Sector Diversity among IT Professionals in the Timing of Blockchain Adoption: An Attitudinal Perspective

Abstract

Blockchain technology has the potential to reshape the conventional ways of processes and transactions on digital platforms. Much of the attention surrounding blockchain is mainly focused on the technical and organizational aspects. Comparatively, little effort has been targeted towards understanding the attitudinal issues in blockchain adoption. This study aims to explore the role of attitudinal forms behind the intended timing of IT professionals’ blockchain adoption, with an emphasis on the differences between the public and private sectors. A survey method was used where the data was collected from 208 IT professionals from public and private sector establishments in order to investigate how the different attitudes of the participants as well as the differences in their work sectors affect their intention to adopt blockchain. The data collected was analysed with ordinal logistic regression and the results indicate that the participants’ affective, normative and pessimistic attitudes have a significant effect on the timing of blockchain adoption, and that these effects show differences among the IT professionals from the public and private sector. The findings are believed to provide valuable information to researchers and strategists in forecasting the future evolution of the blockchain technology in terms of individual utilization. The results also will provide feedback to managers of different sectors in making decisions regarding blockchain adoption, developers of blockchain services, as well as individuals who are interested in using blockchain.