Drivers, challenges, and needs of enterprise’s blockchain adoption

Abstract

The arrival of blockchain technology has disrupted many business sectors globally, encouraging enterprises to digitize their operations to work more efficiently by implementing this technology, including Thai enterprises that are currently at the entry stage of blockchain adoption. This study has gathered practical insights from many organizational blockchain experts to explore the drivers and challenges of blockchain technology adoption at the organizational level, focusing on financial and supply chain business perspectives, as they are the first industries that implement blockchain, which will be beneficial to the potential adopters. This study also points out how the discovered drivers and challenges of each focused sector differ. Lastly, the perspective of the decision-making process in blockchain adoption has shown how businesses identify the necessity of adopting blockchain to their operations. The study is conducted using qualitative grounded theory to frame up the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) of blockchain adoption in Thailand from the in-depth interviews with 12 Thai organizations, both from financial and supply chain sectors, that are specialized in blockchain technology and its applications. The findings have discovered that Suitable application and Stakeholders’ cooperation are the important drivers that have just emerged in this study’s TOE framework. The findings also suggested that the blockchain solution is adaptable to various applications but cannot be applied to every business problem. Therefore, the suitability of blockchain application to the firm business model is the key determinant of the adoption. Each of the focused sectors has a different goal and business model, which leads to different application and different weight for consideration of environmental aspects, as financial firms are usually subjected to more regulations naturally, while supply chain firms expect more of their stakeholders to adopt the use of blockchain to lean the whole operation. Lastly, the studied firms’ decision to employ blockchain has proven to be valid and necessary as they have followed the criteria in the decision-making process model for blockchain adoption. IMPLICATION OF THESIS: This study of blockchain adoption in Thailand, the emerging country, is deeply studied by the local experts who are in the practical field of the innovation landscape and specializes in the blockchain. The factors within this study’s TOE framework are, therefore, based on the practical implementation and lessons learned from the current adopters, which are beneficial to the potential adopters. We suggest that our proposed TOE framework is beneficial to not only future research on blockchain adoption in Thailand but also applicable to future research on enterprises’blockchain adoption in developing countries that are currently emerging. Not only are the practical considerations of drivers and challenges in blockchain adoption suggested, but also the decision-making process behind the adoption is also analyzed,which could be highly beneficial to the future adopters to set the organizational goals that are supportive to the blockchain adoptions. Lastly, our findings may lead to a more collaborative business landscape in the future, which facilitate Thailand to be more innovation-friendly, as the findings have pointed out concerns of enterprises in adoption.