shipping industry An exploratory study of adoption likelihood and - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Blockchain adoption in the shipping industry

An exploratory study of adoption likelihood and scenario- based opportunities and risks for IT service providers

Programme:

• MSc. in International Business

Authors: Riccardo Di Gregorio & Stian Skjærset Nustad Supervisor: Ioanna Constantiou Oral date: 08/12/2017

Agenda

• Reflect on research scope and methodology
• Provide a visualization to clarify the answering process
• Consider the implications of our study
• Reflect on future research

Why blockchain in the shipping industry?

The merchant shipping and port segments

• Reasons for focusing on these segments
• Most influential for maritime commerce
• Merchant shipping accounts for 1/3 of total maritime business turnover
• Ports are fundamental hubs for commercial operations
• Blockchain applications are being tailored for these two segments

Reflecting on the TASC model

• How did the model tailor to our study?
• Blockchain initiatives – use in a B2B context
• Most adoption theories – individual adoption

and fail to account for greater complexity

(E.g. the TAM and AIM models)

• TASC model – only comprehensive inter-firm

adoption model

• However … it considers all inter-firm

technologies

• Blockchain is unique – enables trust
• This conflicts with the trust proposition

Reflecting on scenario planning

• How did the tool tailor to our study?
• Multidimensional approach to decision-

making

• Often applied by MNCs – relevant for the

shipping industry

• Schwenker & Wulf methodology –

structured approach

• However … it isn’t perfect
• Even if valid – ranking scale is broad
• Day, Schoemaker, & Gunther (2000) may

have a better ranking approach

Ranking Description 1 Very low (impact or predictability) 2 Low (impact or predictability) 3 Moderate (impact or predictability) 4 High (impact or predictability) 5 Very high (impact or predictability)

Answering Research Question 1

• RQ1:

How likely is for blockchain technology to be adopted by shipping industry actors?

• Underlying principle of the TASC model:

The higher the intention to use an inter-firm technology, the more likely for it to be used and adopted

Answering Research Question 1 (cont.)

• The factor of relative advantage we had the following proposition:

The perceived relative advantage of the technology being adopted is positively associated with the intention to adopt B2B technologies.

• Respondents identified two main advantages of blockchain:

i. it connects the currently dispersed and fragmented IT system landscape to

• vercome data silos.

ii. it enforces the accountability among actors along the maritime logistic chain.

• Based on these findings we determined that blockchain was perceived

to have advantages compared to existing technologies  the relative advantage factor increases adoption likelihood or makes adoption more likely

Answering Research Question 2

Academic implications

• Connection between TASC model and

scenario planning

• Achieved deeper insights compared to

their separate use

• PESTLE analysis is an extension of the

external environment

• External environment provided further

insights into scenarios (e.g. industry support)

• Improved scenario planning

methodology

• Changes to Step 2 of Schwenker & Wulf

(2013) methodology

• Improved quality of data collection by:
• Overcoming shortcomings of 1st

questionnaire

• Revealing additional reasoning, opinions

and experiences during the ranking process

Managerial implications

• Monitoring tool for adoption likelihood
• This thesis:
• showed how to assess blockchain adoption
• identified obstacles which might improve currently uncertain adoption
• Managers can use the TASC model as tool to monitor future factor

developments

• Decision-aiding tool for strategy development
• Scenarios built on most uncertain and impactful adoption factors
• Managers should anticipate the future direction of the industry

… developing optimal strategies

Future research

• Narrower approach for dominant applications
• Architectural design may differ greatly between applications
• E.g. consensus protocol
• More delineated use cases  conduct a focused study on

blockchain adoption assessing uncertain TASC factors such as cost and compatibility

• Examining the role of trust
• The lack of trust could incentivize blockchain adoption in the

industry.

• However …

an industry-wide adoption would need a significant degree of collaboration.