Expert oriented approach for analyzing the blockchain adoption barriers in humanitarian supply chain

Abstract

In digital era, blockchain technology has been known as the operational innovation that is rapidly joining the context of humanitarian supply chain and relief logistic. Hence, it has the potential to change the humanitarian context fundamentally, but there is still relatively little-published research aimed at improving the understanding of the different barriers of the blockchain adoption in humanitarian supply chain. The goal of this research is to present a comprehensive review of blockchain adoption barriers in the context of humanitarian supply chain management. An integrated approach using Fuzzy Delphi and Best-Worst method (BWM) has been used for analyzing the barriers. Based on the literature, 14 barriers of the blockchain adoption in humanitarian supply chain were identified. According to the Fuzzy Delphi result, 9 barriers were accepted. After that, the BWM calculated the importance of each barrier. The findings showed that regulatory uncertainty, lack of knowledge/ employee training and high sustainability costs are the important barriers. This research provides useful guidelines for policy makers so that they can benefit from the results to optimize their solutions.