Collaborative adoption of blockchain technology: A supply chain contract perspective

The outbreak of COVID-19 has significantly affected the development of enterprises. In the post-pandemic era, blockchain technology has become one of the important technologies to help enterprises quickly gain market competitiveness. The heavy investment required of supply chain stakeholders to employ blockchain technology has hindered its adoption and application. To tackle this issue, this study aims to facilitate the adoption of blockchain technology in a supply chain consisting of a core enterprise and a small/medium-sized enterprise through an effective supply chain contract. We analyze the performance of a cost-sharing (CS) contract and a revenue-sharing (RS) contract and propose a new hybrid CS-RS contract for better performance. We conduct comparative analyses of the three contracts and find that the hybrid CS-RS contract can more effectively incentivize both parties to reach the highest level of blockchain technology adoption and achieve supply chain coordination.

Automated summary

The outbreak of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on enterprise development, and blockchain technology has emerged as a crucial tool for enterprises to gain market competitiveness in the post-pandemic era. However, the high investment required to adopt blockchain technology has hindered its widespread application. To address this issue, this study proposes a new hybrid contract that combines cost-sharing and revenue-sharing to facilitate blockchain technology adoption in a supply chain. Comparative analyses of three different contracts show that the hybrid contract can effectively incentivize both parties to achieve the highest level of blockchain technology adoption and achieve supply chain coordination.