Factors Affecting Organisations’ Adoption Behaviour toward Blockchain-Based Distributed Identity Management: The Sustainability of Self-Sovereign Identity in Organisations

Abstract

Blockchain-based Distributed Identity Management (BDIDM) can enhance sustainable identification and authentication of users on organisations’ digital systems. But there is not a clear consensus on how organisations perceive the value proposition of such technology, nor what might affect their adoption behaviour toward it. This research explains how technological, organisational and environmental (TOE) factors affect organisations’ adoption behaviour toward BDIDM. This study aims to determine the most critical factors affecting the behaviour while assessing the effectiveness and appropriateness of the model involved, i.e., TOE-BDIDM. Online questionnaires are used to survey 111 information and cybersecurity practitioners within South African organisations. The analysis combines binary logistic regression modelling, Structural Equation Modelling of the measurement model, and chi-squared tests. The results suggest TOE factors positively or negatively affect adoption behaviour. The behaviour is significantly affected by technology characteristics, i.e., BDIDM’s disruptive nature, and is associated with Blockchain type. Indeed, the majority of participants intended to recommend BDIDM to their organisations yet paradoxically preferred private-permissioned blockchain the most, revealing resistance to decentralised and privacy-preserving BDIDM models like Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI). The latter might be utopian or unsustainable for organisations. TOE-BDIDM was found relatively appropriate and effective but arguably ‘incomplete’ for explaining the adoption of disruptive technologies like SSI in organisations. TOE should extend to TOEU by including the User factors.