Abstract We study the economic determinants of transaction fees in the Ethereum blockchain. We estimate an empirical model based on queueing theory and analyze the factors determining the âgas priceâ (transaction cost per unit of service, âgasâ). Using blockâ and transactionâlevel data from the Ethereum blockchain, we show that changes in service demand significantly affect the gas priceâwhen there is high block utilization, perâunit fees increase on average, with strong nonlinear effect above 90% utilization. The transaction type is another important factorâlarger fraction of regular transactions (direct transfers between users) is associated with higher gas price.
This paper considers a global fresh product supply chain consisting of an overseas supplier and a local cross-border e-commerce platform, in which the supplier sells fresh products to the platform and then the platform sells them to consumers at the local market. We develop an analytical model to explore the effects of the adoption of blockchain technology (BCT) on the pricing decisions and profits of the supply chain members. The results show that the wholesale price and the retail price may decrease or increase when the supplier adopts BCT, and the adoption of BCT is not always beneficial to both the supplier and the retailer. The supplier should adopt BCT if the real product freshness is at a relatively high level. Furthermore, compared with the supplier, the retailer is more likely to benefit from the adoption of BCT.
Asif Irshad Khan, Abdullah Alghamdi, Fawaz Alsolami, Yoosef B. Abushark ¡ 9 authors
The blockchain technology plays a significant role in the present era of information technology. In the last few years, this technology has been used effectively in several domains. It has already made significant differences in human life, as well as is intended to have noticeable impact in many other domains in the forthcoming years. The rapid growth in blockchain technology has created numerous new possibilities for use, especially for healthcare applications. The digital healthcare services require highly effective security methodologies that can integrate data security with the available management strategies. To test and understand this goal of security management in Saudi Arabian perspective, the authors performed a numerical analysis and simulation through a multi criteria decision making approach in this study. The authors adopted the fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) for evaluating the effectiveness and then applied the fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) technique to simulate the validation of results. For eliciting highly corroborative and conclusive results, the study referred to a real time project of diabetes patientsâ management application of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The results discussed in this paper are scientifically proven and validated through various analysis approaches. Hence the present study can be a credible basis for other similar endeavours being undertaken in the domain of blockchain research.
Blockchain technology has garnered attention from stakeholders in many domains, including healthcare, governance and supply chain management. In the context of healthcare, traceability of pharmaceutical drugs in a transparent yet secure manner can be made faster and efficient with blockchain. This paper presents a blockchain based solution for traceability known as PharmaChain. The traceability is achieved with application design and algorithms which are proposed in the work. The proposed application can be developed using hyperledger fabric deployed on dockers. The chain codes are written in javascript. The pharmaceutical blockchain proposed in this work consists of manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer and consumer. The right for registering a drug into the blockchain is granted to the manufacturers only and the ownership transfer of the drug is stored. This paper highlights the traceability of ownership transfer of the drug and validates its origin.
Pallet management as a backbone of logistics and supply chain activities is essential to supply chain parties, while a number of regulations, standards and operational constraints are considered in daily operations. In recent years, pallet pooling has been unconventionally advocated to manage pallets in a closed-loop system to enhance the sustainability and operational effectiveness, but pitfalls in terms of service reliability, quality compliance and pallet limitation when using a single service provider may occur. Therefore, this study incorporates a decentralisation mechanism into the pallet management to formulate a technological eco-system for pallet pooling, namely Pallet as a Service (PalletaaS), raised by the foundation of consortium blockchain and Internet of things (IoT). Consortium blockchain is regarded as the blockchain 3.0 to facilitate more industrial applications, except cryptocurrency, and the synergy of integrating a consortium blockchain and IoT is thus investigated. The corresponding layered architecture is proposed to structure the system deployment in the industry, in which the location-inventory-routing problem for pallet pooling is formulated. To demonstrate the values of this study, a case analysis to illustrate the human-computer interaction and pallet pooling operations is conducted. Overall, this study standardises the decentralised pallet management in the closed-loop mechanism, resulting in a constructive impact to sustainable development in the logistics industry.
This study investigates a supply chain comprising of a manufacturer and a retail platform, wherein the former decides the quality information transparency strategy of products and the latter determines whether or not to implement price parity clauses (PPCs). The manufacturer can directly sell the end-of-season product to the end-consumer market and indirectly via the retail platform. Specifically, this study considers two quality information transparency strategies (i.e. ex-ante blockchain-adoption and ex-post voluntary disclosure) that differ on whether the manufacturerâs decision on quality information transparency strategy is made before or after observing the actual product quality. Results show that the manufacturer may prefer the ex-ante blockchain-adoption strategy in specific conditions but maintains the flexibility of information disclosure under ex-post voluntary disclosure strategy. Moreover, the implementation of PPCs significantly reduces the manufacturerâs incentive to disclose a large extent of quality information transparency when the effort cost is high or the service effect coefficient is low. By contrast, the manufacturer is more likely to adopt information transparency strategies under PPCs when the effort cost is low and the service effect coefficient is high. More interestingly, contrary to theories of harm from PPCs, the implementation of PPCs may simultaneously benefit the manufacturer and retail platform, achieving a âwin-win' situation.
SYNOPSIS Blockchain technology is increasingly emerging as an important organizational phenomenon, especially for collaboration across firm boundaries. Over the past three decades, accounting scholars have shown significant interest in management accounting and control mechanisms that are used by actors to sustain inter-organizational relationships. We outline fundamental technical features and limitations of permissioned blockchain technology and analytically propose blockchain as an empirical concept with implications for management accounting practices that underpin inter-organizational collaboration, trust, control, and information exchange. Particular focus of the analysis is on the interplay between the technical capabilities of blockchain technology and inter-organizational management control procedures. Based on this analysis, we develop a series of propositions that theorize how these procedures affect the way in which blockchain is enacted in IORs, and how they are affected by blockchain in turn. The paper concludes with a research agenda for accounting scholars and offers directions for further research.
In the era of the fourth industrial revolution, all aspects of the industrial domain are being affected by emerging technologies. Digitalization of every process is taking place or under process. One of the most important components common to every domain is the supply chain process. Organizations employ a digital supply chain to track the delivery of their products or materials. The digital supply chain is still suffering from a few issues such as no provenance, less transparency, and a trust issue. Blockchain technology, one of the emerging technologies, can be integrated with the supply chain to deal with the existing issues and to improve its performance. In this paper, a model is proposed to integrate blockchain technology with the supply chain to improve performance. The proposed model uses the combination of the Ethereum blockchain and the interplanetary file system to maintain the traceability, transparency, and trustworthiness of the supply chain.
Private distributed ledgers (DLs) appear to be more successful than public blockchains at supporting innovative business ecosystems in the form of enterprise consortia. In fact, by untying transactions from the native cryptocurrencies of public blockchains, consortium DLs can smoothly interface with the various sectors of the traditional economy with the capability to innovate it. Furthermore, eliminating mining greatly increases the computational efficiency of these technologies compared to public blockchains. So far, consortium DLs have been used primarily for traceability and document management. Now the time is ripe to move forward, impacting business and profitability. We describe here a consortium model based on distributed ledger technology that applies the old principle that âunity is strengthâ by deploying the economic method of Revenue Sharing as a smart contract. We illustrate the model through a prototype implementation on Hyperledger Fabric, the most widely adopted among the platforms for consortium distributed ledgers.
In this paper, we study how to assemble a supply chain with the avail of Blockchain to establish a secure trading environment. Blockchain is distributed, decentralized and a transparent mechanism which makes it suitable to share data on publicly accessible networks such that it can further be verified and audited independently thus maintaining data integrity. This paper suggests that the Blockchain technology offers great potential to foster secure trading using distributed ledger that propounds ingenious platforms as it makes the history of any digital asset unalterable, traceable and transparent. We further study how Blockchain mitigates the subsisting quandary in supply chains, how does it provide an edge over other technologies. The model is proposed to implement the Blockchain manufactured supply chain and it is further explained how it eliminates the challenges faced by the current supply chain management system. Also, challenges to adopting this technology have been discussed in the latter section of the paper.
Increased global competition and complex patterns of customer demand have made supply chain management (SCM) extremely challenging for any company. Traditional SCM systems with centralized data storage architecture lead to data access and privacy challenges across the diverse spectrum of stakeholders in supply chain management. Blockchain alleviates the problem of data access and privacy but the task of developing an SCM solution over a blockchain from scratch is challenging, complex, and time-consuming. In this paper, we present our Nocode Development Platform (NCDP) that allows users to build customized SCM applications using a user-friendly interface. Once a customized supply chain is built, our platform autogenerates and deploys the smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain, thus easing the deployment of an SCM solution on the blockchain. A product can be tracked at any point in the supply chain using different tracking mechanisms. Our platform leverages the blockchain concept to provide supply chain data transparency in a secure manner to diverse stakeholders in a decentralized ecosystem. Our platform significantly reduces the time and investment to migrate existing SCM systems on the blockchain.
As the core technology behind Bitcoin, Blockchainâs decentralize, tamper-proof, and traceable features make it the preferred platform for organizational innovation. In current Bit-coin, block reward is halved every four years, and transaction fees are expected to become the majority of miner revenues around 2140. When transaction fee dominates mining rewards, strategic deviations such as Selfish Mining, Undercutting, and Mining Gap could threaten the integrity and security of the Blockchain. In this paper, we propose a set of Dynamic Transaction Storage (DTS) strategies for maintaining a sustainable Blockchain under transaction-fee regime. Through the systematic simulation, we demonstrate that block incentive volatility can be reduced by applying DTS strategies, and thus avoid strategic deviations. With DTS, public Blockchains such as Bitcoin become sustainable when the mining reward is solely based on transaction fee.
Purpose Risks resulted from asymmetric information have become crucial barriers for commercial banks to implement supply chain finance (SCF) â mainly the inventory pledge financing (IPF). At the same time, online financial service providers (OFSPs) are emerging as strong competitors in the SCF market. As a result, commercial banks need to update their traditional SCF business models and alleviate their over-dependence on OFSPs. Design/methodology/approach The authors employ a multi-case-study method to investigate how the Internet of things (IoT) and blockchain technologies can be jointly leveraged to mitigate SCF risks. In-depth interviews were conducted to depict the business models and their novel ecosystem to reinforce traditional banks' ability in SCF services. Findings From the perspective of information asymmetry, the authors categorize IPF risks into three groups based on the principal-agent theory: collateral, warehousing and liquidity risk. The findings suggest that IoT can primarily improve traditional banks' information acquisition ability, and blockchain can facilitate credible information transformation, enabling banks to acquire knowledge from collaterals. Besides, the e-platform in the new architecture increases banks' involvement in the supply chain and builds a fair network to curtail warehousing risks. The employment of smart contracts and collaborative mechanism ensure process and outcome control in mitigating liquidity risks. Originality/value The research contributes to the literature by confirming the role of emerging technologies in reducing information asymmetry risks. Besides, the findings provide valuable insights for practitioners to promote effective practices and approaches in IPF.
Purpose Blockchain technology is provoking significant disruptions, thereby affecting supply chain management. This study endeavoured to advance research regarding blockchain-based supply chain traceability by identifying the opportunities and limitations that accompany the adoption of public blockchains. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to contribute to contemporary supply chain research by an assessment of blockchain technology and its linkages to traceability. Design/methodology/approach This paper is conceptual. The authors summarised the relevant literature on the concepts of supply chain traceability, conceptualised key elements exclusive to the public blockchain and highlighted opportunities and limitations in implementing traceability using blockchains. Findings Incompatibilities were identified between general traceability and the public blockchain. However, when embracing the blockchain's privacy model, the blockchains can support information exchange in supply chains where vulnerability towards third parties, the confidentiality of information, or the privacy of participants are concerns. Furthermore, the public blockchain can support areas of supply chains where institutional interest is lacking. Originality/value This is one of the first papers in an international supply chain management journal to critically analyse the intersection of specific blockchain characteristics and supply chain traceability requirements. The authors thereby add to the discussion of designs for a disintermediated, peer-to-peer models and guide researchers and practitioners alike in exploring the application of disruptive change from blockchain technologies. By setting focus on the privacy model, the paper identifies the potential application and future research approaches to exploit the elementary strength of the blockchain.
Urshila Ravindran, Pragya Bhardwaj, P. Raghu Vamsi
Blockchain is a trusted distributed ledger shared across the business processes. Blockchain technology focuses on automating tasks in a distributed environment. Proving as one of the effective platforms, it helps in mapping the physical commodities to the digital ledger. A digital ledger is like an electronic register for storing the transactions that are taking place among various commodities. The physical commodities include suppliers, manufacturers, exporters, consumers and distributors wherein the distributor plays a major role in determining the product standards. To this end, this paper presents a Blockchain design for securing Supply Chain Management (SCM) in Coffee Retailer Network (CRN). The proposed design made with the view that it further be implemented with smart contracts to establish a private or consortium Blockchain application for the asset tracking processes in the coffee retailer network. The proposed model can bring transparency, sustainability and efficiency in asset tracking.
Shirking, cheating, and other misbehaviors are pervasive in many developing countries, increasing the costs of economic exchanges. Blockchain-based solutions may address these problems and help developing world-based economic actors to engage in exchange relationships.
Purpose Vaccine safety is a major issue in the world. Blockchain technology is the right solution to this worldwide problem. The impact of introducing blockchain technology on the operational efficiency of the vaccine supply chain is unclear. Therefore, from the perspective of game theory, this paper aims to construct a vaccine supply chain model consisting of a vaccine manufacturer, a vaccine traceability service platform based on blockchain technology and a vaccination unit to discuss its pricing and coordination. Design/methodology/approach This study analyzes the pricing and coordination of the vaccine supply chain based on blockchain technology, compares the decision-making of fixed charge scenario and proportional charge scenario and reveals the impact of blockchain on the vaccine supply chain. Findings Results demonstrate that the revenue-sharing contract can coordinate the vaccine supply chain when the proportion of revenue sharing meets certain conditions. The fixed charge scenario is more beneficial to the vaccine supply chain than the proportional charge scenario. The introduction of blockchain technology increases the total profit, consumer surplus and social welfare of the vaccine supply chain. Therefore, the operational efficiency of the vaccine supply chain is improved. Originality/value This study not only provides important support for enterprises to adopt blockchain technology but also provides some guidance for decision-makers to implement scientific and feasible vaccine supply chain management schemes.