Abstract
PurposeThis study aims to contribute to the early but fervent debate on blockchain and supply networks by proposing a novel theoretical perspective on blockchain adoption grounded on social capital theory. In particular, it seeks to answer the following question: what is the role of social capital in shaping the decision to adopt blockchain in supply networks?Design/methodology/approachMultiple case-studies, based on interviews performed with managers of eight firms, were used.FindingsThe social capital theory emerged as an additional but necessary lens to investigate blockchain implementation in supply networks. The intuitions proposed highlighted the importance of managers’ sensemaking for investigating technology adoption. Relational capital emerged as a necessary but not sufficient condition to adopt blockchain in supply networks. In addition, it is argued a relationship between competitive opportunities at the firm level and the idea to adopt the blockchain. The opportunity to act as “Tertius Gaudens” or as “Tertius Iungens” information brokers in supply networks should severely affect firms’ proneness toward the adoption of blockchain solutions.Originality/valueThis is one of the first studies in the literature investigating blockchain adoption in supply networks from a social capital perspective. It introduces new issues to the debate related to the role of blockchain in the supply chain by discussing the role of goal misalignment and competitive advantage, which emerged as crucial for shaping the decision to adopt blockchain in supply networks.
Highlights
In a very broad sense, blockchain is “a distributed, consensusbased and immutable ledger of transaction records” (Schmidt and Wagner, 2019, p. 1)
5.1 Theoretical implications This work is positioned in the broad supply chain debate dealing with the role of social capital in supply network interactions (Bernardes, 2010; Treiblmaier, 2018; Cole et al, 2019; Kim and Shin, 2019; Wang et al, 2019)
It contributes to addressing the need to develop further theoretical advancements, raised by many scholars (Treiblmaier, 2018; Cole et al, 2019; Hald and Kinra, 2019; Schmidt and Wagner, 2019), by proposing a novel perspective grounded on social capital theory
Summary
In a very broad sense, blockchain is “a distributed, consensusbased and (mostly) immutable ledger of transaction records” (Schmidt and Wagner, 2019, p. 1). It is considered a technological and philosophical innovation that will have disruptive effects on society as a whole (Hald and Kinra, 2019) This high expectation is raising the attention of academics, practitioners and regulators belonging to several industries (Davidson et al, 2018; Gaggioli, 2018; Cong and He, 2019; Allen et al, 2020). Such interest derives from the global digitalization trend, labeled as Industry 4.0 in business contexts, which includes 3d printing, big data, robotics and machine learning (Galati and Bigliardi, 2019a; Birkel and Hartmann, 2020). According to various authors (Yli-Huumo et al, 2016; Iansiti and Lakhani, 2017), the main features of blockchain are transparency and trust (information is viewable by all users), automation
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