Blockchain Adoption Factors, Enablers, and Barriers in Fisheries Supply Chain: Preliminary Findings from a Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Technological adoption has become a key goal of digital transformation within firms, affecting many facets of an organisation such as attaining competitive advantage, increased revenue, reduction of operational costs, and improving operational efficiency. Blockchain as a decentralised peer to peer technology appears uniquely suited to being deployed within complex food supply chains such as the fisheries industry, which is the focus of this study. In this context, blockchain technology can be used for a variety of purposes such as providence authentication, handling and storage, transparency, counterfeit prevention, food forensics, and enhanced supply chain resilience. The purpose of this study is to synthesize existing research on the interrelationship between Blockchain technology and the factors that determine adoption, as well as identifying the enablers and barriers. This preliminary work identified key themes emerging from the blockchain literature suggesting that adoption factors are wide ranging, encompassing aspects including organisational readiness, security, complexity, partnerships, competition, governmental influence, and transparency. The thematic analysis of enablers and barriers to blockchain adoption identified the broad theme of resources as the key enabler and integration as the key barrier. These preliminary findings add to the growing body of research including increased understanding of the current state of academic research in the areas of blockchain adoption factors, blockchain adoption in supply chains, blockchain adoption in the fisheries industry and the enablers and barriers to adoption. This study is the initial step in a large scale study with the next phase comprising case studies of specific fishery supply chain stakeholders.