P. Joshi, Vijaishri Tewari, Shailendra Kumar, Anshul Singh
{"title":"Blockchain technology for sustainable development: a systematic literature review","authors":"P. Joshi, Vijaishri Tewari, Shailendra Kumar, Anshul Singh","doi":"10.1108/jgoss-06-2022-0054","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\nPurpose\nBlockchain technology (BCT) is one of the latest disruptive innovations, brought along with-it immense scope of diverse applications contributing towards sustainable development (SD). The consistent increase in the publications reveal that the application of BCT for SD has become popular among researchers and practitioners in past few years, in turn, urged for a systematic literature review (SLR) to get an insight into the research journey travelled so far and setting directions for future research in this area. Therefore, this study aims to identify, map and synthesize the available literature on application of BCT for SD.\n\n\nDesign/methodology/approach\nThe automatic and manual search resulted into 1,277 studies from Scopus and Web of Science database. Further applying inclusion and exclusion criterion resulted in bringing out total of 157 studies, which were termed as primary studies. Based on the results of descriptive analysis, conducted through Bibliometric and VOSviewer software, the characteristics of BCT and its key capabilities, contributing towards shaping the recent SD literature, were critically examined. Identified research themes for clustering primary studies were aligned with United Nations Sustainability Development Goals (UNSDG). A mind-map was also prepared on the basis of thematic classification of primary studies.\n\n\nFindings\nThe research themes “business practice and economic sustainability”, “agriculture and food security” and “business practice and environment sustainability” were found to be the focal points of scholarly attention. Synthesis and analysis of primary studies resulted into classification of research gaps under four categories – theoretical foundation, methodological limitation, research themes and technology implementation challenges. The study was concluded by sensitizing and sanitizing the concrete research questions for future research.\n\n\nResearch limitations/implications\nThe research findings shall be a roadmap for research scholars, academicians and practitioners to comprehend the present state of knowledge in the domain of “BCT application for SD” and decide upon adopting the future course of action to attain the UNSDGs by the year 2030.\n\n\nOriginality/value\nTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current study is the first attempt in its own sense to analyse and synthesize the available literature on “attaining SD through BCT” using SLR approach.\n","PeriodicalId":43346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Global Operations and Strategic Sourcing","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.8000,"publicationDate":"2023-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Global Operations and Strategic Sourcing","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1108/jgoss-06-2022-0054","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"MANAGEMENT","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Purpose
Blockchain technology (BCT) is one of the latest disruptive innovations, brought along with-it immense scope of diverse applications contributing towards sustainable development (SD). The consistent increase in the publications reveal that the application of BCT for SD has become popular among researchers and practitioners in past few years, in turn, urged for a systematic literature review (SLR) to get an insight into the research journey travelled so far and setting directions for future research in this area. Therefore, this study aims to identify, map and synthesize the available literature on application of BCT for SD.
Design/methodology/approach
The automatic and manual search resulted into 1,277 studies from Scopus and Web of Science database. Further applying inclusion and exclusion criterion resulted in bringing out total of 157 studies, which were termed as primary studies. Based on the results of descriptive analysis, conducted through Bibliometric and VOSviewer software, the characteristics of BCT and its key capabilities, contributing towards shaping the recent SD literature, were critically examined. Identified research themes for clustering primary studies were aligned with United Nations Sustainability Development Goals (UNSDG). A mind-map was also prepared on the basis of thematic classification of primary studies.
Findings
The research themes “business practice and economic sustainability”, “agriculture and food security” and “business practice and environment sustainability” were found to be the focal points of scholarly attention. Synthesis and analysis of primary studies resulted into classification of research gaps under four categories – theoretical foundation, methodological limitation, research themes and technology implementation challenges. The study was concluded by sensitizing and sanitizing the concrete research questions for future research.
Research limitations/implications
The research findings shall be a roadmap for research scholars, academicians and practitioners to comprehend the present state of knowledge in the domain of “BCT application for SD” and decide upon adopting the future course of action to attain the UNSDGs by the year 2030.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current study is the first attempt in its own sense to analyse and synthesize the available literature on “attaining SD through BCT” using SLR approach.
目的区块链技术(BCT)是最新的颠覆性创新之一,为可持续发展带来了巨大的多样性应用。出版物的持续增加表明,在过去几年中,BCT在SD中的应用在研究人员和从业者中变得很受欢迎,反过来,他们敦促进行系统的文献综述(SLR),以深入了解迄今为止的研究历程,并为该领域的未来研究设定方向。因此,本研究旨在识别、绘制和综合关于BCT应用于SD的现有文献。设计/方法/方法。自动和手动搜索Scopus和Web of Science数据库中的1277项研究。进一步应用纳入和排除标准,共进行了157项研究,这些研究被称为初级研究。基于通过Bibliometric和VOSviewer软件进行的描述性分析结果,对BCT的特征及其关键能力进行了批判性的研究,这些特征及其关键功能有助于塑造最近的SD文献。已确定的初步研究集群研究主题符合联合国可持续发展目标。还根据初级研究的主题分类编制了思维导图。发现研究主题“商业实践与经济可持续性”、“农业与粮食安全”和“商业实践和环境可持续性”是学术界关注的焦点。通过对主要研究的综合和分析,将研究差距分为四类——理论基础、方法限制、研究主题和技术实施挑战。这项研究是通过对未来研究的具体研究问题进行敏感和净化而得出的。研究局限性/含义研究结果应为研究学者、院士和从业者提供路线图,以了解“BCT申请SD”领域的知识现状,并决定采取未来行动,在2030年前达到UNSDG,目前的研究是第一次尝试用单反方法分析和综合关于“通过BCT实现SD”的现有文献。
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Global Operations and Strategic Sourcing aims to foster and lead the international debate on global operations and strategic sourcing. It provides a central, authoritative and independent forum for the critical evaluation and dissemination of research and development, applications, processes and current practices relating to sourcing strategically for products, services, competences and resources on a global scale and to designing, implementing and managing the resulting global operations. Journal of Global Operations and Strategic Sourcing places a strong emphasis on applied research with relevant implications for both knowledge and practice. Also, the journal aims to facilitate the exchange of ideas and opinions on research projects and issues. As such, on top of a standard section publishing scientific articles, there will be two additional sections: "The Industry ViewPoint": in this section, industrial practitioners from around the world will be invited (max 2 contributions per issue) to present their point of view on a relevant subject area. This is intended to give the journal not just an academic focus, but a practical focus as well. In this way, we intend to reflect a trend that has characterised the past few decades, where interests and initiatives in research, academia and industry have been more and more converging to the point of collaborative relationships being a common practice. "Research Updates - Executive Summaries". In this section, researchers around the world will be given the opportunity to present their research projects in the area of global sourcing and outsourcing by means of an executive summary of their project. This will increase awareness of the on-going research projects in the area and it will attract interest from industry.