Blockchain-Based Traceability of Inter-organisational Business Processes

ABSTRACTThe adoption of Supply Chain 5.0 in any industry is crucial to the project's success and to minimize the risk of failure. This study explores the potential enablers that mitigate the daunting barriers (a) by prioritizing them and (b) by establishing their causal relationship in modern industries within developing economies. This study was validated using literature analysis and qualitative causal modeling. A semistructured questionnaire was used to interview 16 industry experts to standardize data collection. A twofold analysis was used. Firstly, grey influence analysis prioritized enablers, barriers, and their one‐to‐one influences. These influences were retested in the second fold, and stepwise linear regression confirmed the enablers–barriers causality. The results reveal that green energy is the most influential enabler, followed by universal storage and smart contracts. The most critical barriers include “Acceptance and Adaptability of Robots and Other Machines,” “Security and Privacy,” and “Lack of Green Initiatives.” The regression analysis highlights that “Acceptance and Adaptability of Robots and Other Machines” is the most critical barrier, needing multiple enablers. Universal storage, smart contracts, intelligent systems, and innovative technologies are key enablers for most Supply Chain 5.0 adoption barriers. The study aids in adopting Supply Chain 5.0 by prioritizing key enablers and barriers, guiding decision‐makers in developing economies to mitigate risks and enhance project success within the supply chain context. The study uniquely provides an enablers–barriers causality framework for Supply Chain 5.0, offering actionable insights for successful adoption in developing economies and enhancing academic and practical understanding.

Supply chain management (SCM) is an area that offers organizations significant opportunities for both cost reductions and revenue enhancement. In their article, "Supply Chain Management: Implementation Issues and Research Opportunities," Lambert, Cooper and Pagh defined SCM as the "integration of key business processes from end user through original suppliers that provides products, services, and information that add value for customers and other stakeholders." Adopting and implementing appropriate technology has emerged as a source of competitive advantage for supply chain member firms through the integration of business processes with suppliers and customers. It is important to understand the factors influencing an organization's decision to acquire such technology. In the context of this study, connective technologies are defined as wireless communication devices and their accompanying infrastructure and software which may enhance coordination among supply chain partners. Building on previous literature in the areas of supply chain management, marketing strategy, and organizational innovation, a model was developed to test the relationships between organizational, interorganizational, and technology-related factors and the adoption of advanced connective technology, using radio frequency identification (RFID) as the test case, in the supply chain. A Web-based survey of supply chain professionals was conducted resulting in 224 usable responses. The overall model was statistically significant with four of the predictors significantly influencing the adoption of RFID in the supply chain. Size, centralization, new product advantage and time to achieve targeted ROI were significantly related to adoption of connective technology (RFID). Interorganizational related factors were not significant predictors of connective technology adoption. The study contributes to theory by testing scales from marketing and management in a supply chain context in order to better understand behavioral dimensions of supply chain management and logistics. The conceptualization and measurement of market orientation at the interfirm level advances the market orientation literature. Finally, the study contributes to the technology adoption literature by considering organizational-related, interorganizational-related, and technology-related factors that influence adoption of connective technology in the supply chain.

The introduction of blockchain technology into Supply Chain management has opened the possibility of faster and more secure transactions of commodities and services. As for every blockchain, Smart Contracts are the tool for controlling the transactions in blockchain-based supply chains. In this paper, we introduce a method for automating the implementation of natural language contracts into Smart Contracts in the Supply Chain context. The basic idea here is to extract information from a natural language contract using two Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, the Named Entity Recognition (NER) and Relation Extraction (RE), and then use this extracted information to automatically create a corresponding Smart Contract. This is an ongoing project, and we implemented the first phase of NLP, i.e., NER. The main issue we are facing here is the limited availability of annotated contract datasets. To tackle this challenge, we created an annotated legal contract dataset dedicated to the NER task. The dataset is analyzed with the deep learning method (BiLSTM) and transformer-based method (BERT). As per the generation of smart contracts, our approach consists of identifying meaningful entities and the relations between them and then representing them as business logic that can be directly incorporated into computer code as blockchain smart contracts.KeywordsNLPNERREDatasetDeep learningLegal domain

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the benefits and the barriers of agent based decision support (ABDS) systems in the supply chain context.Design/methodology/approachTwo ABDS systems have been developed and evaluated. The first system concerns a manufacturing supply chain while the second concerns a service supply chain. The systems are based on actual case companies.FindingsThis research shows that the benefits of ABDS systems in the supply chain context include the possibility to increase versatility of system architecture, to improve supply chain visibility, to conduct experiments and what‐if analyses, to improve the understanding of the real system, and the possibility to improve communication within and between organizations in the supply chain. The barriers of ABDS systems in the supply chain context include the difficulty to access data from partners in the supply chain, the difficulty to access data on a higher level of granularity, and the difficulty to retrieve data from other information systems.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is explorative in nature therefore empirical data from similar and other research settings should be gathered to reinforce the validity of the findings.Practical implicationsThis research provides knowledge and insights on how ABDS systems may be developed and used in the supply chain context and demonstrates its main benefits and barriers.Originality/valueThis research expands the current research of benefits of ABDS systems to the supply chain domain and also addresses the barriers of ABDS systems to a larger extent than previous research. Comparisons to other simulation based decision support systems are also given.

Previous literature shows that there are different environmental factors with different impacts on the adoption of technologies in a supply chain context. Thus, the adoption of technologies in supply chains may vary according to different environmental factors. Despite the existence of several studies about adoption of technologies in supply chain contexts that include environmental factors, there is a gap in identifying which environmental factors influence the adoption of digitalization technologies in supply chains. The purpose of this study is therefore to identify and analyze the environmental factors that influence the adoption of digitalization technologies in the supply chain. An exploratory qualitative research was conducted using semi-structured interviews with Portuguese managers of companies at several tiers of the automotive supply chain. Environmental factors were pointed as particularly critical drivers to promote the adoption of digitalization technologies in the automotive supply chain. Such adoption is mainly driven by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), through coercive and normative pressures over the other tiers of the supply chain. Relevant factors identified are: Compliance with standards and legislation, market and industry pressures, and benchmark the evolution of supply chain partners. This study contributes to the literature with new knowledge concerning new specificities of the environmental factors that showed an important influence on the adoption decision. © 2019 IEEE.

PurposeThe objective of this paper is to gain a better understanding of the impact of context on the adoption of e‐commerce in supply chains.Design/methodology/approachA literature review, 45 semi‐structured interviews in four different supply chains in the UK healthcare sector, involving 16 different organisations, and additional documentation is used in this study.FindingsThe adoption of e‐commerce in supply chains is simultaneously affected by two contextual meta‐variables: external pressure, which is influenced by supply chain structure, demand and industry characteristics; and internal readiness, which is influenced by IT, organisational and buying need characteristics. Different combinations of these two main variables lead to four different trade‐off situations affecting adoption or non‐adoption.Research limitations/implicationsThe empirical research has been undertaken in the specific context of the UK healthcare supply chains. It would be useful to test our findings in other sectors and countries.Practical implicationsThe paper helps to understand the contextual factors that affect e‐commerce adoption and concludes with a framework that differentiates four situations that can improve managers' and researchers' understanding of e‐commerce adoption in the future.Originality/valueThe contribution of this paper is the recognition that the adoption of e‐commerce is affected by factors in both an organisational and a supply chain context, which simultaneously lead to trade‐off decisions. Also, unlike most other studies which refer to supply chains and are limited to an organisational perspective or at most a dyadic perspective, this paper builds up a supply chain picture of context by including perspectives from multiple actors in a chain.

In the current highly uncertain external environment for businesses, maintaining a single competitive advantage in the supply chain is difficult in the long run. There is an urgent need to acquire a more comprehensive and sustainable competitive advantage, and the thriving digitalization is reshaping the industry structure and competitive dynamics. This study, based on data from 255 survey responses, employs a structural equation model to examine the relationships among environmental uncertainty, digital transformation, supply chain capabilities, and sustainable competitive performance in the supply chain context. Our findings reveal the significant role of digital transformation in enhancing supply chain capabilities, which in turn positively influence sustainable competitive performance. A further analysis shows that supply chain capabilities mediate the relationship between supply chain digital transformation and sustainable competitive performance. Moreover, environmental uncertainty can serve as a driving force for digital transformation, stimulating supply chains to enhance their exploration of digitalization. This research provides valuable insights into exploring sustainable competitive performance in the supply chain context. It addresses the gap in empirical literature regarding digital transformation research and enriches the field of the contingency theory.

PurposeThis study conceptualizes the digital transformation (DT) strategy in a supply chain context, identifies its drivers from intra- and inter-organizational perspectives and examines the effect of the DT strategy on the strategic agility and financial performance of Chinese manufacturing firms.Design/methodology/approachThe authors constructed a theoretical model by synthesizing the diffusion of innovation and organizational information processing theory (OIPT) and provided a set of hypotheses. The authors empirically tested the arguments using partial least squares structural equation modeling using data from a sample of 200 manufacturing firms in China.FindingsThe findings indicate that while supply chain connectivity positively affects DT adoption and DT routinization, data analytics capability and organizational learning positively influence DT adoption but not DT routinization. The mediation analysis also shows that DT strategy has significant direct effects on financial performance and a stronger indirect influence on financial performance via improved strategic agility.Research limitations/implicationsThis study responds to repeated calls for a new understanding of supply chain DT strategy. In addition, the study offers important contributions to the literature by identifying the potential discord between the existing DT strategy and the supply chain context and proposes a new framework that provides essential theoretical underpinnings.Originality/valueThis study enriches the literature by conceptualizing and validating the dimensions, driving factors and performance implications of DT strategy in strategic supply chain management.

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to propose a common framework for the empirical analysis of supply chain performance measurement systems used in different supply chain contexts.Design/methodology/approachThis is a conceptual paper, which includes an extensive literature review and an illustrative case study. The content, context, process framework is applied to structure the body of knowledge and the case study.FindingsSupply chain performance measurement is a context‐dependent process, tailored to specific supply chain requirements. To understand how a performance measurement system in a supply chain has developed and is used there is a need to capture its context, process and content.Research limitations/implicationsThe framework is illustrated by a single case study. Further empirical research is required to fully appreciate the breadth of application of this framework.Practical implicationsThe proposed framework can help to develop performance measurement systems that are suitable for certain organisational and supply chain contexts in which a company operates, as well as to compare different systems used across different supply chains.Originality/valueThe paper demonstrates an approach for analysing existing supply chain performance measurement systems that can be applied across different supply chains and sectors. This will create an opportunity to use a consistent data collection process across a variety of supply chain situations and thus generate data for further theory development.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the digital marketing supply chain landscape in Indonesia, an emerging market country with high economics and e-commerce penetration growth. The scope of this paper will discuss structures, actors, business model and driving forces of digital advertising with the supply chain context, which will also explain, information, money and product/services flow. This research is using mix-method approaches, combining literature review, industry data analysis through desk study and experts’ in-depth interview. There are three main findings, 1) mobile exchange company through its mobile exchange platform creates price transparency for paid digital advertisement, 2) there is power imbalance between digital publishers, advertising media agencies and mobile exchange, 3) If there are nothing significant strategic management changes in advertising media agency side, mobile exchange company could take out the (digital) advertising media agency within marketing communication industry. This paper is expected to give more insights for practitioners which include advertisers, advertising agencies, digital publishers as well as academician, especially on the digital marketing supply chain landscape. The originality of this paper lies in the digital advertising media landscape, mobile exchange business model with supply chain context, which have not been mapped to date. This study still on the exploratory approach and only focus in paid advertising, not including social media. Therefore, in order to get more whole-rounded point of view in future; first, more experts informants from different type of actors are needed, especially advertisers from FMCG company, management of digital publishers, management of social media platform, digital key opinion leaders, etc.; second, solid empirical future research will create better understanding toward the industry landscape and supply chain in different context.

Purpose– The purpose of this empirical research is to attempt to explore the effect of information security initiatives (ISI) on supply chain performance, considering various intra- and inter-organization information security aspects that are deemed to have an influence on supply chain operations and performance.Design/methodology/approach– Based on extant information security management and supply chain security management literature, a conceptual model was developed and validated. A questionnaire survey instrument was developed and administered among supply chain managers to collect data. Data were collected from 197 organizations belonging to various sectors. The study used exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis for data analysis. Further, to test the hypotheses and to fit the theoretical model, structural equation modeling techniques were used.Findings– Results of this study indicate that ISI, comprising technical, formal and informal security aspects in an intra- and inter-organizational environment, are positively associated with supply chain operations, which, in turn, positively affects supply chain performance.Research limitations/implications– This study provides the foundation for future research in the management of information security in supply chains. Findings are expected to provide the communities of practice with better information security decision-making in a supply chain context, by clearly formulating technical, formal and informal information security policies for improving supply chain performance.Originality/value– In today’s global supply chain environment where competition prevails among supply chains, this research is relevant in terms of capability that an organization has to acquire for managing internal and external information security. In that sense, this study contributes to the body of knowledge with an empirical analysis of organizations’ information security management initiatives as a blend of technical, formal and informal security aspects.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to systematically review and critically examine food losses and waste quantification in supply chain, especially in studies that tackle all the supply chain activities in a real context.Design/methodology/approachThis work employed a systematic literature review methodology on the extant literature focusing on peer-reviewed journal articles published from 2000 to 2019.FindingsA systematic analysis of 117 articles reveals that downstream supply chains are studied to a greater extent than upstream supply chains, with an emphasis on consumer waste. The findings also highlight more than half of the articles focus on only one supply chain activity. In terms of the methodologies, surveys and modelling methods are the most used to measure food losses and wastes, adopt monetary, carbon emission and calorific metrics. This study highlights that while food losses and waste research remains a relevant field of study, it has yet to been fully explored.Research limitations/implicationsThe main limit is the adoption of a systematic review method for food losses and waste quantification in supply chain.Practical implicationsThe results suggest that supply chain managers should invest in acquiring more knowledge about food losses in the global network. Upstream supply chains should be more studied and integrated with the downstream supply chains. Using combined direct and indirect methods has the potential to deal with the contradictions of quantification, the lack of data and reduce losses over time and space.Originality/valueBased on this review as the first one focusing exclusively on quantification of food losses and waste in supply chain context, the authors develop an aspiring research agenda that proposes opportunities for future research.HeadingsWe analyse 117 studies addressing food losses and waste quantification.Downstream food supply chains are more studied than upstream food supply chains.Case studies of food supply chains in developed countries are more prolific.The main metric to quantify food losses and waste is weight.

The construction supply chain often faces challenges such as contract disputes, inefficient payments, and difficult claim management due to its complexity and the involvement of multiple parties. Most existing solutions focus on optimizing contract terms or improving local processes, but they lack systemization, automation, and transparency. Therefore, this study proposes a claim and payment process management model based on blockchain and smart contracts, aiming to achieve digital and automated governance of the construction supply chain. The study constructs three types of smart contracts: The supply chain decomposition smart contract automatically divides engineering projects into independent billing cycles. The billing unit smart contract monitors the compliance of construction. The negotiation and settlement smart contract automatically handles disputes and payments. These three types of smart contracts work together to form a decentralized dynamic management framework. Through simulation experiments comparing the traditional process with the smart contract model, the results show that in scenarios with a high probability of claims and a large proportion of construction defects, the capital flow efficiency of the smart contract model is increased by more than 20%, and it shows stronger stability under high claim risks. The contribution of this study lies in combining blockchain technology with the logic of supply chain decomposition, proposing a smart contract system applicable to dynamic engineering projects, thus providing a digital processing method for the integrated management of claims and payments in the construction supply chain. This digital dynamic management method can ultimately systematically solve the island problem in supply chain claim research. Its automated and transparent characteristics help reduce dispute costs and enhance trust among multiple parties, which has important practical significance for improving the overall efficiency of the industry.

Objective: The objective of the paper is to investigate the influence of deployment of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools in a supply chain context. Methods/Analysis: The influence of deployment of ICT in Supply Chain Management (SCM) is studied using System Dynamics (SD) methodology using the tool, Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) using software Vensim. Findings: SCM discipline is grappled with dynamic and operational changes and challenges and this unpredictability can be understood better using SD. ICT capabilities fundamentally improve supply chain integration and performance. ICT adoption for SCM improves collaboration, workflow and decision-making which lead to cost savings; improved operational efficiency and inventory visibility. One process in SCM namely inventory control is described using SD. Introduction of a parameter, ICT capability dramatically changes the context and gives rise to new positive feedback loops Novelty/Improvements: The paper uses CLD for ICT influence on SCM process of inventory control. This can be extended for all supply chain management processes in both planning and execution. Case studies with the influence of specific ICT tools like RFID, Cloud, Social Media, Business Analytics, Mobile technology and Multi-agent systems are also possibilities for extending the study. Supply chain managers can deliberate on decisions, strategy, issues and policy by developing scenarios using SD tools and software packages. However the research limitation is that this is a simulation in a specific supply chain context. Generalization of this scenario may not be possibleKeywords: Causal Loop Diagram (CLD), Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Inventory, Supply Chain Management (SCM) ICT, System Dynamics (SD)

Taking greening to the supply chain level (beyond partial, yet often used, reversed logistics) can be based on technological and operational initiatives in the sphere of design for recycling, disassembly, extended life cycles and future innovations and the related operations. The supply chain dimension is lacking in the most recent state-of-the-art contribution from Reinhardt on greening from a business point of view. In addressing that gap this paper aims to place greening technological and operations initiatives in a supply chain context. In two case studies of automotive companies greening attempts and approaches are assessed in terms of both supply chain practices and relations. It is found that the operations and technological practices in the supply chain are not yet fully developed to realize the strategic approach of greening. Suggestions for further management and research efforts are developed and the impact of greening technology and operations on supply chain relations and challenges are discussed.