In the last few years, a number of blockchain-based online platforms decided to use consensus procedures other than Proof of Work (PoW), originally adopted by Bitcoin. An alternative protocol, which attracted much attention, is the so-called Proof-of-Stake (PoS), which unlike PoW consensus is not based on solving an energy-consuming cryptopuzzle, but rather on the amount of currency units owned by a user. Different platforms adopted alternative versions of PoS. In this article, we investigate a version of PoS inspired by Algorand, which embodies a number of specific features. Indeed, to confirm a new block in the chain Algorand introduces three steps: proposal, selection , and confirmation of a block. Each step is performed by randomly selected users, where draws are based on PoS. We find explicit solutions for individual money demand, under the main simplifying assumption that a user is rewarded by the system only for the first role that she's drawn for. We do so by considering both exogenous and endogenous money supply. We also discuss the monetary equilibrium of the system, an important element in the analysis because a long-lasting disequilibrium of the economy may cause disappointment and induce some users to leave the system. Our findings suggest that an equilibrium seems to be more likely to take place if users have heterogeneous, rather than homogeneous, preferences.
Abdollah Mohammad Parmoodeh, Esinath Ndiweni, Yasser Barghathi
The purpose of this paper is to explore the prospects of blockchain technology (BCT) on audit practice. Semiâstructured interviews were conducted with practitioners from the Big Four and nonâBig Four firms; their responses were analysed thematically. The findings are significant regarding the three main themes identified: namely, audit practice, procedures and the challenges associated with the adoption of BCT. The adoption of BCT has the potential to impact audit procedures to a certain extent. The interviewees believed that BCT would transfer Audit 3.0 to Audit 4.0. For instance, external confirmations could be enhanced by the move towards a more automated verification process. In addition, the audit budget time could be decreased with the help of this technology in the long run. The need for physical observation could be diminished because of this technology, as it could track observations on a realâtime basis. This technology could also facilitate analytical procedures, as it has the potential to incorporate other analytical tools simultaneously. Furthermore, it could reduce the costs associated with fraud detection to a great extent, as it provides a tamperâproof, immutable audit trail.
Muhammad Rehman, Ibrahim Tariq Javed, Kashif Naseer Qureshi, Tiziana Margaria ¡ 5 authors
In the pharmaceutical industry, problems like counterfeit drugs, including vaccines, and their supply chain management problems like transparency, immutability, and traceability exist. In the case of vaccines, it becomes more difficult to standardize and detect fake vaccines because the public has less awareness and knowledge about vaccines. Moreover, the increase in online pharmacies gives more opportunities for counterfeiting vaccines to enter the authentic supply chain management system. We present transparent, immutable and secure vaccine supply chain (TISVSchain), a framework based on blockchain to handle the issues of counterfeited vaccines and vaccine supply chain problems like transparency, immutability, and traceability. Our proposed framework can run both on the private and public blockchain. We have implemented the framework on public blockchain by using remix ide and the smart contracts designed by solidity language run on very low gas cost. We also carried out several experiments by changing the number of nodes and their block time to evaluate the performance of our framework in terms of transaction per second (TPS), gas cost, and propagation delay. Our proposed framework improves the security by using offline unique account addresses in blockchain-based frameworks and improves the overall efficiency of the framework by keeping the gas cost low, finding a way to decrease the number of lost blocks to keep low propagation delay, and keeping high TPS value. TISVSchain shows us promising results to improve vaccine supply chain managementâs overall performance, security, and efficiency.
Hongdan Han, Radha K. Shiwakoti, Robin Jarvis, Chima Mordi ¡ 5 authors
This paper surveys the published work on how blockchain technology will impact accounting in general, but AI-enabled auditing specifically. The purpose is to investigate how blockchain technology can improve transparency and trust in accounting practice and how professionals can use blockchain data to improve decision-making, based on the qualities of immutability, append-only, shared, verified, and agreed-upon (i.e., consensus-driven) blockchain data. The multi-party validation of blockchain protocols adds real-time trusted data for the AI systems used by auditors to improve assurance and efficiency. This review summarizes four themes emerging from the literature focusing on how blockchain technology has changed record-keeping in accounting: event approach to accounting; real-time accounting; triple entry-accounting and continuous auditing. The research interprets the findings using agency theory and stakeholder theory to advance how using blockchain to mitigate information asymmetry and improve stakeholder collaborations is understood. The investigation also summarizes the challenges and clarifies organizationsâ reasons to be cautious about adopting blockchain. Lastly, the study suggests that future researchers use this study in two ways that enrich blockchain literature: first, to apply the themes and answer the questions identified within this review to improve the business methods of practitioners and policymakers; and second, to encourage stakeholders such as practitioners, system designers/developers, and policymakers to collaborate in designing blockchain ecosystems that suit accounting and auditing as they transform digitally.
Post-sale customer care (PSCC) outsourcing is an effective supply chain strategy to reduce costs, but traditional outsourcing methods cannot ensure consumersâ belief in PSCC quality, harming the firmsâ competitive strategy. To ensure consumer satisfaction through transparency, this article examines evolving supply chain strategies of leveraging blockchain to outsource PSCC operations of competing manufacturers to third-party agents. Based on consumersâ beliefs and blockchain adoption cost, manufacturers have two choices; to outsource the PSCC operations with or without blockchain, resulting in multiple outsourcing strategies. Results show that the consumersâ belief in one manufacturerâs outsourcing strategy has detrimental effects on the stance of another manufacturer. Moreover, the blockchain cost and consumersâ beliefs dictate the manufacturersâ strategies for PSCC outsourcing, resulting in a âquadruple zone of strategic fitâ, where both manufacturers adopt blockchain or neither adopt blockchain, or one adopts while the other does not. Interestingly, despite the low or zero blockchain cost, both manufacturers will outsource without blockchain if their traditional business models satisfy consumers. The extended analysis reveals contradictory results that manufacturers should outsource more often with blockchain to facilitate consumers when a long-term warranty is offered, or the product has a higher failure rate, even though, overall these factors increase costs.
Blockchain is attracting tremendous attention in the logistics industry on account of its cutting-edge appeal, potential for integration within the sector, and capacity to disrupt established practices. Among other things, blockchain technology promises to open up new horizons in traceability, transparency, accuracy, and safety throughout the supply chain. However, as an emerging technology, blockchain is still relatively nascent, and familiarity with the technology is limited, as are its implementations. In addition, there is a dearth of studies concerning blockchain technology specifically, as it pertains to transport and logistics, as opposed to finance and cryptocurrency. It remains unknown what factors enable blockchain adoption by logistics service providers and how its adoption affects firm performance and capabilities. This research examines extant literature and conducts research on an eminent global transportation company to elucidate the potential influence of blockchain adoption on firm performance. The results of this work support the model that advancing theory-driven and empirical blockchain studies will increase firm capabilities and foster a competitive edge in the emerging digitalized era.
Shorouq Eletter, Ghaleb A. El Refae, Tahira Yasmin, Amer Qasem ¡ 6 authors
The fourth industrial revolution brought digital solutions to modernize how firms manufacture and distribute their products. A fusion of artificial intelligence advances is utilized to blur boundaries between the biological, physical, and digital worlds. Firms are redesigning their supply chains to attain high levels of operational effectiveness. Supply chain activities are crucial for the success of manufacturing firms. Blockchain is a promising technology for managing the supply chain efficiently. Blockchain is an immutable, distributed ledger to record transactions digitally. A smart contract is a coded agreement between two parties that executes an exchange automatically in the absence of trusted authorities. This study aimed to explore the prospects of utilizing blockchain and smart contracts as empowering technologies for food supply chain management. The study used a case study approach. Blockchain has the potential to play a vital role in almost every aspect of the future. Implementing blockchain in the supply chain will enhance the transparency, traceability, and flow of goods and services across the supply chain. Additionally, a blockchain-based smart contract will facilitate, validate and impose negotiation and execution agreements among multiple parties in real-time, enhancing the collaboration and quality of management. Carrefour UAE successfully joined IBM Food Trust. Carrefour's initiative came after growing customers' concerns about product provenance and ethical sourcing. The Carrefour initiative helped to resolve the problem of trust in the food supply. Improvements in the supply chain are expected to happen, including enhanced efficiency, traceability, reduced execution risk, low cost, etc.
Yunguang Long, Taiwen Feng, Youqing Fan, Lijun Liu
Abstract As a cuttingâedge technology with characteristics of transparency, traceability, decentralization, and immutability, blockchain technology (BCT) has been thought as an effective method of enhancing green supply chain integration (GSCI). However, the mechanism of how BCT affects GSCI is still blurred. Based on transaction cost theory and resource dependence theory, this research explores the mediating effect of supply chain trust in the relationship between BCT adoption and GSCI and the moderating role of organizational culture. We examine hypotheses using two waves of survey data from 317 Chinese manufacturers. The results reveal that BCT has a positive effect on supply chain trust, and supply chain trust partially mediates the impacts of BCT on three dimensions of GSCI. Moreover, a flexibleâoriented culture alleviates the impact of BCT on supply chain trust, whereas a controlâoriented culture strengthens the relationship. This research unfolds the âblack boxâ in the BCTâGSCI relationship by exploring the mediating role of supply chain trust, and it is seldom a study that simultaneously combines information management area (BCT), operation management area (GSCI), and organizational behavior area (organizational culture) in a framework.
Junbin Wang, Yangyan Shi, Changping Zhao, V. G. Venkatesh ¡ 5 authors
Motivated by the industrial observation of the increasing application of blockchain in the supply chain and its improvement in terms of consumer demand, this study examines the impact of investment decisions of blockchain data acquisition nodes upstream and downstream of the supply chain on firmsâ product recycling and pricing, market demand, and profits. The influences of different pricing leadership (i.e. supplier-led vs. retailer-led) in a supply chain are also thoroughly investigated. First, the presence of a strong retailer dramatically reduces suppliersâ incentive to invest in blockchain. However, the supplier is still likely to invest more in a retailer-led supply chain than that in a supply chain led by itself under certain conditions; that is, the cost of blockchain is relatively small, or consumersâ sensitivity to blockchain or product recycling benefits is rather large. Second, the total number of blockchain data acquisition nodes, market demand, and supply chain profit in a retailer-led supply chain are higher than in a supplier-led supply chain. Finally, interestingly, the supplier will be better off in a retailer-led supply chain when the return effect of product recycling is relatively high, while the cost-effectiveness of blockchain investment is relatively low.
Transport and Logistics stakeholders utilise Blockchain to interact within their networks in a transparent and secure manner. This creates islands of disconnected communities which prohibits visibility across the entire supply chain. This paper introduces a framework, which aims at unifying multiple proprietary Blockchain systems, offering an opportunity to empower stakeholders across the entire supply chain to collaborate and exchange information seamlessly. The Blockchain Interoperability framework employs smart contracts, which aspire to automate previously cumbersome processes and bring value to the Physical Internet (PI) paradigm. Smart contracts guarantee a trustworthy and distributed process of contract negotiation and execution that significantly reduces time, administrative overheads, and costs which are currently typically spent on manual inter-organisational processes.
Blockchain technology is an emerging technology, and cryptocurrency is the most well-known and successful blockchain application. With the development of the concept of blockchain technology, scientists and practitioners have found the potential of blockchain technology in the supply chain, which has led to much research on blockchain applications. There have been many reviews on the subject, but most of them are specific to particular supply chains and lack specific research on published papers. This paper addresses this research gap by examining, through qualitative analysis, the study finds that blockchain applications are moving in the direction of efficient automation. Appropriate consensus algorithms in different supply chain contexts will improve efficiency while reducing costs, while smart contracts play a huge role in security. Therefore, this paper explored articles related to the topic and explored articles in recent years by keyword combination.
COVID-19 has recently affected global trade flows, and the primary reason is that shipping failed to adapt rapidly to meet the need for on-time delivery. Given blockchain's ârevolutionaryâ potential, this paper aims to understand how blockchain can address longstanding inefficiencies and challenges in the shipping industry. This analysis proposes a model of how an industrywide blockchain-based consortium powered by smart contracts could resolve end-to-end contract issues with trustworthiness, thus improving efficiency in terms of time and cost. A mixed-method approach was conducted. That included 27 surveys and 20 interviews with representatives of shipping industry members. This study contributes to the blockchain and shipping supply chain literature by offering empirical data about the application of an industry-led consortium blockchain with cost, scalability, and volatility perspectives. As for the managerial implications, incentives and education are required to stimulate collaboration and commitment to blockchain for more efficient and effective global shipping trade flows.
Wafaa A.H. Ahmed, Bart L. MacCarthy, Horst Treiblmaier
Purpose Blockchain is increasingly being considered for applications in operations and supply chain management. However, evidence from practice is still scarce on why, where and how organizations seek to apply the technology in the supply chain across different industries. The study develops a comprehensive framework to enhance understanding of the application areas of blockchain technology in the supply chain, as well as organizations' motivations in seeking blockchain solutions and relevant contingency factors influencing applications. Design/methodology/approach The authors investigate 50 use cases of blockchain applications in the supply chain, covering six industries. Contingency theory is applied in conducting a qualitative textual and correlation analysis to identify and compare blockchain adoption motivations, application areas and contingency factors across different industries. Findings The analysis develops an evidence-based framework that captures ten principal motivations in seeking blockchain solutions, three main blockchain application areas along with important application sub-categories and five clusters of contingency factors that influence blockchain deployment and its uses in different industrial sectors. Research limitations/implications The study expands the limited cross-sectoral research on blockchain applications and motivations in the supply chain. Using contingency theory, it presents a comprehensive framework that captures the drivers and factors relating to blockchain adoption in the supply chain in a nomological network. The study lays the foundation for further theoretical perspectives and empirical research to investigate relevant sectoral characteristics and their importance for different types of blockchain application in the supply chain. Practical implications The study informs practitioners about potential supply chain application areas that can be enhanced through blockchain technology, taking account of the specific characteristics of their products, business and manufacturing processes, supply network configurations, industry standards, regulations and market demand. Originality/value The study is the first to provide cross-sectoral evidence on the relevance of organizations' motivations and numerous contingency factors on blockchain application areas in the supply chain.
This paper explores problems of pharmaceutical supply chains, such as drug counterfeiting, and the opportunities of using digital technologies to overcome them. It also evaluates the risks associated with the use of digital technologies. Expert interviews were conducted with pharmaceutical supply chain stakeholders in the first step. The data obtained was assessed through qualitative content analysis. In addition to the lack of transparency, strong individual interests of the supply chain actors and different implementation levels of digitisation were revealed. It is also noticeable that the industry is still paper-oriented. Nevertheless, the chosen experts are optimistic about the increased use of digital technologies. Combining blockchain with other technologies, such as IoT and AI, can improve efficiency, traceability, and trust in pharmaceutical supply chains. A digitalised supply chain concept is developed based on these technologies, enhancing transparency and information availability in the supply chain. In addition, communication and processes along the entire pharmaceutical supply chain are optimised.
With exponential growth of digital consumer purchasing behavior and the increasing implementation of IoT in retail industry, it has become imperative to provide secure, scalable, and manageable data models to the complex interconnected supply chain management systems.Blockchain technology in recent times has huge potential for deployment of secured data framework over a distributed architecture.In this paper, we have proposed a resilient Supply-Chain Management (SCM) system using Ethereum-based blockchain deployment on a distributed computing test-bed.An IoT-based Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) method is used in our use-case prototype for product information tracking at functional nodes (Manufacturers, Distributors, Retailers and Consumers) of SCM implementation.We have implemented Ethereum T M based blockchain using S olidity T M smart contracts with the help of Remix T M Web-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE).A python-based PyAutoGui is used for automation in blockchain deployment at multiple functional nodes distributed across the supply chain.As proof of concept, we have created a test-bed having 28 Oracle virtual machines (VMs) using Linux for successful implementation and validation of our proposed blockchain based SCM system.We have presented comprehensive results showing Ethereum-blockchain containing complete product information, transactions and tracking for secured information access with distributed digital ledger technology on our test-bed implementation.
Blockchain has revolutionized supply chain system security, especially with Internet of Things integration. Deploying blockchain in the supply chain incorporates immutability, transparency, and traceability mechanisms that promote secure data sharing and interactions between stakeholders in trustless environments. A blockchain-based supply chain as a layered architecture consists of three main layers: supply chain, blockchain, and IoT. This type of system is safer and more transparent, with better traceability than traditional supply chain; however, the system faces several security issues. This paper briefly discusses the primary security challenges related to blockchain-based supply chain systems.