Exploring the Role of Blockchain Technology in Improving Sustainable Supply Chain Performance: A System-Analysis-Based Approach

Due to the complexity of SSC practices, BT can be adopted as an innovative tool for addressing socioenvironmental issues. However, BT adoption has not been receiving growing attention because of organizational challenges (e.g., financial constraints). This study develops a system-analysis-based approach to investigate the impact of BT adoption on the improvement of SSC performance. This approach is proposed based on the FCM to model CRs between SSC-performance-related targets and enablers of BT adoption. These enablers include inherent features of BT identified in the context of sustainability (e.g., social responsibility and environmental sustainability). After developing an FCM model for the BT adoption problem, the impact of enablers on target concepts is investigated by implementing a hybrid FCM learning algorithm according to the extracted CRs. Based on the outputs of the FCM learning algorithm, this study also identifies the most effective enablers for improving SSC performance using the combined compromise solution method. The proposed system-analysis-based approach demonstrates that BT can significantly affect various dimensions of SSC networks' performance. The results imply that the appropriate BT adoption supports SSC performance by improving environmental sustainability, creating smart contracts, and increasing traceability.