Blockchain Papers

Daniel Hellwig, Arnd Huchzermeier

No abstract is available for this record.

Samuel Fosso Wamba, Maciel M. Queiroz

The aim of this study is to understand the blockchain adoption behaviour in Brazilian supply chains. Specifically, the study aims to unlock the potential of social influence; taking into consideration workers from the Brazilian supply chains. We proposed a model using constructs from a unified theory of acceptance and the use of technology (UTAUT). The models were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and the findings indicated the power of social influence in predicting other UTAUT constructs. In addition, this study shows the mediation effect of effort expectancy and the facilitating conditions in the relationship between social influence and the behavioural intention to adopt blockchain. Finally, our findings bring essential theoretical and managerial implications.

Gurudutt Nayak, Amol S. Dhaigude

This paper proposes a conceptual model of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) in small and medium enterprises (SME) using blockchain technology (BT). With growing focus on sustainable business process, research on SSCM is gaining prominence. BT, being a disruptive technology, has potential to impact the SSCM. Using the extant literature, the antecedents of SSCM using BT have been identified. Multiple-criteria decision-making has been deployed to develop the conceptual model. Various managerial and theoretical implications along with scope for future research have been discussed.

Sachin Modgil, Vandana Sonwaney

This paper Decision making at the top level is very complex. One important responsibility of the policy makers and the governance system is to plan the safety and security to its citizen and consumers for the firms. This research address of the main concern of counterfeiting goods in today’s time. This research identify the potential and needs of the distributed ledger technologies like blockchain and their application potential to combat the problem of counterfeiting in Indian economy. The research uses SWARA (Step-wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis)-WASPAS (Weighted Aggregated Sum Product Assessment) methodology after expert opinion gathered to understand the problem better and it results into the prioritization of application of blockchain in different industries. SWARA is applied to evaluate the weights of the criteria and WASPAS to evaluate and prioritize the alternatives.

Ju Myung Song, Jongwook Sung, Taeho Park

Blockchain has been emerged as a promising technology for a traceability system in industry. It can also be applied to many functions of a Supply Chain Management (SCM) system, such as logistics, quality assurance, inventory management, and forecasting. One of the most important functions of the SCM is to improve the transparency, traceability and auditability of materials flow throughout the supply chain from suppliers, manufacturing facilities, warehouses/distribution centers, to customers. This research especially focuses on the impact of blockchain on supply chain traceability through the current industry applications, and its future direction.

Yassine Issaoui, Azeddine Khiat, Ayoub Bahnasse, Hassan Ouajji

Nowadays, integrating new technologies into all management processes leads to strong evolution especially in Smart Logistics which forms one of the fundamental pillar of the fourth industrial revolution ‘industry 4.0’. As an integrated technology, Blockchain, which is an emerging concept, allows decentralized and immutable storage of verified data. The purpose of this study is to define the various applications of Blockchain in Smart Logistics, as well as to present concrete examples of these applications. This work was done by classifying the applications according to four clusters: Information, Transport, Finance, and Management, in addition to presenting the applications of each cluster.

Yingli Wang, Catherine Huirong Chen, Ahmed Zghari-Sales

While blockchain technologies are gaining momentum within supply chains, academic understanding of concrete, real-life design and implementation is still lagging, hence offering very limited insights into the true implications of blockchain technology on supply chains. This paper reports a two-year design science research (DSR) study of a smart contract initiative piloted by a consortium in the UK’s construction sector. We seek answers to the research question, ‘How should a blockchain enabled supply chain be designed?’ Guided by the theory of business model, we explore how a group of supply chain actors collectively designs and pilots a blockchain solution that addresses the supply chain transparency and provenance problem. Our research is one of the very few longitudinal empirical studies to offer in-depth evidence about how blockchain is deployed in complex multi-tier supply chain networks. In compliance with DSR research paradigm, we make contributions at three levels: designing and instantiating the blockchain architect and proving its utility in addressing the target problem; developing a set of design principles as a mid-range theory that can be applied and tested in different blockchain supply chain contexts; and refining and extending the kernel theory of business value at supply chain network level.

Gabriella M. Hastig, ManMohan S. Sodhi

We seek to guide operations management (OM) research on the implementation of supply chain traceability systems by identifying business requirements and the factors critical to successful implementation. We first motivate the need for implementing traceability systems in two very different industries—cobalt mining and pharmaceuticals—and present business requirements and critical success factors for implementation. Next, we describe how we carried out thematic analysis of practitioner and scholarly articles on implementing blockchain for supply chain traceability. Finally, we present our results pertaining to the needs of different stakeholders such as suppliers, consumers, and regulators. The business requirements for traceability systems are curbing illegal practices; improving sustainability performance; increasing operational efficiency; enhancing supply‐chain coordination; and sensing market trends. Critical success factors for implementation are companies’ capabilities; collaboration; technology maturity; supply chain practices; leadership; and governance of the traceability efforts. These findings provide a nascent measurement model for empirical work and a foundation for descriptive and normative research on blockchain applications for supply chain traceability.

William Nikolakis, Lijo John, Harish Krishnan

Law, regulation, and private standards have evolved to enhance sustainability in value chains. However, the volume of hard and soft laws has created complexity and fragmentation for consumers and firms. In addition, global value chains are increasingly disaggregated, making it difficult for consumers to enforce breaches of sustainability representations. Blockchain, as an immutable and digital record keeping system, is a tool that can deal with this growing complexity in global value chains. Documents verifying sustainability that were once in the private domain and stored in paper copy can now be made accessible in a secure and transparent blockchain platform. Despite a growing interest in the potential of blockchain to transform businesses, there are few concrete examples or scholarly literature showing how blockchain is operationalized in practice. Using a “conceptual framework analysis” approach, we develop an Evidence, Verifiability, and Enforceability (EVE) framework to illustrate how blockchain can enhance sustainability by providing information to consumers on the origin of products, assurances as to the veracity of the information, and a mechanism to enforce representations through the blockchain smart contract function. However, there need to be safeguards put in place for blockchain technology to meet its promise and we discuss some of these challenges.

Mahtab Kouhizadeh, Joseph Sarkis

Blockchain technology is an inchoate technology whose current popularity is peaking. Some of the most pervasive blockchain technology use cases exist for supply chains. Sustainable, and especially green, supply chains can benefit from blockchain technology, but there are also caveats. The sustainability and environmental management research and academic literature is only starting to investigate this emergent field. This paper seeks to help advance the discussion and motivate additional practice and research related to green supply chains and blockchain technology. This viewpoint paper provides insight into some of the main dimensions of blockchain technology, an overview of the use cases and issues, and some general research areas for further investigation.

Simone Figorilli, Francesca Antonucci, Corrado Costa, Federico Pallottino · 12 authors

This is the first work to introduce the use of blockchain technology for the electronic traceability of wood from standing tree to final user. Infotracing integrates the information related to the product quality with those related to the traceability [physical and digital documents (Radio Frequency IDentification-RFID-architecture)] within an online information system whose steps (transactions) can be made safe to evidence of alteration through the blockchain. This is a decentralized and distributed ledger that keeps records of digital transactions in such a way that makes them accessible and visible to multiple participants in a network while keeping them secure without the need of a centralized certification organism. This work implements a blockchain architecture within the wood chain electronic traceability. The infotracing system is based on RFID sensors and open source technology. The entire forest wood supply chain was simulated from standing trees to the final product passing through tree cutting and sawmill process. Different kinds of Internet of Things (IoT) open source devices and tags were used, and a specific app aiming the forest operations was engineered to collect and store in a centralized database information (e.g., species, date, position, dendrometric and commercial information).

Peter Verhoeven, Florian Sinn, Tino T. Herden

In the context of logistics, blockchain can help to increase end-to-end visibility along global supply chains. Thus, it can lead to improved tracking of goods and offer tamper-proof data to build trust among parties. Although a variety of blockchain use cases already exists, not all of them seem to rely on blockchain-specific features, but could rather be solved with traditional technologies. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to identify characteristic use cases described for blockchain in the field of LSCM and to analyze them regarding their mindful technology use based on five mindful technology adoption principles: engagement with the technology; Technological novelty seeking; awareness of local context; cognizance of alternative technologies; and anticipation of technology alteration. The authors identified five blockchain case clusters and chose one case for each category to be analyzed in detail. Most cases demonstrate high engagement with the technology, but there are significant differences when it comes to the other mindful use principles. This paper highlights the need to understand the problem and to apply the right technology in order to solve it. When solving a problem, care should be taken to address a technology’s unique features to ensure effectiveness and cost-efficiency.

Mario Dobrovnik, David M. Herold, Elmar Fürst, Sebastian Kummer

Despite the claim that blockchain will revolutionise business and redefine logistics, existing research so far is limited concerning frameworks that categorise blockchain application potentials and their implications. In particular, academic literature in transport and logistics to date has not sufficiently distinguished between blockchain adoption (‘what to adopt’) and the identification of the right business opportunity (‘where to start’). In response, this paper (1) uses Rogers’ (2003) ‘attributes of innovation framework’ to identify potential blockchain applications and (2) presents a framework explicating four transformation phases to subsequently categorise the identified areas of application according to their effects on organisational structures and processes. Using academic and practitioner literature, we classify possible applications for adoption and provide a framework to identify blockchain opportunities in the logistics industry, thereby helping managers to systematically assess where to start building organisational capabilities in order to successfully adopt and deploy blockchain-based technology.

George Alexandris, Vassilis Katos, Sofia Alexaki, George Hatzivasilis

Implementing a circular economy business model which is profitable for businesses operating physical assets, while at the same time does not conflict with strategic goals of environmental policies can be a complex and risky undertaking for a single entity, especially if the asset operator is a small-to-medium enterprise (SMEs). To mitigate this, a collaborative circular economy business model is proposed, where the circular economy cycle is materialized by assets transitioning between asset operators on a demanddriven approach. Demand itself is partially based on the asset's state, which is described by its circular properties (location, condition, availability). The asset state and its transition between operators can be monitored by auditors and governmental regulators to ensure asset integrity and compliance with environmental targets. This common view of asset state between all parties can be enabled by blockchains and smart contracts, which can provide the underlying technology to share data with integrity, while simultaneously offering more efficient interoperability between participants. To demonstrate how this could be achieved, a conceptual asset record access and sharing mechanism is presented which is suitable for regulated environmental jurisdictions.

Nina Yan, Tingting Tong, Hongyan Dai

A Supply Chain Finance (SCF) system involving and a commercial bank and a capital-constrained retailer is designed in the imperfect capital market with non-zero bankruptcy costs. A decentralized borrower-lender game is analyzed, and the optimal centralized strategy is developed for SCF from the perspective of multi-attribute utility (MAU) maximization, including maximizing the expected profit and the service level, as well as minimizing the bankruptcy cost. Furthermore, we analytically and numerically explore the coordination condition for SCF and conclude that the bank financing scheme with a suitable combination of decision preferences can realize coordination, even super coordination. Through sensitivity analyses and numerical experiments, we discuss the impacts of the borrower's initial capitals on the upstream firm's pricing decision and dig out why he has incentives to support the retailer's choice of adopting SCF. The findings of this study reveal that the capital-constrained retailer would require more initial capital when maximizing MAU than maximizing the expected profit, and thus the equilibrium order quantity and the bankruptcy risk would also be higher. Moreover, based on a suitable combination of decision preferences, our proposed bank financing scheme can realize coordination, even super coordination.

Jun Wang, Xianxue Cheng, Shuhua Zhang

Capital constraints exist in many supply chains. We examine a low carbon distribution channel that consists of a manufacturer and a retailer, in which the retailer is constrained by capital. The retailer can be financed by bank credit from a competitive bank market. A Stackelberg model is developed to analyze the integrated decision-making process of ordering, financing, and emission reduction. By comparing the decentralized and centralized channels, we obtain that the manufacturer’s green technology investment should be linearly proportional to the retailer’s order quantity in both channels. Thus, a large order quantity leads to increased efforts to reduce emissions. Results further show that the centralized channel in some cases has fewer emissions and can generate more profits for the whole supply chain compared with the decentralized channel. We therefore propose a revenue sharing contract with a function form to coordinate the distribution channel. When the government allocates appropriate quotas to the supply chain, high carbon price can benefit the environment and supply chain efficiency.

Xiaoli Wang, Yun Liu, Yanbing Ju

In many countries, sustainable public procurement is a powerful tool to reflect on national strategic intentions and promote scientific and technological innovation. Based on the perspective of an institutional structure, we filtered out the core policies. Using policy bibliometrics, we analyzed Chinese public procurement policies on promoting scientific and technological innovation, revealed policy-making characteristics, and concluded that the Ministry of Finance should appropriately decentralize the policy-making work to other relevant agencies of the State Council. This article compares the main policy tools from four dimensions in China, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, France, and South Korea. We issued these pertinent strategies: establishing the vendor database for small and medium enterprises, developing a grade system and the post-evaluation system, formulating detailed implementation methods for high-tech products (services), and carrying out classification management for imported products. For sustainable public procurement policies on promoting scientific and technological innovation, this article provides an effective reference to organize the agencies and formulate the detail measures. This article’s research framework could be applied to analyze other industry policies.

Anne Haugen Gausdal, Karen V. Czachorowski, Marina Z. Solesvik

The aim of this study is to develop a theoretical framework for blockchain, operations in particular. Furthermore, we aim to identify the main drivers and barriers of digital innovation and explore the general possibilities of blockchain applications within the maritime industry. A case study approach is applied: the Norwegian offshore industry. Primary data is collected through interviews, while secondary data is collected from industrial and company reports, the Internet, and national and international media reports. We have discovered that cost reduction intentions, the high level of regulation in the maritime industry, and the large amount of data that maritime companies should process, along with the intention to work more effectively, are the main drivers of digital innovation. On the other hand, the high cost of implementation, the bad quality of Internet connections offshore, the old age of decision-makers, the technology-oriented culture, the lack of investment initiatives, the low level of blockchain diffusion through the supply chain, and risk aversion are the main barriers. The results of the qualitative study show that some of the barriers and motives of digital innovation and the introduction to blockchain technology were pointed out by earlier studies. However, we have identified several unique drivers and barriers specific to the industry. Finally, the blockchain process framework is developed.

Bailu Fu, Zhan Shu, Xiaogang Liu

Motivated by the recent blockchain technology originally built for bitcoin transactions, various industries are exploring the opportunities to redefine their existing operational systems. In this study, an innovative environmentally sustainable solution is proposed for the fashion apparel manufacturing industry (FAMI), which is energized by blockchain. Incorporating the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), and a novel “emission link” system, the proposed framework exposes carbon emission to the public and establishes a feature to reduce the emissions for all key steps of clothing making. Fully compatible with Industry 4.0, blockchain provides decentralization, transparency, automation, and immutability characteristics to the proposed framework. Specifically, the blockchain supported ETS framework, the carbon emissions of clothing manufacturing life cycle, and the emission link powered procedures are introduced in detail. A case study is provided to demonstrate the carbon emission evaluation procedure. Finally, a multi-criteria evaluation is performed to demonstrate the benefits and drawbacks of the proposed system.

Saif Benjaafar, Xi Chen, Niyazi Taneri, Guangyu Wan

No abstract is available for this record.

Jasmine Chang, Michael N. Katehakis, Benjamin Melamed, Jim Shi

No abstract is available for this record.

Giulia Baruffaldi, Henrik Sternberg

Due to the disruptive role of the Bitcoin in the financial sector, both scholars and practitioners are increasingly wondering whether it is possible to replicate the impact of the Blockchain technology in the supply chain context. As a distributed ledger technology characterized by the decentralized consensus, Blockchain is touted by many as the proper platform to collect all the information about supply chains from the producer to the consumer. However, the current technology immaturity and the lack of successful supply chain implementations pave the way for doubt about the disruptive role of this technology in supply chains. To the authors’ knowledge, this work is one of the very first attempts to link the blockchain technology to supply chain and logistics. This paper investigates the state-of-the-art application of blockchain in supply chains, exploring both the literature and the industry initiatives, contributing to the increase of the managerial insight and providing a future research agenda.

Youness Tribis, Abdelali El Bouchti, Houssine Bouayad

Groundbreakingly, blockchain technology (BCT) has gained widespread acceptance and importance in the last few years. Implemented in different areas of applications such as social and legal industries, finance, smart property, and supply chain networks. This technology assures immutability and integrity of data without the need of a third trusted party. Furthermore, BCT could guarantee a transparent and decentralized transaction system in businesses and industries. Even though general research has been done in the BCT, however, there is a lack of systematic analysis on current research challenges regarding how BCT is effectively applicable in supply chain management (SCM). A systematic literature review (SLR) of SCM based on blockchain does not exist yet. This work aims to explore and analyse the state-ofthe-art on the BCT applications for SCM. We synthesize existing evidence, and identify gaps, available in the literature. The survey uses a systematic mapping study (SMS) method to examine 40 extracted primary studies from scientific databases.

Guido Perboli, Stefano Musso, Mariangela Rosano

The Blockchain technology can be defined as a distributed ledger database for recording transactions between parties verifiably and permanently. Blockchain emerged as a leading technology layer for financial applications. Nevertheless, in the past years, the attention of researchers and practitioners moved to the application of the Blockchain technologies to other domains. Recently, it represents the backbone of a new digital supply chain. Thanks to its capability of ensuring data immutability and public accessibility of data streams, Blockchain can increase the efficiency, reliability, and transparency of the overall supply chain, and optimize the inbound processes. The literature concerning Blockchain in non-financial applications mainly focused on the technological part and the Business Process Modeling, lacking in terms of standard methodology for designing a strategy to develop and validate the overall Blockchain solution and integrate it in the Business Strategy. Thus, this paper aims to overcome this lack. First, we integrate the current literature filling the lack concerning the digital strategy, creating a standard methodology to design Blockchain technology use cases, which are not related to finance applications. Second, we present the results of a use case in the fresh food delivery, showing the critical aspects of implementing a Blockchain solution. Moreover, the paper discusses how the Blockchain will help in reducing the logistics costs and in optimizing the operations and the research challenges.