Blockchain Adoption Factors, Enablers And Barriers In Fisheries Supply .

primarily because of the number of products, processes,individuals, and organisations that constitutes its make-up[35]. For example, Ireland’s fishing fleet is segmented aroundfive key areas: refrigerated seawater pelagic segment, e.g.herring and mackerel, beam trawler segment, e.g. sole andplaice, polyvalent segment, e.g. whitefish and molluscs,specific segment, e.g. bivalve molluscs and aquaculturespecies, and aquaculture segment, e.g. collection of spat fromwild mussel stocks for aquaculture installations [9, p. 408].Irish aquaculture production is dominated by salmon farms.Additionally, fish processing comprises 160 companies, with85 of these enjoying a revenue of more than 1 million [36].The industry is primarily made-up of whitefish, pelagic, andshellfish operators, with whitefish, shellfish, and smokedsalmon processors dominating [37, p. 119]. This complexityhas been driven by the globalisation, distribution, andconsumption patterns of food production [35], [38]. Toaddress supply chain complexity, a number of solutions havebeen proposed, e.g. vigilant information systems andblockchain [5], [39]. Various theories have been forwarded inthe past to elucidate the factors that drive informationtechnology adoption. Many of these examine the motivationbehind user behaviour like the technology acceptance model(TAM), the task-technology fit (TTF) theory, the diffusion ofinnovation (DOI) theory, the theory of reasoned action(TRA), the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), the unifiedtheory of acceptance and use of technology (UTUAT), andsocial cognitive theory (SCT) [6]. Other theories espousedinclude the perceived e-readiness model and assimilationtheory [40]. The TOE model was first developed in 1990 by[7]. It pinpoints three distinct areas of an organisation’scontext that affects the process of adoption andimplementation of a technological innovation: nvironmental context [8]. The technological context refers toboth the internal and the external technologies pertinent tothe firm. From a more granular perspective, the technologicalcontext incorporates factors such as complexity, relativeadvantage, privacy, security, and compatibility. These factorshave been shown previously to effect existing or potentialinformation technology adoptions [8], [40], [41]. An abstractview of the organisational context describes the firm byexamining its scope, size, and managerial structure. Morespecific considerations include top management support, priorIT experience, innovativeness, information intensity, andorganisational readiness [8], [40], [42]. The environmentalcontext refers to the wider area in which a company operatesits business, i.e. the industry, its competitors, and relationshipswith the government, including regulations [8], [40]. Thisresearch will incorporate an adapted framework proposed by[40], which incorporates the individual and task-relatedcontexts in addition to the technology, organisational andenvironmental. The individual context considers socialinfluence and hedonistic drives incorporating expectations,how privacy is perceived, as well as trust and non-utilitarianmotives. The task-related context refers to the task andtechnology characteristics that have to be matched to allow atask-technology fit leading to positive performance and ITutilisation [40]. The TOE framework has been usedThe JBBA Volume 5 Issue 1 2022extensively both across a wide variety of industries and in anumber of different contexts [43]–[49]. Table 2 presents anoverview of the articles reviewed that address blockchainadoption. It does so by delineating the TOE factors that droveadoption. Table 3 presents an overview of the articlesreviewed that consider the individual and task-related factorsthat drive adoption. Table 4 lists the enablers and barriersidentified.Table 2. Summary of Blockchain Adoption raceability23OrganisationalFactorsOrganisational ReadinessTopManagementSupportTechnological onmentalFactorsPolicy and14RegulationsCompetitive10PressureCollaboration s344122222Table 3. Summary of Individual and Task Adoption FactorsIndividual FactorsTrustExpectationsPrivacySocial Influence8311Task-Related FactorsTask-Technology 111Table 4. Enablers and Barriers to Blockchain AdoptionEnablersCollaborationManagement uctureTraining andEducationPerceived cy and RegulationsCostLack of ganisational CultureScalability66Published Open Access under the CC-BY 4.0 Licence3

inancial ResourcesJob Opportunities3333Legal ConcernsComplexityMarket BarriersAwareness654421Privacy IssuesSecurityUncertaintyInfrastructureHype332225. Thematic AnalysisThematic analysis has become a widely used method foranalysing qualitative data. This type of analysis can beperformed within numerous ontological frameworks, which isin turn linked to the epistemological approaches to data [50].There are two key approaches to thematic analysis inqualitative research. The first is the deductive approach, whichutilises existing theories to build themes, then uses them as aguide in the coding process. This approach is rooted in thescientific method as the process moves from theory tohypothesis to hypothesis testing. The second approach is theinductive approach, which attempts to build themes throughthe examination of available information. The processfollowed begins with coding the contents of the dataexamined and then developing and completing themes duringand after the coding process [50], [51]. This study employed amixed approach to examine the literature. Firstly, thedeductive approach was employed by using the TOEframework to build initial themes related to blockchainadoption that were then used to guide the coding process.Following that stage, the process moved onto utilising theLeximancer tool https://www.leximancer.com/. Leximanceris a text analytics tool frequently used by researchers to analysethe contents of textual documents to display the extracted datavisually.5.1.Blockchain Adoption FactorsTop management support emerged as the key outcome of thethematic analysis of the blockchain adoption factors. Thetheme of support can be broadly broken down into two broadconcepts of top management support and organisationalreadiness. In this scenario, top management is a broad conceptencompassing CEO level to senior management. This iscontext specific to the organisation. The second themeidentified by thematic analysis is that of security. This themecan be broken into the key concepts of complexity, privacy,and transparency. The next theme to emerge is that ofpartners. In this context, the concepts related to partnersinclude vision, cultural differences, financial factors, andpolicies. Complexity is the next key theme to emerge. Thisincludes concepts such as technological novelty, ion,disintermediation, and compatibility. Government is the nexttheme to emerge. This incorporates government support,policy, and regulations. The theme of competitors refersprimarily to the environmental adoption factor and theThe JBBA Volume 5 Issue 1 2022pressure exerted on organisations to adopt blockchain. Finally,the theme of transparency refers to concepts such as theenhancement of transparency through blockchain adoption,traceability, immutability, sustainable practices, and datadisclosure for clients5.1.1EnablersThe outcome of the analysis of the data collated regarding theenablers to blockchain adoption identified six key themes.Resources - The most heavily weighted theme to arise is resources.This is a broad theme that threw up a number of conceptsencompassing availability of resources, technological andorganisational infrastructure, network and human support,training and education, research funding, financial resources, andcommitment to technological infrastructure and innovativeness.Government - This theme was narrower and more focused onconcepts around collaboration between government and industry,development of government guidelines, policy and frameworks,and regulations. The remaining themes emerged with lowerweighting but still threw up some interesting data.Support - The support theme contains the concepts of degree ofmanagerial support, vendor support, and human support.Visibility - The visibility theme refers to the concepts oftransparency, tracking, improved communication, cargo visibility,and documentation transparency.Business - The business theme refers to concepts such as choiceof business partner as an adoption enabler, simplification ofbusiness processes, transaction cost reduction, knowledgesharing, and new business models.Management - Finally, the management theme encompasses theconcepts of management involvement in platform selection andthe hiring of consultants.5.1.2BarriersThe thematic analysis of the barriers to blockchain adoptionproduced some very interesting results. In contrast to theenablers, where six key themes emerged, double the number ofthemes were produced for barriers.Integration - Integration was the central theme to emerge inbarriers to adoption. It is inextricably linked to a number of otherbarriers and encompasses concepts like acceptance by partners,uncertainty about benefits, costs and return on investment,scalability, existing infrastructure, standards, and lack ofknowledge.Regulatory - The regulatory theme encompassed the concepts ofregulatory clarity and uncertainty pertaining to regulatorydevelopments.Published Open Access under the CC-BY 4.0 Licence4

Costs - The costs’ theme refers to general costs, highsustainability costs, and implementation costs.Stakeholder - The stakeholder theme contains concepts such asindustry resistance, increased coordination demand, collaborationhesitation, external stakeholder involvement, and collaborationdifferences with partners.Legal - The legal theme was conceptualised by issues like futurelegal implications and long-term uncertainty around legaldevelopments.Complexity - The complexity theme considers concepts liketechnological complexity, decreased operational efficiency,increased coordination demand, and required openness.Scalability - The scalability theme incorporates concepts such aswasted resources, and intra-organisational implementation costs.Uncertainty - Uncertainty as a theme contained broad conceptsrelating to legal, technological, and regulatory developments, aswell as collaboration uncertainty.Figure 2: EnablersInteroperability - The interoperability theme refers to the conceptsof interoperability across jurisdictions and a reluctance to changecurrent systems.Technology - The technology theme incorporates concepts such asunfamiliarity and unclear benefits, lack of knowledge, andtechnology risks.Infrastructure - The infrastructure theme contains the concepts ofexisting technological infrastructure and needed infrastructure.Expertise - The expertise theme refers to concepts such asexisting knowledge and expertise.Figure 3: Barriers6. ConclusionFigure 1: Blockchain Adoption FactorsThe JBBA Volume 5 Issue 1 2022Interest in blockchain utility in supply chain is garneringincreasing interest. However, blockchain adoption in fisheriessupply chain is a somewhat neglected sphere of research. Toaddress this gap, this research presents the preliminary findingsfrom ongoing research into blockchain adoption alongfisheries supply chain. Through the performance of astructured literature review, we have identified key supplychain areas that are primed for the application of blockchain.A number of adoption factors have been identified andPublished Open Access under the CC-BY 4.0 Licence5

thematically analysed. Furthermore, enablers and barriers toblockchain adoption have been pinpointed and thematicallyanalysed. The next step for this research is to empiricallyexamine the enablers, barriers, and adoption factors through aseries of interviews and focus groups. It is hoped that this willelicit further insight into these issues.[11]J. Webster and R. T. Watson, ‘Analyzing the past toprepare for the future: Writing a literature review’, MISQ., pp. xiii–xxiii, 2002.[12]S. K. Boell and D. Cecez-Kecmanovic, ‘On being‘systematic’ in literature reviews’, Formul. Res. methods Inf.Syst., pp. 48–78, 2015.[13]J. Vom Brocke, A. Simons, K. Riemer, B. Niehaves, R.Plattfaut, and A. Cleven, ‘Standing on the shoulders ofgiants: Challenges and recommendations of literaturesearch in information systems research’, Commun. Assoc.Inf. Syst., vol. 37, no. 1, p. 9, 2015.[14]R. T. Watson, ‘Beyond being systematic in literature reviewsin IS’, J. Inf. Technol., vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 185–187, 2015.[15]Y. Xiao and M. Watson, ‘Guidance on conducting asystematic literature review’, J. Plan. Educ. Res., vol. 39,no. 1, pp. 93–112, 2019.[16]D. Tranfield, D. Denyer, and P. Smart, ‘Towards amethodology for developing evidence-informedmanagement knowledge by means of systematic review ,2003’, Br. J. Manag., vol. 30, 2018.[17]B. Kitchenham and P. Brereton, ‘A systematic review ofsystematic review process research in softwareengineering’, Inf. Softw. Technol., vol. 55, no. 12, pp. 2049–2075, Dec. 2013, doi: 10.1016/J.INFSOF.2013.07.010.[18]S. Saberi, M. Kouhizadeh, and J. Sarkis, ‘Blockchains andthe Supply Chain: Findings from a Broad Study ofPractitioners’, IEEE Eng. Manag. Rev., vol. 47, no. 3, pp.95–103, 2019, doi: 10.1109/EMR.2019.2928264.[19]M. M. Queiroz and S. Fosso Wamba, ‘Blockchainadoption challenges in supply chain: An empiricalinvestigation of the main drivers in India and the USA’,Int. J. Inf. Manage., vol. 46, pp. 70–82, Jun. 2019, doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2018.11.021.[20]A. Kumar Bhardwaj, A. Garg, and Y. Gajpal,‘Determinants of Blockchain Technology Adoption inSupply Chains by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)in India.’, Math. Probl. Eng., pp. 1–14, Jun. 2021.[21]D. W. E. Allen, C. Berg, S. Davidson, M. Novak, and J.Potts, ‘International policy coordination for blockchainsupply chains’, Asia Pacific Policy Stud., vol. 6, no. 3, pp.367–380, Sep. 2019, doi: 10.1002/app5.281.[22]R. W. Ahmad, H. Hasan, R. Jayaraman, K. Salah, and M.Omar, ‘Blockchain applications and architectures for portoperations and logistics management’, Res. Transp. Bus.Manag., 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.rtbm.2021.100620.[23]N. Hackius and M. Petersen, ‘Blockchain in logistics andsupply chain: trick or treat?’, in Digitalization in SupplyChain Management and Logistics: Smart and Digital Solutions foran Industry 4.0 Environment. Proceedings of the HamburgInternational Conference of Logistics (HICL), Vol. 23, 2017,pp. 3–18.[24]S. E. Chang and Y. Chen, ‘When blockchain meetssupply chain: A systematic literature review on currentdevelopment and potential applications’, IEEE Access,vol. 8. Institute of Electrical and Electronics EngineersCompeting Interests:Not applicable.Ethical approval:Not applicable.Author’s contribution:Colin Callinan conducted the literature review and contributed to the writing and editing of themanuscript. Amaya Vega, Trevor Clohessy and Graham Heaslip supervised the project andcontributed to the writing and editing of the manuscript.Funding:Not applicable.Acknowledgements:This research was made possible by a Galway Mayo Institute of Technology Research &Innovation Strategic Endowment (RISE) scholarship.References:[1]C. G. Schmidt and S. M. Wagner, ‘Blockchain and supplychain relations: A transaction cost theory perspective’, J.Purch. Supply Manag., vol. 25, no. 4, p. 100552, 2019.[2]K. Panetta, ‘The CIO’s Guide to Blockchain’, 2019. .[3]‘Hyperledger Annual Report’, 2020.[4]J. Duan, C. Zhang, Y. Gong, S. Brown, and Z. Li, ‘Acontent‐analysis based literature review in blockchainadoption within food supply chain’, International Journal ofEnvironmental Research and Public Health, vol. 17, no. 5.MDPI AG, Mar. 01, 2020, doi: 10.3390/ijerph17051784.[5]A. E. C. Mondragon, C. E. C. Mondragon, and E. S.Coronado, ‘Feasibility of Internet of Things and AgnosticBlockchain Technology Solutions: A Case in the FisheriesSupply Chain’, in 2020 IEEE 7th International Conference onIndustrial Engineering and Applications, ICIEA 2020, 2020,pp. 504–508, doi: 10.1109/ICIEA49774.2020.9102080.[6]M. Alazab, S. Alhyari, A. Awajan, and A. B. Abdallah,‘Blockchain technology in supply chain management: anempirical study of the factors affecting useradoption/acceptance’, Cluster Comput., vol. 24, no. 1, pp.83–101, Mar. 2021, doi: 10.1007/s10586-020-03200-4.[7]L. G. Tornatzky, M. Fleischer, and A. K. Chakrabarti,Processes of technological innovation. Lexington books, 1990.[8]T. Oliveira and M. F. Martins, ‘Literature review ofinformation technology adoption models at firm level’,Electron. J. Inf. Syst. Eval., vol. 14, no. 1, pp. pp110-121,2011.[9]STECF, ‘The 2021 Annual Economic Report on the EUFishing Fleet (STECF 21-08)’, 2021. doi: 10.2760/60996.[10]H. Snyder, ‘Literature review as a research methodology:An overview and guidelines’, J. Bus. Res., vol. 104, pp.333–339, 2019.The JBBA Volume 5 Issue 1 2022Published Open Access under the CC-BY 4.0 Licence6

Inc., pp. 62478–62494, 2020, doi:10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2983601.[25]S. Tönnissen and F. Teuteberg, ‘Analysing the impact ofblockchain-technology for operations and supply chainmanagement: An explanatory model drawn from multiplecase studies’, Int. J. Inf. Manage., vol. 52, p. 101953, 2020.[26]H. Treiblmaier, ‘The impact of the blockchain on thesupply chain: a theory-based research framework and acall for action’, Supply Chain Manag. An Int. J., 2018.[27]E. Gokalp, S. Coban, and M. O. Gokalp, ‘Acceptance ofBlockchain Based Supply Chain Management System:Research Model Proposal’, in 1st International Informaticsand Software Engineering Conference, IISEC 2019, 2019, doi:10.1109/UBMYK48245.2019.8965502.[28]S. S. Kamble, A. Gunasekaran, and R. Sharma, ‘Modelingthe blockchain enabled traceability in agriculture supplychain’, Int. J. Inf. Manage., vol. 52, Jun. 2020, doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.05.023.[29]K. S. Hald and A. Kinra, ‘How the blockchain enablesand constrains supply chain performance’, Int. J. Phys.Distrib. Logist. Manag., 2019.[30]J. Aslam, A. Saleem, N. T. Khan, and Y. B. Kim, ‘Factorsinfluencing blockchain adoption in supply chainmanagement practices: A study based on the oil industry’,J. Innov. Knowl., vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 124–134, Apr. 2021, doi:10.1016/j.jik.2021.01.002.[31]N. Kshetri, ‘1 Blockchain’s roles in meeting key supplychain management objectives’, Int. J. Inf. Manage., vol. 39,pp. 80–89, 2018.[32]T.-T. Kuo, H.-E. Kim, and L. Ohno-Machado,‘Blockchain distributed ledger technologies forbiomedical and health care applications’, J. Am. Med.Informatics Assoc., vol. 24, no. 6, pp. 1211–1220, 2017.[33]K. Behnke and M. Janssen, ‘Boundary conditions fortraceability in food supply chains using blockchaintechnology’, Int. J. Inf. Manage., vol. 52, p. 10196

In the remainder of this article, we review the extant literature on blockchain adoption, supply chains, and fisheries. Although recent academic literature has begun to address blockchain adoption along supply chains in greater numbers, there still exists a paucity of research examining blockchain adoption in fisheries supply chain.