Exploring the interrelationship between blockchain technology and trust: multiple case studies in sustainable supply chain management

As global supply chains become increasingly complex, traditional systems face challenges in ensuring efficiency, transparency, and innovation. Block chain technology has emerged as a transformative force in addressing these issues, offering a decentralized and secure framework for supply chain management. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the impact of block chain on supply chains, focusing on its potential to enhance efficiency, transparency, and foster innovation. The efficiency gains facilitated by block chain in supply chain management are examined through the elimination of intermediaries, reduction of paperwork, and real-time visibility into the entire process. These improvements result in streamlined operations, reduced costs, and enhanced responsiveness to market dynamics. Moreover, block chain’s decentralized nature ensures data integrity, mitigating the risk of fraud and errors in the supply chain. Transparency is a critical aspect of modern supply chains, and block chain provides an immutable and transparent ledger that enables end-to-end visibility. The technology ensures traceability and accountability, allowing stakeholders to access real-time information about the origin, movement, and status of products. This transparency not only enhances trust among supply chain participants but also facilitates compliance with regulatory requirements. The role of block chain in fostering innovation within supply chains is explored, emphasizing its potential to enable new business models, collaborative ecosystems, and the integration of emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The paper highlights case studies and pilot projects where block chain has been successfully applied to drive innovation in supply chain processes. Challenges and considerations related to the implementation of block chain in supply chain management are also discussed, including interoperability, scalability, and regulatory issues. The paper concludes by outlining future research directions and emphasizing the need for industry-wide collaboration to unlock the full potential of block chain in revolutionizing supply chain management. Overall, this review contributes to the understanding of how block chain can serve as a catalyst for efficiency, transparency, and innovation in contemporary supply chains

Background: Blockchain technology (BCT) is widely recognised for its potential to transform supply chain (SC) operations by enhancing SC transparency, hence fostering trust among SC partners. However, most empirical research has explored its direct impact through conceptual and causal models, while limited studies have explored how SC professionals themselves perceive the role of BCT in strengthening SC transparency and trust among SC partners, especially within emerging economies.Objectives: This study explores the perceptions of SC professionals regarding BCT technology, SC transparency and trust. The focus is on understanding how practitioners interpret the relational value of BCT in the context of emerging economies, with Egypt serving as a representative case.Method: This study employs an exploratory quantitative research approach through a quantitative method that utilises surveys to collect data from 63 SC professionals working in organisations operating in Egypt.Results: Findings confirm that professionals perceive BCT as a tool that positively influences both SC trust and SC transparency, with SC transparency partially mediating the relationship between BCT and trust. However, SC transparency alone does not fully explain trust-building, highlighting the importance of other BCT features such as immutability, traceability and smart contracts.Conclusion: This study reveals that SC professionals in emerging economies perceive BCT as a multifaceted trust-enabling mechanism, operating through SC transparency and other technological affordances.Contribution: By capturing practitioners’ perceptions, this study offers exploratory observations about the perceived relationship among BCT, SC transparency and trust, offering evidence-based understanding from an emerging economy perspective. The findings inform both academics and managers on how BCT’s perceived benefits can shape future trust-oriented SC practices.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess if blockchain technology, which is hailed for its potential to improve supply chain transparency and efficiency, can deliver to this promise (Abreu et al., 2021; Mahyuni et al., 2020; Manzoor et al., 2022; Rennie, 2022; Yiannas, 2018). Supply chains are increasingly complex and full transparency is difficult to achieve and may sometimes be undesired, yet governments worldwide are demanding more transparency especially with respect to the social and environmental sustainability of supply chains (Francisco & Swanson, 2018; Franke, 2021; Najjar, 2021). If blockchain technology allows to close this gap, without compromising corporate confidentiality and efficiency requirements, it might change supply chain management drastically. Most other research in this field remains rather superficial with respect to the fundamentals of blockchain technology and supply chain management. Our study will add to the very limited theoretically founded research on blockchain potentials in supply chains.Study Design: Our paper is conceptual. Based on the extant literature, we compare blockchain technology and its advantages to the characteristics of supply chains and challenges of supply chain management to identify a theoretical fit. We investigate if published case studies of blockchain technology in supply chain management support this. Finally, we devise a conceptual framework for the application of blockchain technology in supply chain management.Findings: There is, currently, very limited use for blockchain technology in supply chain management. It does not provide an answer to several of the challenges that exist in supply chain management. Blockchain technology was primarily devised as encryption technology for virtual entities and transactions involving them and not for tangible objects. Published case studies describing the use of blockchain technology in supply chain management do not contradict these findings.They rely on private blockchain solutions lacking the key benefits of blockchain technology. Our conceptual framework constitutes a reference for a future public blockchain solution for supply chains. It offers solutions for some of the challenges but also cannot solve some fundamental challenges, like power imbalances in supply chains.Limitations: Blockchain technology undergoes rapid development. Future blockchain technology may be faster, less energy-intensive and more integrated with other technologies. This may be aided by developments in hardware, like quantum computing. The findings of this paper are limited to currently available technology.Implications: Companies and governments alike should be very cautious when considering investing in currently available blockchain solutions for supply chain management.

In recent years, the interdisciplinary research of supply chains and sustainability has received extensive, yet gradual, attention; when compared to the rapid economic growth of the service industry, however, sustainable supply chain management has not been systematically explored yet. It has not only great theoretical significance, but also positive practical significance to provide a framework for the operation of a sustainable service supply chain from a sustainable development point of view. Based on the triple bottom line (TBL), we have analyzed related sustainable supply chain management research between 2006 and 2015, reviewed papers involving two or three bottom lines as well, and then introduced some classical frameworks for manufacturing supply chain management and service supply chain management. Afterward, by analyzing the differences between the manufacturing and service industries, we propose a framework of sustainable service supply chain management (SSSCM). Based on the impacts of sustainable development TBL on service supply chain participants, we have finally made a framework for sustainable operation facing triads service supply chain and proposed a future research agenda.

The supply chain network is one of the most important areas of focus in the majority of business circumstances. Blockchain technology is a feasible choice for secure information sharing in a supply chain network. Despite the fact that maintaining security at all levels of the blockchain is difficult, cryptographic methods are commonly used in existing works. Effective supply chain management (SCM) offers various benefits to organizations, such as enhanced customer satisfaction, increased operational efficiency, competitive advantage, and cost reduction. Potential SCM for agricultural and food supply chains needs distributors, coordination and collaboration among farmers, retailers, and stakeholders. The use of technology like Block Chain (BC), sensors, and data analytics, can boost traceability and visibility, decrease waste, and ensure safety and quality throughout the supply chain. Therefore, this study develops a Hunger Games Search Optimization with Deep Learning Model for Sustainable agricultural and food Supply Chain Management (HGSODL-ASCM) technique. The fundamental goal of the HGSODL-ASCM technique is to improve decision-making processes for agricultural and food commodity production and storage in order to optimise revenue. In the provided HGSODL-ASCM technique, a bidirectional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) model is built to determine the amount of productivity and storage required to maximise profit. In order to boost the performance of the Bi-LSTM classification process, the HGSO algorithm has been utilized in this work. The presented HGSODL-ASCM technique can independently achieve the SCM policies via interaction with complicated and adaptive environments. A brief set of simulations were performed to ensure the improved performance of the HGSODL-ASCM technique. The simulation results demonstrated how superior the HGSODL-ASCM method is to other methods already in use.

The convergence of blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud computing is catalyzing a paradigm shift in developing secure, intelligent, and scalable digital infrastructures. This triad of technologies is increasingly utilized to improve performance, transparency, and trust in engineering-driven and socio-technical environments. This study systematically reviews the evolution, integration strategies, and applications of blockchain, AI, and cloud computing in digital ecosystems. The analysis is based on 108 peer-reviewed studies spanning the years 2012 to 2025. A comprehensive literature analysis was conducted to identify trends, synergies, and sector-specific implementations of these systems. The review explores how their integration supports real-world engineering and operational use cases. Blockchain contributes to decentralized architectures, secure data exchange, and identity verification. AI supports adaptive behavior, autonomous decision-making, and predictive analytics. Cloud computing offers the scalable infrastructure necessary for deployment. Key challenges addressed include interoperability, latency, security trade-offs, and resource allocation. Use cases in digital finance, supply chain management, and industrial automation demonstrate the effectiveness of this integration in building resilient, ethically aligned, and high-performance infrastructures. The findings offer valuable insights and technical considerations for engineers and architects seeking to design next-generation cyber-physical systems that are secure, intelligent, and socially responsive. Clinical Trial Number Not applicable. This article accentuates the extensive use of blockchain, cloud computing, and AI principles, emphasizing their crucial significance in the contemporary digital environment and paths in which blockchain technology may be employed to automate financial transactions, enhance the security of personal data and records, facilitate cross-border transactions, verify identities, execute smart contracts, utilize cryptocurrencies, and manage supply chains. This research systematically assesses the development and practical application of blockchain, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence technologies over the past decade. This study primarily focuses on monitoring the progress, practical applications, and benefits of blockchain technology in the context of financial transactions. This article probes the symbiotic relationship between artificial intelligence, cloud and blockchain technology, analyzing the evolution and fundamental concepts of their integration from 2012 to 2025. This paper also presents a detailed analysis of 108 research works acquitted over the past decade. The study provides a comprehensive examination of the current state and fundamental principles related to the integration of artificial intelligence, cloud, and blockchain technology. This paper offers a comprehensive analysis of the major obstacles confronted by blockchain technology, examining its wide-ranging applications over several industries and its socko role in transaction systems and the domain of cryptocurrencies.

The purpose of this research is to investigate how sustainability is integrated into supply chain management (SCM). Emphasis is particularly devoted to determining how the sustainability of supply chains may be assessed. Four key objectives were developed to support this purpose: (1) define sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), (2) identify and analyze the published metrics for SSCM, (3) develop a comprehensive approach for assessing sustainability performance at the company level, and (4) develop an integrative sustainability performance framework for the broader context of supply chain. The first two objectives were accomplished through two different sets of in-depth literature reviews. The reviews focused on analyzing the convergences and divergences in the literature on green supply chain management (GSCM), SSCM, and the metrics used in these areas. The reviews helped provide the basis for accomplishing the remaining research objectives. Accordingly, stochastic models for measuring sustainability performance at the company and supply chain levels were developed. This research addresses several important gaps in the literature. As research on the integration of sustainability into SCM continues to expand, it becomes increasingly important to highlight the inconsistencies in the various definitions and metrics used to measure GSCM and SSCM. The lack of reasonably consistent definitions and metrics may lead to confusion regarding the appropriate scope in theory and practice of SSCM initiatives. Exploring the implications of and potential resolutions to the many differences in the published definitions and metrics provide much needed reference points, and further provide the foundation necessary to support the development of scientifically-sound sustainability models. By providing relatively simple and informative measurement, the model developed in Objective 3 presents a unique method of adopting the strong sustainability concept to assessing sustainability at the company level. Furthermore, by providing an original and straightforward analytical approach, the SSCM models developed in Objective 4 are one of the first to explicitly adopt probabilistic approaches for sustainability assessment in the supply chain context. Given their unique ability to accommodate any number of SSCM characteristics, the models can be employed as integrative, multi-dimensional tools for evaluating changes in the sustainability status of a supply chain over time.

The purpose of this research is to investigate how sustainability is integrated into supply chain management (SCM). Emphasis is particularly devoted to determining how the sustainability of supply chains may be assessed. Four key objectives were developed to support this purpose: (1) define sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), (2) identify and analyze the published metrics for SSCM, (3) develop a comprehensive approach for assessing sustainability performance at the company level, and (4) develop an integrative sustainability performance framework for the broader context of supply chain. The first two objectives were accomplished through two different sets of in-depth literature reviews. The reviews focused on analyzing the convergences and divergences in the literature on green supply chain management (GSCM), SSCM, and the metrics used in these areas. The reviews helped provide the basis for accomplishing the remaining research objectives. Accordingly, stochastic models for measuring sustainability performance at the company and supply chain levels were developed. This research addresses several important gaps in the literature. As research on the integration of sustainability into SCM continues to expand, it becomes increasingly important to highlight the inconsistencies in the various definitions and metrics used to measure GSCM and SSCM. The lack of reasonably consistent definitions and metrics may lead to confusion regarding the appropriate scope in theory and practice of SSCM initiatives. Exploring the implications of and potential resolutions to the many differences in the published definitions and metrics provide much needed reference points, and further provide the foundation necessary to support the development of scientifically-sound sustainability models. By providing relatively simple and informative measurement, the model developed in Objective 3 presents a unique method of adopting the strong sustainability concept to assessing sustainability at the company level. Furthermore, by providing an original and straightforward analytical approach, the SSCM models developed in Objective 4 are one of the first to explicitly adopt probabilistic approaches for sustainability assessment in the supply chain context. Given their unique ability to accommodate any number of SSCM characteristics, the models can be employed as integrative, multi-dimensional tools for evaluating changes in the sustainability status of a supply chain over time.

Implementation and adoption of new technologies are gaining the result of smooth supply chain and logistics operations. Internet of things (IoT) artificial intelligence, including data mining, intensified in all fields of life, particularly in supply chain management and operations. Blockchain technology has the capability to reform the supply chain and logistics operations management. Blockchain provides digital database solutions for all transactions across supply chain and operations management. Radio frequency identification device (RFID) is also helping technology transmit electromagnetic waves to radio-compatible integrated circuits to look after and manage the entire supply chain and logistics operations management. The Fourth Industry Revolution 4.0 refers to the automation, interconnectivity, machine learning, and real-time data that help supply chain and logistics operations management in the 21st century.

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to identify key categories of Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) and related practices that are required to fulfill the demands of sustainability and, therefore, contributing to sustainability performance. As part of this, the authors will identify different approaches in practice implementation in SSCM and supply chain management (SCM). SSCM has become a topic of great interest and is linked to the assumption that a more sustainable performance for businesses would be achieved on its implementation. Such performance has to be achieved with respect to all three dimensions of sustainability. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is conceptual in nature. The authors draw from literature on SSCM and examine frameworks and critical accounts on the topic. This allows identifying key aspects of SSCM and pointing out differences and overlaps with SCM. Findings – The authors identify five key categories which are of high importance for the sustainable management of supply chains: orientation toward SCM and sustainability, continuity, collaboration, risk management and proactivity. In a second step, the authors describe distinctive practices which allow organizations to follow the goals formulated in the five key categories. Finally, they highlight issues preventing companies that follow a rather “conventional” approach to SCM to reach the level where it can be called SSCM, i.e. how to reach sustainability performance in SCM. Research limitations/implications – The work presented is conceptual in nature. It would be required to operationalize respective categories and, therefore, test them in empirical research. Practical implications – The categories and practices identified within the framework can be used for guiding managers toward the implementation of SSCM. This is the case when management takes performance implication into account without solely considering rather simplistic indicators. At the same time, differentiating a company based on the implementation of sustainability practices has become more difficult, due to the proliferation of sustainability in a wider field. Social implications – Social aspects are integrated into the framework on the same level as environmental and economic aspects, emphasizing the triple bottom line orientation. Originality/value – While all practices applied in SSCM have originally been identified and described by researchers for the case of “conventional” SCM, their particular interrelation and joint implementation makes up SSCM and ensures a contribution to sustainability performance.

Nowadays, integrating new technology into all management processes leads to significant evolution, particularly in the logistics business, which is one of the fourth industrial of Industry 4.0. Blockchain, an emerging idea, provides for the decentralized and unchangeable storing of verified data as integrated technology. The shipping industry has had to look for innovative ways to keep the accelerated growth of the planet on track, in the face of development threats and vulnerabilities from the mild development of foreign markets, expanding protectionism, correcting natural guidance, the current episode of COVID-19 pandemics. One of the successful innovations in blockchain technologies was to promote a computerized market change. It is also making the utilization of blockchain innovation in the maritime industry will empower quicker, more secure and more productive businesses. The objective of this study is to review sustainable in supply chain management through blockchain technology in the maritime industry. This work was done by discussion of literature by classifying the application according to the operation in the shipping process.KeywordsBlockchainSupply chain managementLogisticMaritime industry

Advancing social sustainability in supply chain management: Lessons from multiple case studies in an emerging economy

Improving supply chain sustainability is an essential part of achieving the UN’s sustainable goals. Digitalization, such as blockchain technology, shows the potential to reshape supply chain management. Using distributed ledger technology, the blockchain platform provides a digital system and database to record the transactions along the supply chain. This decentralized database of transactions brings transparency, reliability, traceability, and efficiency to the supply chain management. This paper focuses on such novel blockchain-based supply chain management and its sustainability performances in the areas of environmental protection, social equity, and governance efficiency. Using a systematic literature review and two case studies, we evaluate whether the three sustainability indicators can be improved indirectly along supply chains based on blockchain technology. Our study shows that blockchain technology has the potential to improve supply chain sustainability performance, and we expect blockchain technology to rise in popularity in supply chain management.

Blockchain technology is being introduced gradually into supply chain management, addressing long-standing problems and waste-related parts of the industry. This study aims to illustrate the various ways that blockchain might improve supply chains' efficiency, traceability, security, and simplicity. Blockchain technology offers a permanent, decentralized record-keeping system that fosters honesty and trust between participants; all important data is stored in an unalterable manner. Additionally, supply chain processes like payment processing and inventory management are automated by intelligent contracts, which significantly lowers both human error and regulatory expenses. Blockchain's capacity to encrypt this data ensures a high level of security by guaranteeing information availability in the event of sophisticated cyber assaults. This increase in security makes the supply chain less vulnerable to sabotage and extortion. Through the provision of an easily accessible and verifiable record of every trade, this innovation significantly streamlines administrative compliance. Furthermore, it provides a means of confirming that the technical support standards and material sources adhere to current standards, which in turn helps to enhance customer trust in a brand and promote brand identity for the product bearing the brand mark. The study shows how blockchain technology has enhanced the capabilities of US logistics companies. It also looks at supply chain management's effectiveness and transparency in terms of blockchain technology implemented in the US.

Management of supply chains is critical in today's global business environment. Sustainability is among the most important factors in business activities and supply chain management. The integration of supply chain management with the three dimensions of sustainability (economic, environmental and social) has led to the emergence of sustainable supply chain management. Sustainable supply chain management is the management of supply chain operations, resources, information and funds to maximize social welfare and supply chain profitability while minimizing environmental impacts. Today, businesses are increasingly held responsible for the environmental, social and economic consequences resulting from their internal operations and the operations of their suppliers. Sustainable supply chain management is not just for businesses to survive; it also answers questions about what needs to be done to develop and succeed in the long term. This study focuses on establishing a broad theoretical framework on sustainable supply chain management. In addition, the study aims to help top management decisions in businesses by mentioning the sustainability strategies and practices of supply chain management, the advantages and challenges of sustainable supply chain management.