of the proposed static optimizer in optimizing code implementation for Solidity smart contracts in terms of deployment and invocation. In addition to the gas reductions, the functionalities of the optimized smart contracts remain the same.

Li Zhao, Yongqiang Sun

The shipping market involves multiple stakeholders, including cargo owners, shipping companies, and maritime authorities. To prevent issues such as information concealment and privacy breaches, these stakeholders often establish complex and multi-layered data exchange processes, which significantly reduce the operational efficiency of the shipping market. Decentralized blockchain technology can prevent data tampering, thereby establishing an effective consensus mechanism among multiple parties. This paper first summarizes the application scenarios of blockchain technology in the shipping market, including supply chain management, smart contracts, port management, crew management, marine insurance, and environmental protection. Subsequently, using real-world cases such as TradeLens, CargoX, COSCO SHIPPING Hi ECO, and Insurwave, the advantages of blockchain technology in enhancing shipping efficiency and reducing costs are elaborated. Finally, the challenges of applying blockchain technology in the shipping market, from both technical and regulatory perspectives, are outlined.

Hamed Nozari, Shereen Nassar, Agnieszka Szmelter-Jarosz

Managing finances in a supply chain today is not as straightforward as it once was. The world is constantly shifting—markets fluctuate, risks emerge unexpectedly—and companies are continually trying to stay one step ahead. In all this, financial resilience has become more than just a strategy. It is a survival skill. In our research, we examined how newer technologies (such as blockchain and the Internet of Things) can make a difference. The idea was not to reinvent the wheel but to see if these tools could actually make financing more transparent, reduce some of the friction, and maybe even help companies breathe a little easier when it comes to liquidity. We employed two optimization methods (Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) and Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO)) to achieve a balanced outcome. The goal was lower financing costs, better liquidity, and stronger resilience. Blockchain did not just record transactions—it seemed to build trust. Meanwhile, the Internet of Things (IoT) provided companies with a clearer picture of what is happening in real-time, making financial outcomes a bit less of a guessing game. However, it gives financial managers a better chance at planning and not getting caught off guard when the economy takes a turn.

P. Bhuvaneshwari, Harold Robinson, M. Lakshmi

The pharmaceutical supply chain has a critical component, the Drug Traceability System, which tracks drugs from manufacturers for further processing and distribution. The integration of blockchain technology yields a secure solution for monitoring drugs throughout the supply chain management process. The paper proposes a novel Blockchain-enabled Secured Vertical Aggregation Algorithm (BSVA) by leveraging the Hyperledger model. The proposed model minimizes the requirement for a centralized authority to ensure privacy while also enhancing scalability to reduce response time in the process of managing transactions on the Blockchain. The Certificate Authority is used to maintain a secure data-sharing process. The robust aggregation is used for the local models to process the chain code, ensuring the successful execution of the secured transaction. The smart contract is deployed into a blockchain model as the block is stored and linked to the distributed Ledger. The decentralized framework is used by chain code, which guarantees that transactions are highly transparency. The performance parameters demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed model by enhancing the overall performance of the drug traceability system, as the proposed algorithm ensures the integrity of pharmaceutical products throughout the supply chain.

Naiema Shirafkan, Hamed Rajabzadeh, Marcus Wiens

The increasing integration of blockchain technology in supply chains has brought about significant challenges due to the volatility of cryptocurrencies, as it has become an essential aspect of customers’ risk considerations. This study addresses the problem of managing supply chain operations amid such volatility, focusing specifically on pricing, advertising, manufacturer subsidy, and cybersecurity strategies within a manufacturer-retailer framework involving two cryptocurrency-based retailers that have higher market capitalisation compared to others: Ethereum and Bitcoin. The proposed solution employs game theory – a simultaneous game and two Stackelberg games with either retailer as the leader – to identify optimal strategies based on the corresponding parameter values. Accordingly, the study uniquely delivers blockchain-related risks by applying game theory to analyze the decision variables, providing insights into competitive pricing adjustments and leadership strategies for the cryptocurrency-based retailers under varying volatility levels. Results demonstrate that retailer pricing strategies must adapt to changes in wholesale prices and to the difference in cryptocurrency volatility. It also identifies crucial subsidy levels for manufacturers and optimal strategies for retailers under different volatility conditions to sustain profitability and demand.

Raji Ramakrishnan Nair, Punam Rattan, Mukesh Kumar, Vivek Bhardwaj

The pandemic outbreak has revealed significant flaws in the complex and highly fragmented Healthcare Supply Chain’s (HSC’s). However, two major issues persist in the HSCs, leading to inefficiencies: transparency in vaccine distribution and accuracy in demand forecasting. The recent pandemic has highlighted and intensified existing vulnerabilities in HSC’s, leading to the effective utilization of digital technologies to manage them. This research proposes a novel framework that merges Blockchain (BC) and Machine Learning (ML) to bolster the HSCs amidst pandemics, by developing a framework named the Predictive BlockVax Distribution Network (PBDN) model. The proposed PBDN model utilizes BC for securing transactions and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), for precise demand prediction. Leveraging Hyperledger Besu, which represents an Ethereum client that is accessible for public use, the PBDN framework ensures BC’s privacy, scalability, and efficient network operations, while LSTM’s advanced forecasting outperforms traditional models and Deep Learning (DL) techniques. This integration showcases a significant leap in managing vaccine distribution and enhancing system resilience, fairness, and transparency. The proposed PBDN model illustrates the potential of BC and ML together to tackle pandemic-induced Supply Chains (SC’s) disruptions, providing a decentralized solution that supports autonomous, informed decision-making without third-party dependency. This approach not only addresses immediate challenges but also sets a precedent for future crisis response, emphasizing the need for robust, Transparent Supply Chain’s (TSC’s).

Mohammad Akbarzadeh Sarabi, Ata Allah Taleizadeh, Arijit Bhattacharya

With the increasing emphasis on environmental sustainability, both governments and consumers are more concerned than ever about the greenness of products. In this complex landscape, Supply Chains (SCs) face challenges in building trust and avoiding greenwashing accusations. Blockchain technology offers a promising solution by ensuring transparency and circularity within SCs, particularly in identifying customers for product recycling. This study pioneers the exploration of consumers' distrust in pricing and product greenness, alongside the impact of carbon policies (taxes and subsidies) within a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC). Using classical Stackelberg game theory, we develop two models that identify equilibrium decisions for SC members, focusing on pricing, green production investment, circularity, and blockchain adoption. Additionally, we propose an evolutionary game theory model to find the optimal government policies and identify the long-term behaviour of the CLSC and government in two heterogeneous populations. Our findings reveal that if the retailer's share of blockchain costs falls below a certain threshold, blockchain adoption becomes less profitable than exclusive investment in green production. A higher (lower) subsidy rate benefits (harms) the retailer but disadvantages (benefits) the collector. Blockchain adoption is generally more profitable for manufacturers and retailers, though less so for collectors, and it also drives greater investment in green production. While subsidies encourage blockchain adoption, they are not a sustainable long-term strategy for governments. Ultimately, the evolutionarily stable strategy for SCs involves a balanced investment in both green production and blockchain or green production alone, depending on market characteristics and cost-sharing structures.

Ashkan Emami, Mehdi Seifbarghy, Antragama Ewa Abbas, Wichai Chattinnawat · 5 authors

Supply chain operations have tended to become more complex, thus placing significant pressure on one of the most critical processes: supplier selection and order allocation (SSOA). This process involves a focal company selecting suppliers and allocating orders to obtain required materials. Achieving effective SSOA processes is challenged by (1) reliance on centralized governance and (2) ensuring effective contract management. While so called “smart contracts” could address these challenges, design knowledge about such technology — particularly in the SSOA context — is underexplored in the literature. In this paper we design a smart contract for SSOA in supply chains. We conducted a design science research study and developed three core artifacts: (1) a mathematical description of SSOA; (2) a system model of actor interactions; and (3) SSOA-relevant algorithms. Utilizing the Ethereum blockchain, we demonstrated and tested our smart contracts through scenario analysis. We found that our design is feasible and highly likely to address centralization and effectiveness challenges in SSOA. This paper contributes to the literature by demonstrating how smart contract design focusing on SSOA can further enhance blockchain-driven business models. In addition, we offer prescriptive knowledge on developing smart contracts for SSOA in supply chains.

Dnyaneshwar Jivanrao Ghode, Vinod Yadav, Rakesh Jain, Gunjan Soni

Industries aims to have a paradigm shift in supply chains (SC) to provide transparency in the shared information for the economic and social benefits of the stakeholders in an SC. The revolution of Blockchain Technology (BT) allows all the parties in the network to share secured data among themselves. This paper aims to develop a framework to integrate an SC with BT for the exchange of physical products and secured information among the stakeholders. The framework has been implemented by developing a generic SC with BT using Python 3.8.1. The framework comprises a blockchain-based distributed ledger that shares transaction information among manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and customers. For each transaction, a hash code was generated using the SHA-256 algorithm, and the Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) consensus algorithm was used to verify the transactions. The quantity and rate of products have been checked through a smart contract. The influencing factors are inter-organizational trust, regulatory governance, data transparency, data immutability, interoperability, product type, social influence, and behavioural intention. This framework provides transparency in transactions between SC stakeholders and the provenance of products throughout the SC.

Fujiang Yuan, Bo Liang, Jie Gao

No abstract is available for this record.

M. S. Rahman, Md Sazzad Hossain, Md Khalilor Rahman, Md Rasibul Islam · 7 authors

Blockchain technology is increasingly redefining supply chain management paradigms with unprecedented levels of transparency, traceability, and trust in the USA. With increasingly complex supply networks worldwide, the integrity and real-time visibility of transactional information become vital for operational reliability and adherence. This study presents a data-driven examination of the ways distributed ledger technology (DLT), specifically blockchain, facilitates increased supply chain transparency across stakeholders through immutable record-keeping and verifiable sharing of data. The main goal of the current research was to create a synthesis of the secure, immutable nature of blockchain and the predictive and diagnostic power of machine learning (ML) to boost supply chain transparency. The dataset used in this work is formatted blockchain logs, extracted from a permissioned, distributed ledger system simulating a U.S.-based supply chain network. Every log entry stores transactional metadata, high-value data such as accurate timestamps of transactions, cryptographic verdicts, digital handovers between supply chain entities (suppliers, logistics providers, distributors), and route signatures, derived from geolocation-based smart contract activators. In the selection of suitable machine learning models, three classifiers that considered the multi-dimensionality of blockchain supply chain data were used. The training and validation approaches were tailored to maintain the models' robustness and generalizability. The dataset was divided into a 70/30 train-test split using stratified sampling to preserve the proportion of fraudulent versus non-fraudulent instances, guaranteeing that both subsets contained a balanced representation of the classes. By looking at the comparative bar plots of the performance of our models on our blockchain-based supply chain dataset, we observed that the Random Forest Classifier had a slightly greater accuracy and F1-score than the Logistic Regression and the XG-Boost Classifier. In the Food and Agriculture industry, supply chain analytics with blockchain technology can greatly improve traceability, specifically under United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) standards. At U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) checkpoints and international borders, blockchain solutions bring significant advancements in verification speed and counterfeit prevention. By applying analytical tools against the recorded events and metadata, organizations in the USA not only track assets and events but also proactively discover potential risks, streamline processes, and gain a greater insight into their supply chain dynamics. Towards the future, some promising avenues of research open up with the combination of blockchain and machine learning. One such exciting area is the blending of smart contracts with automated responses. Lastly, federated learning among decentralized blockchain nodes is a pioneering line of research that might resolve the issues of sparsity and generalizability of the data and avoid the compromise of the decentralized nature of blockchain.

Haidi Zhou, Qiang Wang, Xiande Zhao

No abstract is available for this record.

Özgür Karaduman, Gülsena Gülhas

As supply chains become increasingly digitized and decentralized, ensuring security, traceability, and data integrity has emerged as a critical concern. Blockchain technology has shown significant potential to address these challenges by providing immutable records, transparent data flows, and tamper-resistant transaction logs. However, the effective application of blockchain in real-world supply chains requires the careful evaluation of both architectural design and technical limitations, including scalability, interoperability, and privacy. This review systematically examines existing blockchain-based supply chain solutions, classifying them based on their structural models, cryptographic foundations, and storage strategies. Special attention is also given to underexplored humanitarian logistics scenarios. It introduces a three-dimensional evaluation framework to assess security, traceability, and integrity across different architectural approaches. In doing so, it explores key technological enablers, including advanced mechanisms such as zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) and cross-chain architectures, to meet evolving privacy and interoperability demands. Furthermore, this study outlines a conceptual cross-chain interaction scenario involving permissioned and permissionless blockchain networks, connected through a bridge mechanism and supported by representative smart contract logic. The model illustrates how decentralized stakeholders can interact securely across heterogeneous blockchain platforms. By integrating quantitative metrics, architectural simulations, and qualitative analyses, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of blockchain’s role in next-generation supply chains, offering guidance for researchers and practitioners aiming to design resilient and trustworthy supply chain management (SCM) systems.

Xiongfei Zhao, Hou-Wan Long, Z Li, Jiangchuan Liu · 5 authors

The rapid growth of blockchain and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has introduced new challenges and vulnerabilities that threaten the integrity and efficiency of the ecosystem. This study identifies critical issues such as Transaction Order Dependence (TOD), Blockchain Extractable Value (BEV), and Transaction Importance Diversity (TID), which collectively undermine the fairness and security of DeFi systems. BEV-related activities, including sandwich attacks, liquidations, transaction replay etc. have emerged as significant threats, collectively generating $540.54 million in losses over 32 months across 11,289 addresses, involving 49,691 cryptocurrencies and 60,830 on-chain markets. These attacks exploit transaction mechanics to manipulate asset prices and extract value at the expense of other participants, with sandwich attacks being particularly impactful. Additionally, the growing adoption of blockchain in traditional finance highlights the challenge of TID, wherein high transaction volumes can strain systems and compromise time-sensitive operations. To address these pressing issues, we propose a novel Distributed Transaction Sequencing Strategy (DTSS) that integrates forking mechanisms with an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to enforce fair and transparent transaction ordering in a decentralized manner. Our approach is further enhanced by an optimization framework and the introduction of a Normalized Allocation Disparity Metric (NADM) that ensures optimal parameter selection for transaction prioritization. Experimental evaluations demonstrated that the DTSS effectively mitigated BEV risks, enhanced transaction fairness, and significantly improved the security and transparency of DeFi ecosystems. • Distributed Transaction Sequencing Strategy (DTSS) was proposed address TOD, BEV, and TID issues. • DTSS adapts block size based on transaction attributes. • An optimization framework was introduced to determine optimal parameters for DTSS. • Experimental results show the superiority of DTSS in mitigating risks associated with BEV. • Results also show that DTSS can ensure a fair and transparent transaction ordering.

Gideon Adjorlolo, Zhiwei Tang, Gladys Wauk, Philip Adu Sarfo · 7 authors

Corruption in public procurement remains a challenge to good governance, especially in developing nations. Blockchain technology has been espoused as a new paradigm for achieving sustainable public procurement practices for effective service delivery and, by extension, promoting sustainable development. Given the potential of blockchain technology, its implementation has been slow in developing countries. Additionally, there is an inadequate decision support framework to prioritize corruption-prone stages of the public procurement cycle for strategic blockchain integration at the most critical corruption-prone stages of the public procurement cycle given the scarce resources available in developing countries. Therefore, we employed a matured theory that is the principal-agent theory to identify key agency problems related to public procurement in developing countries. An interview with 25 experts and a thorough review of Ghana’s Auditor General produced seven public procurement cycle stages. Further, a survey was designed for experts and stakeholders to prioritize the identified procurement stages under the agency problems through the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Our results revealed that tender evaluation was the most critical stage susceptible to corruption, followed by contract management and procurement planning in the public procurement stages. Additionally, for the relative importance of the criteria, information asymmetry was ranked first, followed by moral hazard, and then adverse selection. This study offers a targeted framework for blockchain deployment in public procurement from an African country perspective. The outcome of this study provides insights for policymakers and procurement practitioners to know the most critical stages of public procurement stages and leverage blockchain technology given the scarcity of resources in developing countries to aid sustainable public procurement. The proposed blockchain framework can enhance service delivery, citizens’ trust, and international donor confidence in partnership and funding for public procurement projects in developing countries.

SeyyedHossein Barati

This study investigates the impact of blockchain technology on demand forecasting and the associated costs in supply chain management using system dynamics modeling. With the increasing complexity and challenges of demand prediction in modern supply chains, the potential of blockchain to enhance the accuracy of demand forecasting and reduce related costs has become a critical area of interest. The research employs system dynamics to model the interrelationships between key factors such as blockchain adoption, data accuracy, transaction transparency, and supply chain performance. The findings highlight that blockchain integration significantly improves demand forecasting accuracy by ensuring real-time data sharing, reducing information asymmetry, and enhancing decision-making processes. Moreover, the simulation results show that blockchain adoption can reduce forecasting errors, thereby lowering operational costs. This research contributes to the existing literature by demonstrating the practical benefits of blockchain in supply chain operations, offering valuable insights for practitioners and researchers. It also provides a foundation for future studies to explore the scalability of blockchain in different sectors and its broader applications in optimizing supply chain functions.

Elmira Mohammadhosseini Fadafan, Rudolf Vetschera

Abstract Contractual relationships between buyers and sellers can be disrupted by unanticipated shocks to attributes of the exchanged good or service; in manufacturing, such relationships often involve one buyer of components or intermediate goods and many potential sellers. We study the buyer’s selection of a seller given the option to initially agree on a smart contract which, in the advent of such unanticipated shocks, automatically adjusts the exchange price. Our benchmark analysis focuses on the case where a positive potential shock raises attribute values for both contracting parties, implying that the seller benefits more than the buyer from executing the original contract at the agreed exchange price. Taking the perspective of the buyer, we vary the shock and utility parameters to arrive at conclusions regarding the determinants of smart contract dominance in random buyer-seller matches. One of the key issues analyzed in this paper is the possibility that after the potential shock, another seller might be better and a buyer who anticipates this might be led to select a different seller. For the case of the Nash bargaining-solution, we further investigate the impact of increasing the number of utility-generating attributes on these switch rates.

Chung-Chi Hsieh, C.H. Wu, Artya Lathifah

As consumer demand for eco-friendly products continues to grow, manufacturers are increasingly driven to enhance product greenness and disclose this information. Blockchain technology emerges as a pivotal enabler, facilitating credible communication of manufacturers’ sustainability efforts to consumers through retail platforms and influencing supply chain decisions concerning sustainability, pricing , and blockchain adoption. While existing research has extensively examined the positive moderating effect of blockchain technology on consumers’ perceived value of product greenness in retail competition or green supply chain contexts, there remains a significant gap regarding its cross-channel influence in situations of information disclosure asymmetry across retail platforms. To address this gap, we investigate the interactive dynamics of a green supply chain under asymmetric platform competition, where the incumbent platform offers blockchain services while the new platform does not. Our findings indicate that the manufacturer’s decision to adopt blockchain depends significantly on market conditions. Notably, the manufacturer’s inclination towards blockchain adoption widens for a broader range of blockchain costs when the cross-channel influence is pronounced. Moreover, the alignment of the manufacturer’s blockchain adoption strategy with the incumbent platform’s preference is not guaranteed. In scenarios where their interests diverge, joint efforts to reduce blockchain costs can be a viable strategy. Our parametric analysis further reveals that while the cross-channel influence contributes positively to enhancing product greenness and the manufacturer’s profit, it could diminish the profits of both platforms under certain conditions.

Hao Wang, Minghao Pan, Jiaping Wang

Scaling blockchain performance through parallel smart contract execution has gained significant attention, as traditional methods remain constrained by the performance of a single virtual machine (VM), even in multi-chain or Layer-2 systems. Parallel VMs offer a compelling solution by enabling concurrent transaction execution within a single smart contract, using multiple CPU cores. However, Ethereum's sequential, shared-everything model limits the efficiency of existing parallel mechanisms, resulting in frequent rollbacks with optimistic methods and high overhead with pessimistic methods due to state dependency analysis and locking.