Ernest Effah Ameyaw, George Agyekum‐Mensah, Bimal Kumar, David J. Edwards
Purpose Traditional paper-based contracts are document-intensive, insecure, susceptible to forgery and errors, detrimental to productivity improvement and require multiple intermediaries. Addressing these challenges requires computerised construction to modernise the way modern construction projects are procured with blockchain-enabled smart contracts. Smart contracts could replace paper-based contracts by improving transparency and security and automating contractual terms, processes and transacting activities. However, smart contracts are an emerging technology with limited adoption in construction projects, and the issues influencing its widespread adoption remain unclear and unexplored. Hence, this study aims at exploring and understanding the important obstacles to adoption of smart contracts in construction projects. Design/methodology/approach Using an international questionnaire survey, the study draws on experienced construction practitioners with direct involvement and knowledge in blockchain technology and smart contract initiatives and activities. Descriptive statistics and fuzzy logic techniques were used to analyse and model the quantitative survey data to establish the critical barriers to smart contracts adoption. Findings Organisational and external characteristics, personal characteristics and technology characteristics constitute major obstacles to the successful adoption of smart contracts. Construction practitioners’ limited knowledge of smart contracts, resistance to technology change, insufficiently digitalised construction industry and lack of or weak governmental support are critical to smart contracts adoption. Originality/value The research contributes to the body of knowledge on diffusing cutting-edge technology by advancing the understanding of practitioners’ perspectives on the primary obstacles to smart contracts adoption. Understanding the obstacles provides industry stakeholders (policymakers, leaders and practitioners) with underpinning knowledge with which to develop and implement corrective actions.
Blockchain technologies and paradigms can provide new ground for the management of complex socio-technical problems like supply chains. The contribution of this work is a work-in-progress experimental setting to demonstrate the effectiveness of a novel distributed business process management scheme that integrates the RMAS (Relational-model Multi Agent System) and the Blockchain frameworks. The research work is conducted in a food supply chain case study aiming to sustainability and social good through a purposeful organisation of the autonomous behaviour of the actors in the system.
Mohamad Sadegh Sangari, Kar Wai So, Atefeh Mashatan
Purpose Blockchain technology (BT) presents a decentralized approach that has promising potentials to alleviate many of the long-lasting risks and inefficiencies in trade finance (TF) and supply chain finance (SCF) operations, providing international traders greater access to working capital. Despite this, the actual adoption of the technology and related issues in this space has remained under-researched. This paper examines the state of the practice to identify the main drivers and inhibitors faced by TF/SCF parties in their BT adoption efforts. Design/methodology/approach This exploratory study applies a multi-stakeholder perspective and a mixed-methods approach using semi-structured interviews with practitioners in various stages of BT implementation in TF/SCF initiatives across North America, Europe and Asia. The study then determines the priority of the identified factors using the Bayesian best-worst method (BWM). Findings The findings show that while the discussion has focused on the technological drivers of BT adoption for TF/SCF, practitioners rely more on non-technological factors such as peer adoption and fostering innovation. The findings also reveal how practitioners address common BT issues, including scalability and interoperability. Originality/value The study offers insights into important requirements for realizing the full benefits of BT in support of TF and SCF from an extended technology-organization-environment (TOE) perspective. On a more general level, it highlights what is required to transform this industry toward digitization.
This paper introduces a blockchain-based procurement system for the enhancement of procurement processes in the public sector. Using smart contracts within a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), our system allows the automatic selection of the winner of an auction and the exclusion of non-competitive bids (anomalies), this proposed solution prevents malicious manipulation and human interaction during the evaluation of the bid results and objectively proves the procurement process. Our work demonstrates, through a running scenario focused on the specific Italian procurement system, the potential of blockchain technology to improve public sector operations through enhanced transparency, security, and trust. The obtained preliminary results highlight the possibility of securing and establishing trust in the e-procurement process, contributing to the broader field of secure decentralized applications in public services. The proposed solution can promote research in this domain and open up various interesting future works.
Purpose Fraud within the procurement process remains a persistent challenge, resulting in substantial financial losses and lack of social justice. This paper underscores the significance of records for the integrity of the procurement practices and proposes using blockchain technology to mitigate records fraud. Analyzing international regulations this paper highlights their emphasis on proper records management for promoting transparency, accountability, and integrity of procurement procedures. This paper aims to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between records management and procurement accountability while addressing blockchain technology's innovative use in mitigating records forgery and omission. Design/methodology/approach This research involves a comparative analysis of international regulations investigating their directives on the relevance of records in public procurement and a survey of records fraud cases in the Brazilian context to illustrate the significance of the problem and to indicate how blockchain technology can be applied as a solution to ensure accountability and prevent records forgery and omission. Findings The findings highlight the explicit importance ascribed to proper records management by international regulations, and indicates how blockchain technology can serve as a valuable resource to reduce the records fraud opportunity in public procurement. Research limitations/implications The research does not consider context-specific regulations. The survey of frauds is limited to the Brazilian context. Originality/value This research introduces a pioneering approach by investigating the use of blockchain technology to combat records forgery or omission in public procurement procedures.
Sammendrag En non-fungible token defineres som et unikt digitalt eiersertifikat for virtuelle og fysiske eiendeler. Den er lagret på en blokkjede på samme måte som kryptovaluta. Nedenfor redegjøres for hva non-fungible tokens er, og hvordan inntekter av produksjon, kjøp og salg skattlegges. Det redegjøres også for formuesskattemessige virkninger ved eie. Nøkkelord beskatning av non-fungible tokens NFT kryptokunst desentralisert finans kryptovaluta virtuell valuta
Yanhui Du, Jingfeng Yuan, Shouqing Wang, Yan Liu · 5 authors
Purpose The information used for supervision by regulatory departments in public-private partnership (PPP) projects is primarily transmitted and processed by the PPP implementation department, which negatively impacts the information quality, leading to information asymmetry and undermining the overall effectiveness of supervision. This study aims to explore how to use blockchain to anchor the information used for supervision in PPP projects to the original information, to strengthen the oversight. Design/methodology/approach This paper adopts the principles of design science research (DSR) to design a conceptual framework that systematically organizes information along the information dissemination chain, ensuring the reliable anchoring of original information. Two-stage interviews involving experts from academia and industry are conducted, serving as formative and summative evaluations to guide the design. Findings The framework establishes a weak-centralized information organizing mode, including the design of governance community and on-chain and off-chain governance mechanisms. Feedback from experts is collected via interviews and the designed framework is thought to improve information used for supervision. Constructive suggestions are also collected and analyzed for further development. Originality/value This paper provides a novel example exploring the inspirations blockchain can bring to project governance, like exercising caution regarding the disorderly expansion of public sector authority in addressing information disadvantages and how to leverage blockchain to achieve this. Technical details conveyed by the framework deepen understanding of how blockchain benefits and the challenges faced in successful implementation for practitioners and policymakers. The targeted evaluation serves as rigorous validation, guiding experts to provide reliable feedback and richer insights by offering them a more cognitively convenient scenario.
Digital transformation of public procurement has been a spontaneous process driven by technology at a different pace worldwide, which has had to be accommodated by domestic administrative laws and international instruments aiming to liberalise public procurement globally. WTO’s Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) and Government Procurement Committee (GPA) heavily encroached upon domestic laws and shaped a detailed procurement model, which has withstood fragmentation of the multilateral trading system and has rather been reinforced in macroregional trade agreements. However, the GPC has been reactive to technological novelty by design, allowing frontrunners to experiment while not discouraging less advanced countries from joining the GPA. Procurement electrification achieved in the 1990s proved conducive to curbing protectionism, yet the GPA text did not embrace it until the early 2010s. Similarly, the GPC has s remained restrained in regulating procurement applications of distributed ledger technology, smart contracts or artificial intelligence in recent years.
Despite their promising potential, the level of implementation of smart contracts is not at the desired level. To expedite the acceptance and deployment of smart contracts, the barriers to the implementation of smart contracts should be revealed. Past studies, however, do not provide a comprehensive theoretical basis due to several methodological drawbacks. Thus, this study aims to identify and assess the barriers to the implementation of smart contracts by considering the inherent characteristics of the construction industry. An in-depth literature review was initially conducted to extract all barriers proposed in the literature. Then, focus group discussion (FGD) sessions were conducted with the participation of the construction practitioners. In the FGD session, the results of the literature review were validated, and nine additional barriers were proposed. Finally, a total of 20 barriers under five categories was proposed for the smart contract adoption in the construction industry. Then, a questionnaire survey was conducted with the participation of 15 construction practitioners. Lastly, fuzzy VIKOR analysis was performed to assess the criticality of the implementation barriers. This study indicates that the construction companies should overcome not only technical barriers but also managerial barriers. Changes in the processes arisen due to smart contract implementation prevent the construction from implementing a smart contract, since the employees show resistance to these changes. Furthermore, the companies believe that they can lose their bargaining power with smart contracts, and they do not want to lose their power. Bottlenecks are considered the most critical barrier from a technological perspective, and companies are concerned about the problems resulting from them. Although this study provides insights into the barriers to smart contracts in the construction industry, all the respondents are from Turkey. Therefore, some of the findings of this study can be specific to the Turkish construction industry.
Олександр Валерійович Корнійчук, Марина Сергіївна Граф
У роботі детально досліджуються існуючі механізми для системи прийняття рішень Proof-of-Stake і Proof-of-Work у блокчейнах та проводиться їх порівняння. Розглянуто методи знаходження консенсусу як процесу погодження нового блоку, що згодом додається до блокчейну всіма учасниками. В досліджених механізмах виявлено схожість: передбачені правила, що стосуються всіх учасників – майнерів або валідаторів. У разі порушення цих правил на учасників накладаються штрафи. Після успішно доданого блоку учаснику, що розв’язав математичну задачу, передбачається отримання нагороди за активну участь. Суттєвою різницею між механізмами є формування нових блоків, вимоги до обладнання учасників та механізми нагород і штрафів. Розглядаються тенденції держав у впровадженні блокчейнів у державні реєстри та майданчики для державних закупівель. Було виявлено, що блокчейни можуть зменшити рівень корупції та змов лише за правильного їх впровадження та подальшого використання. У результаті дослідження припускається можливість використання саме Proof-of-Stake механізму для інтеграції в майданчики, що проводять державні закупівлі.
Purpose Scaling up smart city infrastructure projects will require a large financial investment. Using public–private partnerships is one of the most effective ways to address budget constraints. Numerous factors have varying degrees of influence on the performance of Public private partnerships (PPP) projects; certain PPP factors are more crucial to the success of a smart city infrastructure project than others, and their influence can be greatly increased when they are fulfilled collectively. This study aims to find out what factors are unique to smart city PPP initiatives, as well as how these factors work together, so that successful smart city infrastructure PPP projects can be scaled up. Design/methodology/approach The methodology included three sequential stages: identifying the critical success factors (CSF) of PPP for smart cities based on an extensive literature review, collecting data from a sample of 90 PPP practitioners using a Likert scale questionnaire and estimating interrelationships among the CSF and their emergent clusters using structural equation modelling. Findings The best fit model developed in this study demonstrated the significance of each factor and their interrelationships within their categories in enhancing the performance of PPPs in smart city infrastructure projects. Five categories of critical success factors for PPPs in smart city infrastructure projects have been established: partnership and collaboration; financial sustainability; contractual duties and outsourcing; smart integration; and contract governance. Practical implications The proposed model represented the causal interrelationships among relevant critical success factors derived from literature, which may help in directing the organization’s attention and resources to more critical areas, leading to the effective fulfilment of the smart city infrastructure project’s objectives. In addition to the theoretical and methodological contributions, this study produced a usable and readily adaptable list and clusters of critical success factors for research in the area of the implementation of PPP in smart city infrastructure projects. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to identify PPP critical success factors and their themed clusters for smart city infrastructure projects.
Hamidah Babirye Nsereko, M. Tait, Nadine Oosthuizen
Purpose/Objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine the ideal contract compliance process in Uganda from a state department perspective. Design/Methodology/Approach: In conducting this study, the interpretivist approach using the qualitative methodology was employed. Telephonic interviews and focus group discussions via the Zoom online platform with semi-structured interviews were conducted among 29 procurement officers, heads of finance departments, heads of procurement departments, auditors and accounting officers. The interviews explored matters concerning what is regarded as the ideal contract compliance process. Findings: The findings indicate that the ideal contract compliance involves the following nine stages: understanding the law; procurement planning; requisitioning; establishing funds availability for the items procured; sourcing providers; contract awarding; appointing contract managers; monitoring deliveries; and payment. Practical Implications: Studies such as the current one widen the management scope and suggest that state departments should read the mind of society and continuously engage with them; make SMART plans and budgets; streamline processes; involve technical people; legally assess the contract; and follow the existing laws. Originality/Value: The cost of contract non-compliance is high and could lead to missed deadlines; delays in executing contracts; litigation and even cancellation of contracts. This could result in a lack of transparency and accountability; poor performance; inefficiency; and poor resource usage. To prevent these negative impacts, state departments could add policy recommendations to implement an effective contract compliance process.
On-time delivery of documentation and contracts has been recognized as a crucial requirement for the successful delivery of projects. However, the construction industry still depends on time-consuming traditional contract processes, which negatively affect the overall productivity of projects in the industry. The use of Smart Contracts (SCs) is highlighted as a suitable novel technology to expedite the contract processes and establish a reliable payment environment in the construction industry. Whilst there has been an increase in the debate about the use of SCs in construction in recent years, their use in practice still seems to be in its infancy. As such, the topic will benefit from a thorough review of benefits, drivers, barriers and strategies that can enhance the implementation of SCs in construction. This article presents the key findings from a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on SCs in the construction industry, critically assessing existing studies on the topic. The study initially involved 171 research papers for the SLR process, and out of that 49 research papers were filtered for further analysis after reading their abstracts. A total of 30 papers were finally filtered after the full-text reading for the SLR. Descriptive and content analysis were used to analyse the full-text findings. The study graphically mapped the bibliographic materials by using the Visualization of Similarities (VoS) Viewer software. As per the findings, the topic has mostly been researched in Asia and the Pacific as a region and China as a country. It was noted that there were more empirical articles than theoretical studies related to SCs, evidencing the industry relevance of the issue. A total of 55% of the articles reviewed have been published in journals with a Q1 ranking. All the articles were written by multiple authors, with 30% of the journal articles having international co-authors and benefitting from the collaboration between authors. Key advantages identified in the literature go beyond contract and payment provisions and include aspects such as logistic handling, decentralized applications, business process management, automated payments, etc. Key drivers for adoption are supply chain pressure, competitive pressure, top management support, simple layout, reduction in risks of clients, clarity in responsibility and risk allocation, whereas the key barriers include insecurity, limited observability, incompatibility, inactive government collaboration and limited storage capacity. Key strategies to enhance the application of SC in construction include integrating theorems proving symbolic execution, using the selective transparency method and lock fund system, testing the integration of SCs with other systems at the initial stage, incorporating semi-automated consensus mechanisms for payments, constructing a mechanism to actively engage with government bodies, etc.
David King Boison, Ebenezer Malcalm, Ahmed Antwi-Boampong, Musah Osumanu Doumbia · 5 authors
The study assessed the factors that influence the adoption of blockchain (BC) in Ghana's public procurement delivery. The study adopted correctional design and utilized the extended unified theory of the acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) as the conceptual basis to determine whether performance expectancy (PE), behavioral intent (BI), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), facilitating conditions (FC), hedonic motivation (HM), price value (PV), and habit (HT) were predictors of the intention of state owned enterprises to adopt blockchain programs in the implementation of the public procurement act. Only four constructs, namely PE, EE, FC, and HT, were found to influence the behavioral intention (BI) of service providers to participate in a BC. This study provides a deeper understanding of the adoption of BC in the delivery of public contracts.
Disputes are described as an epidemic of the construction industry because they slow construction or even stop a project completely for a period of time, leading to a breakdown of business relationships, delayed project times, and inflated costs. The most common kind of disputes are contractual based. The need for contractual clarity is immense when there are many different contracts being drafted by different companies. Most common causes of disputes in construction and to what extent the standard forms assist in mitigating disputes in Australia is not well studied and is addressed in this study. The research method involved review of a sample of legal cases that were caused by construction contractual disputes. Accordingly, 10 cases were analyzed, with some using standard forms of contracts and some using customized contracts. The findings revealed that time and cost overruns were the most common cause of construction disputes. The research further reviewed specific terms and clauses that relate to time and cost in the standard forms and found both local and international contracts assist to mitigate disputes when the contracts are managed as agreed by parties. This research offers useful implications to mitigate contractual disputes in construction and suggest further to consider new technologies such as blockchain and smart contract. Further research can extend to explore more contexts and other forms of contracts.
Abstract4 Corruption has had a detrimental impact on the South African economy. The use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in combatting corruption is undervalued in e-government contexts, while insufficient empirical data exists to gauge the effectiveness of distributed digital technology in combatting malfeasance. This study explores perceptions on the use of ICT in the procurement corruption investigation sector. Legal and factual perspectives of ICTs, and specifically on Digital Ledger Technology (DLT)9s usefulness in combatting public sector procurement corruption in South Africa was found to be limited. This empirical study found that most respondents in the corruption investigation field had encounters with it in the Public Procurement field of the Supply Chain Management (SCM) function. Human interference in the ICT system appears to be the main contributing factor in corrupting the system. Monitoring of user activity logs is recommended as well as strict regulations to prevent ghost users from corrupting ICT systems.
The South African Local Government uses the tendering system to deliver some of the basic services to the surrounding communities to promote social and industrial or environmental policies. However, this process still relies heavily on a manual process, which requires skilled personnel to deal with the forms and administrations of the entire tendering process. Some of the project information shared by the supplier during the tender bidding process plays a critical role when it comes to awarding a tender project to a particular supplier since it reflects the competency area and project history. Some of the tools used to share this project information are reports, meetings, presentations, and site visits. Therefore, this study proposes a distributed model that might be used to share tendering project information securely and efficiently with all the parties that have an interest in the tendering project. The proposed model seeks to promote the need for sharing project information while eliminating issues that are related to a single point of failure or having an organisation that has central powers over project information. Additionally, the proposed model can also be used to foster collaboration between the public and private sectors by becoming an essential tool that might be used to securely share project information without colluding. The proposed model also incorporates the benefits and promises that come with the adoption of distributed ledger technology (blockchain) as a technology solution.
Abdul Wahab, Jun Wang, Alireza Shojaei, Junfeng Ma
Purpose Smart contracts using blockchain technology (BCT) is a tool that decentralizes authority and makes it easier to upgrade the contract administration process by providing an efficient system. Current literature provides a good overview of contracts in the construction industry; however, the specific details of BCT's smart contracts applications in the three categories have not been addressed adequately: (1) information quality, (2) enhancing project schedule and progress payment time and (3) reducing conflicts among project stakeholders. Thus, this study aims to analyze smart contracts using BCT by creating a computerized contract model, specifically evaluating its impact on the three identified categories. Design/methodology/approach In this paper BCT-SmContract was developed through an automated program that utilizes blockchain to define the contractual agreements between different parties in a construction project. BCT-SmContract model provides a new technique to overcome the current challenges associated with factors identified in this study, i.e. (1) information quality, (2) enhancing project schedule and progress payment time and (3) reducing conflicts among project stakeholders. Afterward, the model was tested to ensure validity and reliability through a construction project. Findings The findings indicated that BCT-SmContract was approximately 90% faster to execute the contract and 100% accurate in reflecting the correct information about the project status, resulting in reduced conflicts. Originality/value This study has contributed in upgrading the traditional contracting method in construction by developing an automated smart contract model to enhance the processes and achieve higher accuracy.
Purpose BIM research to date has in general zeroed in on featuring the significance of BIM-enabled integration and collaboration (BIMIC) rather than giving exact proof of its occurrence. Accordingly, this research quantitatively explored the determinants of BIMIC in South Africa. Design/methodology/approach This research conceptualized a four-pillar model of BIM-enabled integration and collaboration. The speculations in the model were examined using SEM-MLE. Findings The aftereffects of the SEM-MLE demonstrated that network communication, knowledge sharing, and transfer, information sharing and exchange and trust-based relationships are critical determinants of BIMIC. The model's prescient power demonstrates an acceptable validity, and the boundary gauges showed that all the hypotheses were measurably huge. Research limitations/implications This research gives a hypothetical premise for further investigation of BIMIC by supporting the postulations on the occurrence of collaboration and integrations among the BIM-SCM. Practical implications The idea investigated involving SEM in this research gives a holistic view to the BIM managers in arranging BIM-based activities and overseeing BIM cycles and supply chain members. It likewise offers rules and structures for accomplishing and overseeing integration and collaboration among the BIM supply chain members. Originality/value Despite 20 years of exploration on the BIM concept and adoption, no idea has been given to clarify the determinants of integration and collaboration as a BIM cycle. The four-pillar model of BIMIC created and tested in this research clarified BIMIC and contributed a new model to the current literature on the BIM process.
Project implementations normally fail due to sustainable development problems that inhibit the usage levels required to facilitate successful implementations. This paper explores the successful implementation from a Bangladesh perspective. In particular, it identifies the possible applications of Blockchain in project procurement and management, and it develops a guideline for incorporating Blockchain into project management to improve the existing project and the procurement management practices in developing countries. This is a qualitative study with an interpretivist research methodology. By adopting an interpretive approach, this study construes knowledge as that only gained through social constructions, such as language, shared meanings, documents, industry reports, reviews of academic papers, and tools; it is a changing and relative phenomenon. This study reveals that developing countries are suffering in terms of the development of projects, including poor project management, a lack of transparency, poor procurement management, etc. A total of 38 issues were identified through this study, which are the main barriers to the successful implementation of public sector projects. One of the main reasons is due to the practice of awarding the lowest bidder during the procurement process due to the current regulatory requirements. This paper found that the Oracle platform, built on Blockchain technology as a cloud-computing platform, is one of the prominent E-procurement platforms that provides both the Blockchain platform and the cloud-based applications. Therefore, after observing and analysing the platform, it is found that Blockchain technology has the capability to resolve 25 issues out of 38 identified issues.
Naif Al Azmi, Ghaleb Sweis, Rateb J. Sweis, Farouq Sammour
In recent years, several construction-related services incorporating Blockchain-enabled smart contracts have emerged. Blockchain-enabled smart contracts have the potential to modify the structure of all accessible networks in the near future. The purpose of this study is to explore individuals understanding of smart contracts in Saudi Arabia, identify potential advantages, and assess actors' readiness to implement smart contracts technology in ready-mixed concrete (RMC) plants. Data was acquired by questionnaires distributed to employees from Saudi Arabia's RMC plants companies. Additionally, confirmatory interviews were conducted out to areas of expertise. The study's findings revealed a low level of smart contract knowledge within Saudi Arabia’s RMC plants sector. The readiness to implement smart contracts is extremely low. According to the findings, smart contracts can improve supply chain management and supply chain finance efficiency, but not in the current circumstances in Saudi Arabia owing to insufficient digitization.
Ehsan Bakhtiarizadeh, Wajiha Shahzad, Mani Poshdar, James Olabode Bamidele Rotimi
Abstract Different industries are modernising their systems and introducing innovations to their management practices. However, the construction industry is recognised for its lack of technological systems on which the success of this sector is deemed to be heavily dependent. Previous studies have focused on enhancing the off-site construction supply chain. However, studies on the importance and utilisation of technology in this sub-sector are scarce, predominantly where the efficiency of off-site supply chain management is stalled as a consequence of the slow implementation of technology. Thus, this article employs an exploratory approach by providing insight into the applicability of blockchain technology in New Zealand’s off-site construction and demonstrates the benefits associated with the adoption of this technology. A literature review was used to identify stakeholders’ interrelationships in different stages of prefabrication projects. Then, a pilot interview from industry experts followed by a questionnaire survey was used to determine the involvement of stakeholders in different phases and the benefits that blockchain technology can bring to this industry. The results indicate that using blockchain as a secure information management system could improve the integration of prefabrication supply systems by producing a collaborative atmosphere amongst the organisations involved.