Nishant Kumar, Kamal Upreti, Shitiz Upreti, Mohammad Shabbir Alam ¡ 5 authors
Infectious diseases a curse for humanity can be curbed through immunization. Vaccination can make people more resilient toward infectious diseases and the safety of the vaccine is of prime importance for public health. A smart vaccine management system can address the issue of vaccine expiration and counterfeiting. The study was conducted in twofolds: Stage I, a quantitative cross-sectional survey design was deployed to understand stakeholder adoption intention (ADI) toward blockchain-enabled vaccine supply chain through extended technology adoption model using partial least square structural equation modeling. Findings entail stakeholders' trust and perceived ease of use for blockchain-enabled vaccine supply chain directly affect perceived usefulness (PUS) and individual subjective norm. PUS significantly influences the ADI of stakeholders toward blockchain in the vaccine supply chain. Stage II, a blockchain integrated vaccine supply chain architecture with Internet of things devices was proposed to bring transparency and flexibility to the vaccine supply chain. Architecture would benefit the beneficiary to approve or disapprove the vaccines through the self-generated report and medical health centers can see the efficacy of vaccines before clinical delivery to patients.
Purpose The purpose of the research is to investigate usersâ adoption of blockchain-based games in China. Design/methodology/approach This research applied existing technology diffusion theories to develop a research model to examine usersâ adoption of blockchain-based games. As a result, a research model with nine research hypotheses was developed. The developed research model was empirically tested using data collected from a survey of 210 blockchain-based games users. Structural equation modeling was applied to analyse the collected data. Findings The results indicated that seven of nine research hypotheses were supported. It was found that trust, perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment and perceived ease of use were key determinants for usersâ behavioural intention to use blockchain-based games. The most influential relationship in the research model appeared to be the effect of perceived usefulness on usersâ behavioural intention to use blockchain-based games. However, subjective norms did not have significant positive impacts on usersâ behavioural intention to use blockchain-based games. Practical implications The regulatory support from governmental authorities is essential to provide additional legal certainty to build usersâ trust in playing blockchain-based games. Blockchain-based games providers should arrange the training program targeted to the general users to enhance their understanding of the key features associated with blockchain-based games. Blockchain-based games developers should come up with good design solutions to maximize user enjoyment with blockchain-based games by considering additional entertainment elements. Originality/value To the best of the authorsâ knowledge, this study is first of its kind in investigating the adoption of blockchain-based games from usersâ perspectives. This study contributes to the existing literature on the adoption of blockchain technology.
G. Steven Farris, Andrea Pinna, Gavina Baralla, Roberto Tonelli ¡ 6 authors
Blockchain technology is an emerging technology which is making a significant contribution to the ongoing digital evolution by influencing companies, business models and value creation. Since its invention, this technology was receiving great interest in different areas, starting from the financial one by also including the tourism sector. This work proposes the study of a software system, based on blockchain, to facilitate disintermediation in the tourism sector and promoting its sustainability simultaneously. The system is designed to take advantage of blockchain technology both to guarantee the security and reliability of the system, and to manage the roles and responsibilities of numerous types of actors. Thanks to the continuous collaboration of the all involved stakeholders, and to the data come from IoT devices, the system will be able to monitor a specific tourist destination by making use of ETIS indicators we specifically use for the assessment of sustainability into all aspects. The study also includes an overview of the barriers to blockchain adoption in tourism that can undermine the sustainability of the system.
Blockchain is often presented in the tourism industry as being a technology in a global approach that will enable the sector to make its digital transformation and bring a whole series of advantages, both financial and logistical. The reality is different, however. Indeed, research on Blockchain tends to focus on essentially technical aspects and takes little account of the customer experience in the sector in which it will be integrated. The aim of this exploratory research, based on 18 semi-directive interviews, is to understand the sociological obstacles to the adoption of Blockchain by tourism professionals in Switzerland. Our generalized findings are presented in the form of four research proposals that argue that, without the intervention of the State, it is hard to see how such disruptive innovation can radically change the highly fragmented tourism sector.JEL Codes: O33, O35
Today, an increasing number of firms are embracing blockchain as part of their efforts to achieve operational efficiency and improve performance, thereby acting as a catalyst to bring about digital transformation. Gartner listed blockchain as the most promising technology in digital marketing in the year 2019. Blockchain is driving digital transformation by forcing organizations to rethink how they operate, in terms of identifying ineffectiveness of traditional approaches to doing business, to address their business needs, promote innovation, and through establishment of standard frameworks. Blockchain shows massive disruption potential in the area of customer relationship management and enhancing consumer experience, besides improving trust, security, and privacy. Therefore, this chapter focuses on providing an enlightenment on how blockchain can specifically address the areas of transformation in digital marketing, prominent frameworks in use, and listing the benefits and challenges of implementing this technology.
Purpose Blockchain is a relatively new technology. Although it has a high potential to influence organizational strategies for adoption into respective operations, it has not been widely explored yet. This study aims to assess the sectoral diversity in the timing of organizational adoption of blockchain through selected organizational factors. Design/methodology/approach A survey was conducted based on a sample of 208 IT professionals. The data was collected using an instrument containing 17 questions. The existence of sector diversity was statistically analyzed using the Least Square Regression method. Findings The results indicate that, except for management support and perceived ease of use, all the other factors in the analysis significantly influence sector diversity in terms of blockchain adoption timing. Originality/value Although blockchain has received attention from researchers, to the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no published work in the literature that explores the organizational factors influencing sectoral differences in the timing of blockchain technology adoption. Therefore, our work is unique in the related literature since we present analyses for the diversity between public and private sectors by modeling the factors affecting the intentions for the timing of blockchain adoption as part of the organizations' IT infrastructure.
Recent research in cryptocurrencies has considered the effects of the behavior of individuals on the price of cryptocurrencies through actions such as social media usage. However, some celebrities have gone as far as affixing their celebrity to a specific cryptocurrency, becoming a crypto-tastemaker. One such example occurred in April 2021 when Elon Musk claimed via Twitter that âSpaceX is going to put a literal Dogecoin on the literal moonâ. He later called himself the âDogefatherâ as he announced that he would be hosting Saturday Night Live (SNL) on 8 May 2021. By performing sentiment analysis on relevant tweets during the time he was hosting SNL, evidence is found that negative perceptions of Muskâs performance led to a decline in the price of Dogecoin, which dropped 23.4% during the time Musk was on air. This shows that cryptocurrencies are affected in real time by the behaviors of crypto-tastemakers.
More and more platform-based companies are adopting blockchain technology to solve problems such as opaque fundraising processes in their respective public service sectors. We conduct a scenario-based questionnaire survey to test usersâ views and willingness to use blockchain technology on the online fundraising platform by combining design theory and innovation diffusion theory. We find that: (1)Compared with the traditional ones, the different combination of blockchainâs design features significantly changed the usersâ willingness to use. Users of the blockchain-based online fundraising platform that reflect the design features of distributed ledger(DLT) and peer-to-peer network(P2P) have the highest willingness to use, and users of the platforms that reflect the characteristics of P2P have the most obvious increase; (2)The perceived technical credibility is the main driving factor for users to use the platform, while the intermediary factor of perceived risk which considered by scholars to be influential has not been confirmed and verified. Through post-event interviews, we learn about the reasons and explain them. Our research provides enlightenment for managers on how to use these driving factors to influence usersâ willingness to use and also provides a reference for platform-based enterprisesâ application of blockchain technology.
Purpose The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the factors influencing consumer behavioral intention ( BI ) to use cryptocurrency as a medium of transaction. Constructs from the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model and an added variable, perceived risk ( PR ), are examined to predict BI . Age and gender as moderators are retained in this model. Design/methodology/approach An online survey was used to gather the respondentsâ responses on a five-point Likert scale. G * Power was used to calculate the required minimum sample size. A non-probability sampling technique was used to gather data from the 290 respondents based in Malaysia. The final data set was analyzed using the statistical package for the social sciences and SmartPLS software using structural equation modeling. Findings The results show that three of the five proposed factors (performance expectancy, effort expectancy and facilitating condition) are significant predictors of BI to adopt cryptocurrency as a medium of transaction. Interestingly, PR is not a significant predictor even though prior research studies showed otherwise. Likewise, the relationship between BI and social influence became significant only when age is added as a moderator. Practical implications Malaysians are still wary of cryptocurrency, even though global tech firms such as Amazon and Microsoft are already accepting Bitcoin as a payment method. This study aims to provide relevant authorities and businesses (i.e. central bank, retail merchants and cryptocurrency exchangers) insights toward understanding the factors consumers focus on if they were to use cryptocurrency as a medium of transaction. Originality/value Most cryptocurrency research are done in developed countries (i.e. USA, UK and EU) perspective. This research addresses the lack of quantitative literature on significant factors influencing BI to use cryptocurrency in developing country context while taking a PR , age and gender into consideration.
Purpose The paper aims to understand the possible determinants of knowledge of, and interest in using, blockchain, with a particular focus in the future intention to apply this technology. Blockchain technology is deemed to radically change business models and processes. Using this technology in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is still a novel idea. Moreover, not much is known about the diffusion and level of interest towards blockchain in SMEs. This research adopts a knowledge management perspective, drawing on technology acceptance model to highlight the level of blockchain technology diffusion, and to explore which factors lead SMEsâ to adopt blockchain. Design/methodology/approach This study distributed a questionnaire to a sample of 300 SMEs in Italy. This study received 96 responses (32% response rate). This study calculated descriptive statistics and undertook a reliability analysis. Finally, this study performed a logistic regression to analyse the determinants of further intention to use blockchain technology. Findings Results show that blockchain technology is quite well known, but the level of knowledge is limited. Moreover, the research reveals that the rate of adoption is very low. Interest in the future adoption of blockchain is associated with knowledge, perception of usefulness and ease of use of blockchain. Originality/value This paper is one of the first explorative studies showing which factors lead SMEs to adopt blockchain technologies and shedding some light on the interaction between knowledge management and blockchain adoption and diffusion in SMEs. It highlights how blockchain knowledge could determine future interest in blockchain innovation. This paper is relevant for public and private institutions that aim to promote, through knowledge management, the adoption of blockchain in SMEs.
Despite its immense potential for industries and services as a promising solution for trust and transparency problems, Blockchain related studies in the field of Marketing are rare. This research mobilizes the technology acceptance Model (TAM) theory to investigate the added value of blockchain technology to online platforms while taking into consideration consumers characteristics. Data from 212 users of online platforms endowed with blockchain technology were collected. Findings demonstrate that blockchain features in terms of security and privacy enhance the perceived usefulness and the perceived ease of use of the online platform, leading to stronger trust and more actual transactions. In addition, results demonstrate that risk aversion weakens only the relationship between usefulness and trust. It has indeed no significant effect on the impact of ease of use on trust. Results also show that technophilia fosters the relationship between intents and actual transactions. The research provides heuristic implications for academia and industry.
Purpose Drawing inspiration from the organizational information processing theory, the technology acceptance model (TAM) and the theory of motivation, this study aims to examine the acceptance of private and public blockchain technology-based collaboration among supply chain practitioners. Design/methodology/approach A total of 257 samples were collected through a survey from supply chain practitioners. The study used parallel mediators of perceived usefulness (extrinsic motivation) and perceived ease of use (intrinsic motivation) to measure behavioral intention to use. Findings The results reveal that partial mediation exists between blockchain-based collaboration (private and public) and behavioral intention to use. For perceived usefulness, a stronger mediating effect was found between private blockchain-based collaboration and behavioral intention to use. For perceived ease of use, a stronger mediating effect was found between public blockchain-based collaboration and behavioral intention to use. Originality/value By integrating insights from the organizational information processing theory, the TAM and the theory of motivation, this study provides an in-depth understanding of how the distinct features of information processing in blockchain technology-based collaboration influence the supply chain practitionersâ to accept it. The novelty and results of the study expand the existing literature and pave the way for future research.
Purpose Nowadays, Bitcoin is facing many environmental problems arising from the proof of work based on blockchain. For this reason, Bitcoin Green (BITG) has been created and would solve these issues. The purpose of this paper is to visualize the usersâ perception toward BITG through Twitter text analysis. Design/methodology/approach The big data used in this study includes two sources. The first data were extracted from the âGoogle Trendsâ engine during the period between 20 September 2015 and 15 September 2020. The second data were extracted from the Twitter application. This research explores the perceived ease of use, the perceived usefulness, the social influence, the perceived control and the user attitudes toward BITG. Therefore, lexicon-based sentiment analysis techniques combined with different dictionaries are built to visualize the drivers of investor attitudes toward the BITG using Twitter text messages. Besides, this study has checked the validity of two main assumptions using the normality (Jarque-Bera) and Kruskal-Wallis rank sum tests capable to conclude whether users mostly perceive BITG as a sustainable technology. Findings This empirical work affords insights into usersâ intentions by exploring the drivers of BITG perception. The results show that users positively perceive the use of BITG as a sustainable blockchain. Besides, its usefulness is more appreciated from its ethical and technological characteristics, and its perceived application is mainly based on investment and coin offering use. Similarly, users are mostly showing positive emotions toward BITG. Research limitations/implications Tweets related to âBITGâ are not as voluminous as the other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, which make it difficult to extract all the characteristics and use cases. Originality/value To the best of the authorsâ knowledge, this work is the first one that uses the theory of planned behavior and the theory of acceptance model to explore cognitive factors in understanding investor intentions in adopting BITG.
The cryptocurrency market is very young, volatile, and highly risky. By the end of 2020, a new bull run started, and the prices of several cryptocurrencies reached record-breaking highs. The factors affecting this rise of cryptocurrencies include the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic crisis and the global increase in the inflation rate, as well as the gradual acceptance and adoption of cryptocurrencies by people worldwide. This exploratory research is focused on this last factor, i.e., using cryptocurrency and with it, the associated support of its ecosystem (e.g., mining, staking). A survey was carried out investigating the motivational factors and barriers to investment in cryptocurrency for Czech representatives of Generations Y and Z (18â42 years; n = 468). The geographic scope was nationwide, and quota sampling was used. Notably, this survey was carried out prior to the global COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, and it is thus not affected by the pandemic and its related economic impacts. The article investigates the dependency between the individual motivational factors and barriers from the perspective of the tendency to take risks (using the risk propensity scale), according to gender and representation of Generations Y and Z. The lack of information on this form of investment is considered as the main barrier to investment in cryptocurrency, with respect to sex and generations. Compared to that, a negative experience with investment in cryptocurrency constitutes the most minor barrier. Respondents that have a tendency to take risks are mostly put off by their lack of experience with investment in general. The main motivational factor for investment in cryptocurrency, with respect to sex and generations, is considered to be the speed of increase in cryptocurrency value. On the other hand, the least encouraging factor is the opportunity to use the high volatility of cryptocurrency for speculative trading. Interestingly, this factor mostly encourages respondents that do not have a tendency to take risks. The findings are discussed, along with the presentation of their implications for practice and the directions of further explanatory research.
Given the emerging nature of integrating Blockchain Technology (BCT) into several business fields concerning the interaction between companies and their customers, this study aims to investigate the applications of BCT in marketing through an accurate procedure of locating, selecting and analyzing existing companies using BCT in marketing. A sample that consists of 800 companies was identified using web-scraping methods. The data set was collected from initial coin offerings (ICO) websites as well as from an existing, older landscape of applications. The data set was then intensively analyzed in order to be categorized into five fields of marketing technology. Advertising and ecommerce outgrew the other fields of social & relationship, content & experience and data in absolute numbers, revealing the focus of practitioners in the past as well as gaps for the future. The authors provided future directions for researchers on and development of tools to systematically generate knowledge and improve the application of BCT and the work of practitioners in marketing.
Guych Nuryyev, Anastasia Spyridou, Simon Yeh, Chen-Chang Lo
Hospitality businesses might achieve a competitive advantage by adopting cryptocurrency payments. This study provides insight into the factors that influence hospitality businessesâ intention to use new digital payments based on a conceptual approach. One of the contributions to the literature is in integrating an external variable â perceived security â into the Technology Acceptance Model. Perceived security is considered a strong predictor for a new payment technology adoption. This study also contributes to the academic research by illuminating potential directions for future empirical research.