This paper aims to explore the key elements of transformative leadership skills of women servants to accelerate and impact activities related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Content analysis and qualitative interviews with case research on applying the latest technology with distributed trust networks to provide traceability in science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM), and sports event management in Hong Kong for primary and secondary school students were conducted in April–July 2024. The attributes of transformative leadership of women servants with innovative ways to track students’ sports competition are seldom studied for improving the quality services of sports and STEM service providers in the post-COVID-19 periods. According to the results, it is expected to have an ongoing study on innovative and sustainable ways of applying transformative leadership of women servant leadership with non-fungible tokens (NFT) and blockchain application in SDGs via strengthening the partnership of academia, researchers, business, and industry with SDGs and NFT community projects for sustainable development (SD).
Purpose Given the sudden disruption caused by COVID-19, knowledge sharing between organizations has become a meaningful way to improve supply chain resilience. However, there is still a lack of in-depth research on how to reduce the threat to knowledge sharing caused by increased levels of relational risk. With the emergence of new digital technologies, whether blockchain governance can control relational risk and replace traditional relational governance remains to be demonstrated. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a cross-sectional survey approach in which quantitative data are collected from 300 participants from Chinese manufacturing enterprises to test the hypotheses. Findings The results show that relational and blockchain governance can significantly and complementarily reduce the level of relational risk in knowledge sharing. When the relational risk is at a low, medium or high level, the best matches of relational and blockchain governance are low-level relational governance–low-level blockchain governance, high-level relational governance–low-level blockchain governance and high-level relational governance–high-level blockchain governance, respectively. Practical implications The findings of this study have important practical implications for manufacturing enterprises in terms of how to choose reasonable governance modes to manage relational risk behaviour according to different relational risk levels to better understand the positive role of knowledge sharing in supply chain resilience. Originality/value The antecedent variables of knowledge sharing in previous studies are based on transaction cost theory or relational theory and have not moved beyond the original theoretical framework. This paper addresses this limitation, puts knowledge sharing in the academic context of digital technology, considers blockchain governance into the process of relational risk-knowledge sharing and defines blockchain governance, which is a novel approach in the supply chain resilience management literature.
Ensuring food security is crucial for maintaining food quality and enhancing consumer services by guaranteeing both safety and satisfaction. However, traditional methods to ensure food security are often susceptible to various forms of fraud and require significant processing overhead, making them inefficient for the evolving demands of modern food supply chains. To address these shortcomings, blockchain technology has emerged as a robust and efficient solution to enhance food security. This paper presents a novel lightweight blockchain-based signature mechanism designed for the rapid detection of food fraud. It also includes a domain-specific ontology to serve as a structured knowledge model, allowing systematic analysis and detection of different types of fraud within the food supply chain. This approach uses smart contracts built on lightweight blockchain technology to initiate and manage transactions related to food fraud. Then, semantic rules are applied to detect and identify fraudulent activities. Once fraud is detected, associated transactions are encrypted and tracked, ensuring visibility and traceability among consortium members. Experimental results based on large-scale transaction data demonstrated ~7.5× speed improvement over iterative search algorithms while maintaining high transaction traceability and significantly reducing storage costs.
Despite the growing interest in blockchain for supply chain transparency, a gap remains in understanding consumer perceptions and attitudes toward blockchain-supported initiatives. This study examines how consumers perceive blockchain's role in enhancing supply chain transparency, the factors influencing consumer trust in blockchain-enabled transparency, and the implications for consumer engagement and behaviour within the supply chain network. Through a scenario-based experiment, we find that technology-supported transparency enhances consumer trust not only in the focal firm but also in various stakeholders involved. Specifically, consumers exhibit higher trust in retailers and other stakeholders when firms adopt decentralised transparency systems compared to centralised ones. Decentralised technology-supported transparency significantly influences consumers’ decisions to interact directly with stakeholders, shifting their preference toward responsible supply chain actors over focal firms. While multi-stakeholder transparency does not directly affect consumers’ purchase intentions, high trust in the technology positively influences their intention to purchase. Our study provides actionable managerial insights, guiding decision-makers in adopting decentralised transparency practices to strengthen stakeholder relationships and align with consumer expectations. By understanding the nuances of consumer trust in technology-supported transparency, firms can make more informed strategic decisions, ultimately enhancing the overall performance of their supply chains.
In all country construction projects include an enormous number of financial transactions and it’s necessary that the contracts between stakeholders should be more advanced in technology. The advance of Blockchain technology has been incontrovertible in recent years and this allowed the contracts to be programmed on Blockchain as smart contracts. The main goal of this paper is to identify and prioritize critical success factors of Smart Contracts in the construction industry. For identifying factors, we used library study and for prioritizing them, field study. To collect data, we designed a DANP questionnaire, from a panel senior managers and engineering experts. The results show that technology maturity is the most important factor in Smart Contract success; security of contracts, support from the engineering community, stakeholders’ consideration, and competition in the building industry were other important factors which took their next levels.
On that consideration, this investigation examines SCF as a concept and how it can be implemented within blockchain-enabled supply chain systems to increase effectiveness, minimize risk, and provide greater visibility into supply chain transactions. This study reveals the practical advantages of applying a decentralized and tamper-proof ledger of blockchain in the spheres of transaction processing, specifically, times of completing basic transactions, times of the payments’ cycles, and decreasing the number of errors and discrepancies. Notable results among them include cutting the business’s transaction processing time by half, payment cycle time by 71% in addition to reporting an 87% reduction in data entry mistakes. They concur with previous research supporting the disruptive prospect of blockchain technology in SCM and SCP, adding more research effort and investment in this area is warranted in order to fully exploit its advantages.
This paper examines the potential implications of the principles of swarm intelligence and collective behavior in nature for unmanned systems and autonomous organizational structures. Swarm intelligence is inspired by natural systems in which individual units interact according to simple rules to form a complex and organized whole. These principles can be observed in a wide range of situations, from the synchronized flight of flocks of birds to the harmonized swimming behavior of schools of fish. The study emphasizes that swarm intelligence principles have the potential to create more flexible, resilient and efficient systems with decentralized control mechanisms and autonomous decision-making processes. Furthermore, it is suggested that these approaches can find applications in many fields, from military operations to agricultural and environmental monitoring, from disaster response to urban planning. The study provides a detailed analysis of swarm behavior in nature and discusses how these behaviors can be emulated and optimized in unmanned systems. In this context, the potential impacts of swarm intelligence and collective behavior principles on unmanned systems are evaluated in terms of increasing their adaptability, optimizing energy efficiency and maximizing mission success. It is also argued that these principles can contribute to making unmanned systems more resilient to contingencies and changing environmental conditions. Swarm intelligence principles can be used to provide more effective coordination in unmanned air, land and sea vehicles. In digitalizing sectors, the flexibility of businesses can be increased and resource usage can be optimized by creating decentralized decision-making mechanisms.
Supply chain traceability is a critical aspect of modern business operations, and blockchain technology has emerged as a promising solution to enhance traceability in supply chain management. However, the effective application of blockchain faces various challenges and limitations. This study aims to investigate how blockchain technology can address these challenges and improve traceability within supply chains. Employing a systematic literature review combined with interpretative structural modeling (ISM), we comprehensively assess and classify the literature on blockchain-enabled supply chain traceability. Our exploratory research approach delves into the contributions of blockchain technology and identifies key factors that enhance traceability. We adopt a mixed-methods approach, incorporating both secondary and primary data to ensure robust analysis. Our study addresses essential questions regarding the application, advantages, limitations, challenges, integration with other technologies, and future potential of blockchain in supply chain traceability. Through a systematic review and the ISM technique, we identify crucial levels and factors necessary for leveraging blockchain technology effectively. Our findings underscore the importance of a robust infrastructure, cutting-edge technology, and significant initial investment in implementing blockchain for supply chain traceability. This research offers a comprehensive understanding of the factors and their levels, providing valuable insights for industry professionals and academic researchers. By laying a solid foundation for informed decision-making and further exploration into the potential of blockchain-enhanced supply chain traceability, our study contributes to advancing knowledge in this crucial area of business operations.
Purpose This study aims to examine the performance implications of blockchain implementation in the supply chain and explore how blockchain functions and supply chain processes of blockchain implementation moderate the effect on firm performance. Design/methodology/approach Using 220 blockchain implementations announced between January 2015 and December 2022, we use the event study methodology to estimate the effects of blockchain implementation on the firm value. Regression analyses are conducted to examine the moderating effects of blockchain functions and supply chain processes. Findings First, there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between blockchain implementation in the supply chain and firm value. Second, we find that abnormal returns from blockchain implementation are higher when used with blockchain’s contract automation function and applied in downstream processes, supporting the moderation effects. Originality/value The study provides empirical evidence on the effects of the blockchain implementation on firm performance, taking into account the complexity of blockchain functions and supply chain processes. It enriches the current understanding of how blockchain implementation in the supply chain contributes to firm value.
Sustainability transparency in agri-food value chains is crucial for fostering accountability, enhancing consumer trust, facilitating compliance with regulatory standards, and ultimately contributing to the resilience and sustainability of food systems in the face of social, environmental, and economic challenges. This paper aims to conduct bibliometric mapping and a systematic review of the scientific landscape concerning transparency of sustainability disclosure in agri-food value chains by identifying the key transparency dimensions and relevant research gaps. An analysis of 841 Scopus-indexed publications, utilizing Scopus tools, SciVal, VOS Viewer, and Biblioshiny software, yields insights into source and author mapping from 2000 to 2022. Bibliometric analysis underlines the increase in research interests in transparency of sustainability disclosure in agri-food value chains after Sustainable Development Goals adoption and the COVID-19 pandemic, following upwards trend, especially in the UK, India, and the USA. The most influential topic clusters are supply chain, environmentally preferable purchasing, and green practices, as well as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Internet of Things with the strongest co-occurrences between transparency (as the most recent notion in scientific landscape) and sustainability, traceability, supply chains, food supply, and blockchain. Systematic review highlights the evidence that transparency as boundary-spanning phenomenon is explored within the mono-country and chain researches, case studies and interviews methodologies from triple bottom line dimension mainly, only introducing governance criteria. Research gaps were identified regarding the role of transparency in different economic system and chains; sustainability conceptual framework used; transparency dimensions incorporation; technology-driven progress and other chain characteristics (traceability, resilience) intersection. AcknowledgmentsInna Makarenko is gratefully acknowledging the support of MSCA4Ukraine project no. 1233713.This project has received funding through the MSCA4Ukraine project, which is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the MSCA4Ukraine Consortium as a whole nor any individual member institutions of the MSCA4Ukraine Consortium can be held responsible for them.
Héctor Cañas, Josefa Mula, Francisco Campuzano Bolarín
Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies generate new opportunities for developing smart models, algorithms and tools to support supply chain (SC) production planning and control (PPC), or smart PPC (SPPC 4.0). Paired with opportunities, challenges arise in integrating sustainability and resilience in SC network design (SCND) according under I4.0. The main novelty of this paper is to propose two multi-objective models that integrate strategical and tactical PPC decisions into a sustainable-resilient SC under I4.0 towards SPPC 4.0. Sustainability is incorporated in terms of reducing costs and CO2 emissions, and a job creation factor. Resilience is incorporated in terms of contracting support suppliers. To solve the multi-objective models, the augmented epsilon constraint method (AUGMECON) was used. This algorithm minimises a target objective function while it treats the others as constraints. Our experiments indicate that AUGMECON is sensitive to the choice of epsilon values. Furthermore, a synthetic data generation tool called SR1-SR2_SynthDataGenerator was developed. This tool generates input datasets to validate and evaluate our models against benchmarks. A stochastic model (SR2) is also proposed that, with small datasets, takes 8.39 seconds to solve. The proposed models can be useful for industries that seek sustainable and resilient SCs to adapt to changing environments.
Tharindu D. Nuwarapaksha, Shashi S. Udumann, Nuwandhya S. Dissanayaka, Anjana J. Atapattu
Blockchain technology provides a disruptive way of improving transparency and tracking the food supply chain. Such a system of distributed ledgers helps establish an unalterable record of the transactions from the farm to the fork, which ultimately solves major issues in food safety, fraud, and consumer trust. The use of blockchain in the food sector can be described as holding some benefits and risks. Numerous inspiring examples Walmart, Unilever and Sinochem, prove that the use of blockchain yields great results for the industry. The technology is poised to revolutionize food safety and security by making food supply chains more efficient, transparent, and accountable as the technology evolves into maturity. It further researches and argues that despite some challenges in implementing blockchain in the food supply chain, its inherent properties of transparency and traceability make it the revolutionary technology in reshaping the food industry by building trust between food producers and consumers as well as creating safer and sustainable food systems globally.
Javed Aslam, Kee‐hung Lai, Yun Bae Kim, Horst Treiblmaier
Empirical studies based on detailed, theory-based analyses are essential for a deep understanding of technology adoption. This study provides an overview of blockchain applications in logistics management, employing a comprehensive theoretical framework. Blockchain is considered a critical digital infrastructure for logistics operations due to its distinctive characteristics, including decentralization, transparency, immutability, real-time information sharing, reliability, and end-to-end visibility. These characteristics address many contemporary logistics challenges. The study introduces a research model that integrates the fit-viability model (FVM) and task technology fit theory (TTF), demonstrating blockchain's suitability for enhancing logistics operational functions and sustainability performance. To validate the model, data were collected from logistics managers of 576 companies and analyzed using partial least squares (PLS) regression. This research offers valuable insights for managers, policymakers, and decision-makers on practical challenges and potential solutions in logistics through the application of blockchain. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that the implementation of blockchain can improve the alignment, resilience, transparency, integration, and sustainability of logistics tasks.
Purpose The emergence of blockchain technology has the potential to bring about transformative changes in various industries, with supply chain management being a prominent domain of application. This study investigates the strategic performance benefits of using blockchain-enabled traceability systems for improving supply chain quality management. Design/methodology/approach The present study employed structural equation modelling to analyse data obtained from 200 practitioners working in Indian pharmaceutical companies. Findings The results reflect that blockchain-enabled traceability systems have a positive impact on multi-tier quality governance (MQG); supply chain process alignment and coordination (SPAC) and quality centric collaboration (QCC); all of which are the facets of supply chain quality management. Furthermore, when examining the impact of blockchain-enabled traceability systems on firm quality performance and economic performance, the mediation role of SPAC and QCC was confirmed, whereas the mediation role of MQG could not be established. Practical implications The study’s empirical insights offer practical guidance for pharmaceutical manufacturers, regulators and other industry participants seeking to harness the potential of blockchain technology for creating resilient and transparent supply chains that uphold product quality and safety standards. Originality/value These findings underscore the significance of blockchain-enabled traceability systems in revolutionizing supply chain quality management practices to achieve superior strategic performance in the pharmaceutical sector.
This study explores the determinants of the intention to adopt blockchain technology for sustainable supply chain management in Indian micro, small, and medium enterprises. Different from existing studies that advocate the use of socio-technical theory for blockchain technologies, we develop a new theoretical framework, called “SOS,” based on a review of the existing literature. This is an adaptation of the technology–organization–environment framework that examines the measures and scales from socio-technical, organizational, and sustainability contexts. We use ADANCO 2.3.2 for variance-based structural equation modeling. The results show that two of the nine hypotheses are negatively significant, while the rest are positive. In our context, social sustainability and computer self-efficacy are strongly negatively significant for the adoption intention of blockchain technology in our context. Software quality and environmental sustainability are strongly positively significant. Meanwhile, collaboration, economic sustainability, and relative advantage mediated by experience are positively significant. Our study contributes to the literature by offering a new theoretical framework, fresh insights from the Indian industry, and several recommendations to practitioners.
Purpose Trust-commitment theory has been fundamental in understanding interorganizational relationships in sustainable supply chain management. Trust-commitment dynamics can provide insights into sustainable sourcing outcomes. Despite recent extensions to trust-commitment theory, trust and commitment correlation and the mediation role of trust between antecedents (i.e. opportunism) and commitment remains fundamental. We revisit trust-commitment theoretical relationships within the context of blockchain technology—and specifically blockchain smart contracts. Design/methodology/approach We conducted the scenario-based experiment with 100 business professionals from operations, supply chain and related fields to test the proposed hypotheses on how different governance mechanisms impact various managerial perceptions in a buyer–seller setting. Findings Findings reveal that compared with the formal written contract, blockchain smart contract enhances affect-based trust—as the only significant trust dimension, secures buyer commitment and interestingly, encourages opportunistic behavior. The impact of blockchain smart contract on cognition-based and institution-based trust is not significant. The findings advance trust-commitment theory with valuable managerial insights within the blockchain and sustainable sourcing context. Originality/value This study serves as a foundation for future studies to further clarify blockchain technology on sustainable buyer–seller relationships using fundamental relationships of trust-commitment and other social exchange theories.
Blockchain is a virtual, distributed ledger that operates across multiple peer-to-peer computing devices without the need for a centralized authority. It utilizes unique software systems to manage transaction data file (block), facilitating the transmission, processing, storing, and display of data. As a solution to combat food fraud and enhance food safety, blockchain technology is gaining traction in the global food supply chain. It provides an immutable ledger system and transparent record-keeping, which offers unmatched traceability and accountability, enabling stakeholders to track food products from farm to fork. Despite its potential, the adoption of blockchain in the food industry faces challenges such as scalability, interoperability, and data accuracy, which need to be overcome to fully utilize its capabilities. This study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of how blockchain technology address food fraud and improves food safety. By employing a review methodology, we analyze existing literature and case studies to examine blockchain's role in enhancing transparency, traceability, and sustainability in the food supply chain. This study identifies research gaps and discusses theoretical implications, practical applications, and potential future directions for blockchain technology within the context of food safety. Our findings highlight the transformative potential of blockchain to revolutionize the food industry by providing unparalleled traceability and accountability. We also emphasize the importance of collaborative efforts among stakeholders and the integration of innovative approaches such as decentralized data adjustment and the inclusion of genomic information on blockchain platforms. Theoretically, further research is needed to explore the synergy blockchain and emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence. Practically, our study underscores the critical need for blockchain adoption to safeguard the integrity of the food supply chain and protect consumer health. Through collective action and technological innovation, stakeholders can ensure that every food product is traceable, safe, and trustworthy, thereby enhancing the sustainability and resilience of the food industry. • This study explores the role of blockchain technology in preventing food fraud. • Tangible evidence of blockchain's effectiveness can be seen through its implementation by two industry giants. • The discussion presents a balanced analysis of blockchain's limitations and benefits, as well as the challenges. • The paper offers an exciting outlook on the future, where blockchain's integration with IoT and AI.
The increasing adoption of blockchain technology (BCT) is transforming operations and relational dynamics within agri-food supply chains. Despite a growing number of studies, the impact of BCT on supply chain relationships remains underexplored. This research identifies the salient elements of the link between BCT and relationships. It explores these empirically to understand the impact of BCT adoption and implementation on supply chain relationships in the agri-food industry, relying on social exchange theory and focusing on trust, formal information flow mechanisms, and quality of information flows and communication. This study undertakes a multiple qualitative case study analysis of seven Italian companies involved in the agri-food industry operating in the wine, beer, and dairy sectors who are considered pioneers of BCT adoption. The results indicate a positive impact of BCT on the automation of supply chain contracts and operational efficiency, on one hand, and the increased quality of relationships, on the other. Supply chain coordination is required for BCT to be effective. In highly concentrated sectors, the contractual power exerted by big players is a vital factor, while in more fragmented and dispersed industries the role of persuasion, relationships, and supply chain contracts are key. Three key insights emerge and are discussed. These concern: (i) the rethinking of the role of trust in supply chain relationships impacted by the adoption of BCT; (ii) the enhancement of information-sharing and flow mechanisms in supply chain relationships through the adoption of BCT; and (iii) the optimization of information flow quality and communication dynamics through the adoption of BCT. This study contributes to the existing literature by providing novel empirical evidence regarding the impact of BCT on relationships. It further contributes to the existing literature by analyzing the impact of blockchain applications on the upstream and downstream levels of the supply chain from a management perspective and by identifying the beneficial exchanges, norms, and principles that shape interactions when BCT is implemented. • BCT does not substitute trust in relationships but supports its development. • BCT facilitates overcoming the digital divide in agri-food supply chains. • BCT mirrors at the supply chain level the role of ERP at the firm level. • The strengthening of relationships through BCT increases the negotiation power of the supply chain.
Halida Achmad Bagraff, Nur Kholis, Mugiyati, Fatikhah Ghofi Nabila
Supply chain efficiency, transparency, and sustainability can be enhanced using blockchain technology. Blockchain enables a company to accurately track raw material origin to finished products, which ensures standard quality and sustainability. Furthermore, blockchain improves partnerships between supply chain stakeholders by providing a confident, common platform for sharing data. The influence of implementing blockchain technology on supply chain sustainability includes reduced wastage, increased resource transparency, monitoring of social standards, and reduced operational costs. The challenges of blockchain implementation include scalability, incorporation with present systems, lack of expertise, safety and confidentiality, and regulatory uncertainty. Companies can tackle these challenges through collaborative approaches and technical improvements. In general, blockchain technology significantly enhances supply chain sustainability and efficiency, which provides opportunities for creative business solutions.
Food safety has emerged as the topmost priority in the current fast-paced food industry era. According to the World Health Organization, around 600 million people, approximately 1 in 10 individuals worldwide, experience illness due to contaminated food consumption, resulting in nearly 0.42 million fatalities annually. The recent development in software and hardware sectors has created opportunities to improve the safety concerns in the food supply chain. The objective of this review is to explain the fundamentals of blockchain and its integration into the supply chain of various food commodities to enhance food safety. This paper presents the analysis of 31 conceptual works, 10 implementation works, 39 case studies, and other investigations in blockchain-based food supply chain from a total of 80 published papers. In this paper, the significance of adapting conceptual ideas into practical applications for effectively tracing food commodities throughout the supply chain has been discussed. This paper also describes the transformative role of blockchain platforms in the food industry, providing a decentralized and transparent ledger to access real-time and immutable records of a product's journey. In addition, both the positive impacts and challenges associated with implementing blockchain technology in the food supply chain have been evaluated. In summary, the blockchain-based food supply chains offer greater transparency, traceability, and trust, ultimately resulting in higher standards of food safety and quality.