Examining the determinants of blockchain technology-enabled maritime supply chain system adoption intention: Does market turbulence play a moderating role?

Abstract

Blockchain technology-enabled maritime supply chain system (BTMSCS) holds the potential to address pain points such as inefficiency, low transparency, and complex stakeholder networks in the maritime industry. Blockchain technology, including smart contract and consensus mechanism, could leverage its potential to provide virtualized services and influence existing interorganizational relationships. However, it remains unclear which factors affect BTMSCS adoption intention from the perspective of virtualization mechanism characteristics and interorganizational relationships. Drawing on theories of process virtualization, interorganizational trust, and institutional pressure, this study proposes a research model to investigate the determinants of BTMSCS adoption intention and tests it with 128 Taiwanese maritime-related firms. The results indicate that two virtualization mechanism characteristics (perceived representation and perceived monitoring capability), three interorganizational trust components (competence trust, goodwill trust, and contractual trust), and coercive institutional pressure have significant effects on BTMSCS adoption intention. In addition, market turbulence moderates the positive relationship between competence trust and BTMSCS adoption intention. Further, this study extends the research on BTMSCS and helps both researchers and practitioners better understand how to successfully adopt BTMSCS.