Blockchain Barriers in Supply Chain: A Literature Review

Most private permissioned blockchains in business enterprises are still in the sandbox stage, with troubles of interoperability and resource limits looming large. This structured literature review reports a current inventory of barriers to blockchain use, categorized by the largest sources of friction. In a review of 1,166 recent articles, filtering for those specifically reporting on the challenges of blockchain use in supply chains left 76 for detailed analysis. The challenges reported are clustered around four themes: (1) technical, (2) financial, (3) business ecosystem, and (4) social/cultural/regulatory, with the last two themes as prevalent as technical and financial ones. We discuss why not all industries, organizations, and locales may be ripe for blockchain use. Under specific circumstances, the value of chained data helps nudge participant, industry, and regulator coordination, critical for successful blockchain use.