An ISM Modeling of Barriers for Blockchain/Distributed Ledger Technology Adoption in Supply Chains towards Cybersecurity

Abstract

Over the last few years, the increasing level of cyber risks derived from the growing connectedness of Industry 4.0 has led to the emergence of blockchain technology as a major innovation in supply chain cybersecurity. The main purpose of this study is to identify and rank the significant barriers affecting the implementation of blockchain technology as a key component of cyber supply chain risk management (CSCRM). This research relied on the “interpretive structural modeling (ISM)” technique in the structure of a hierarchical model to investigate the contextual relationships of identified challenges for blockchain adoption in CSCRM; it also classifies the influential challenges based on their driving and dependence powers. The results highlight that “cryptocurrency volatility” is the challenge at the top level of the hierarchy, implying weak driving power but it is strongly dependent on the other challenges. “Poor regulatory provisions”, “technology immaturity”, “dependent on input information from external oracles”, “scalability and bandwidth issues”, and “smart contract issues” are significant challenges for the adoption of blockchain in cyber supply chain risk management and are located at the bottom level of the hierarchy with higher driving power. The implications for theory and practice of the research are also highlighted.