Building a decentralized industrial alliance with the information system empowered by blockchain

The traditional industrial chain consists of a group of entities that are familiar with each other, and the relationship between the entities is maintained by signing contracts. However, on the one hand, the inability to reach mutual trust between unfamiliar entities limits the collaboration of entities, and on the other hand, most of the profits in the industrial chain are grabbed by the dominant enterprises. In this paper, an information system for collaboration among business entities is developed based on blockchain, based on which a business model called Decentralized Industry Alliance (DIA) is proposed. Transactions and profit distribution in the DIA are executed by smart contracts, which enables unfamil-iar entities to trust each other without relying on a third party. Any entity that voluntarily complies with the smart contracts automatically becomes a member of the DIA, thereby promoting the expan-sion of the industry scale. The smart contracts distribute profits according to each entity's contribution to the alliance, so as to ensure the fairness of value distribution. A case about the alliance of elderly care industry is carried out, which shows that the DIA achieves rapid expansion on the premise of ensuring fairness. As a general business model in the web 3.0 era, the DIA can be referenced by other industries.& COPY; 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University.This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

The traditional industrial chain relies on signed contracts to maintain the relationship between familiar entities. However, lack of trust between unfamiliar entities hinders collaboration and allows dominant enterprises to capture most of the profits. This paper proposes a Decentralized Industry Alliance (DIA) business model, supported by a blockchain-based information system that uses smart contracts for transactions and profit distribution. The DIA enables unfamiliar entities to trust each other without third-party intervention, promotes industry expansion, and ensures fair value distribution.