A Review of Smart Contracts Applications in Various Industries: A Procurement Perspective

Abstract

Smart contracts have been well-received by researchers and practitioners for the unique features of automatic execution, transparency, and nontampering in a blockchain environment. However, little is known about the current development status of knowledge and practice regarding the application of smart contracts in various industries, especially from the procurement perspective. Thus, this paper aims to address the gap with a mixed method of bibliometric analysis and systematic literature review. Based on the evaluation of 174 filtered publications, the review has analyzed the current development status of this research area with its distributions in years and journals, cooperation networks between authors, institutions, and countries, keywords cooccurrence network, and classifications of the application of smart contracts. The results show the application of smart contracts has attracted global attention since 2016 with the Ethereum and Hyperledger fabric as the main platforms in various industries, especially in information communication technology (ICT), public management, supply chain, energy, finance, and healthcare. Various functions and benefits of smart contracts, as well as their potential advantages, have been identified and articulated from the procurement perspective. A research framework has also been developed to highlight future procurement needs in business operations across the industries via an integrated procurement approach of smart contracts.