Blockchain technology for supply chain traceability: the case of SMEs of the Made in Italy
PDF (English)

Parole chiave

English

Come citare

Testi, N. (2023). Blockchain technology for supply chain traceability: the case of SMEs of the Made in Italy. Piccola Impresa Small Business, (2). https://doi.org/10.14596/pisb.3501
##plugins.generic.dates.received## 2022-07-11
##plugins.generic.dates.accepted## 2023-05-05
##plugins.generic.dates.published## 2023-12-28

Abstract

Purpose. This research aims at investigating why and how blockchain technology (BCT) is used for supply chain (SC) traceability in SMEs of the Made in Italy.

Methodology. Expert interviews with managerial and technical staff of Italian SMEs adopting BCT for SC traceability of Made in Italy products and tech companies providing it.

Findings. BCT is used to increase transparency in SC traceability and trust among stakeholders, however, not many firms and consumers know about this technology or how to use it, and there is a lack of clear regulations. Most SMEs of the Made in Italy use BCT in their SCs for B2C marketing purposes. Many of the blockchain solutions provided notarize on public 3rd generation blockchains the hashes of the off-chain documents in which the adopters state the traceability information about their products, which is accessible via the provider’s App. This kind of solution brings some risks to data reliability.

Practical implications. Managerial implications are presented, helping firms understating if they need BCT for traceability and what solution they can adopt based on their objective.

Originality of the study. The study provides empirical evidence on a novel topic which has not been thoroughly addressed in the academic literature.

https://doi.org/10.14596/pisb.3501
PDF (English)

Riferimenti bibliografici

Abbas, K., Afaq, M., Ahmed Khan, T. and Song, W.-C. (2020), “A Blockchain and Machine Learning-Based Drug Supply Chain Management and Rec-ommendation System for Smart Pharmaceutical Industry”, Electronics, Vol. 9 No. 5, p. 852.

Agrawal, T.K., Kumar, V., Pal, R., Wang, L. and Chen, Y. (2021), “Blockchain-based framework for supply chain traceability: A case example of textile and clothing industry”, Computers & Industrial Engineering, Vol. 154, p. 107130.

Akerlof, G. A. (1970). “The Market for «Lemons»: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 84 No. 3, p. 488.

Alawi, B., Al Mubarak, M.M.S. and Hamdan, A. (2022), “Blockchain evaluation framework for supply chain management: a decision-making approach”, Supply Chain Forum: An International Journal, pp. 1–15.

Al-Jaroodi, J. and Mohamed, N. (2019), “Blockchain in Industries: A Survey”, IEEE Access, Vol. 7, pp. 36500–36515.

Antonucci, F., Figorilli, S., Costa, C., Pallottino, F., Raso, L. and Menesatti, P. (2019), “A review on blockchain applications in the agri‐food sector”, Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, Vol. 99 No. 14, pp. 6129–6138.

Aung, M.M. and Chang, Y.S. (2014), “Traceability in a food supply chain: Safety and quality perspectives”, Food Control, Vol. 39, pp. 172–184.

Behnke, K. and Janssen, M.F.W.H.A. (2020), “Boundary conditions for traceabil-ity in food supply chains using blockchain technology”, International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 52, p. 101969.

Bianchini, M. and Kwon, I. (2020), Blockchain for SMEs and Entrepreneurs in Ita-ly, OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Papers No. 20, available at:https://doi.org/10.1787/f241e9cc-en.

Bogner, A. and Menz, W. (2009), “The Theory-Generating Expert Interview: Epis-temological Interest, Forms of Knowledge, Interaction”, in Bogner, A., Littig, B. and Menz, W. (Eds.), Interviewing Experts, Palgrave Macmillan UK, London, pp. 43–80.

Bumblauskas, D., Mann, A., Dugan, B. and Rittmer, J. (2020), “A blockchain use case in food distribution: Do you know where your food has been?”, In-ternational Journal of Information Management, Vol. 52, p. 102008.

Caldarelli, G., Rossignoli, C. and Zardini, A. (2020), “Overcoming the Blockchain Oracle Problem in the Traceability of Non-Fungible Products”, Sustaina-bility, Vol. 12 No. 6, p. 2391.

Casino, F., Kanakaris, V., Dasaklis, T.K., Moschuris, S., Stachtiaris, S., Pagoni, M. and Rachaniotis, N.P. (2020), “Blockchain-based food supply chain traceability: a case study in the dairy sector”, International Journal of Production Research, Vol. 59 No. 19, pp. 5758–5770.

Chan, K.Y., Abdullah, J. and Shahid, A. (2019), “A Framework for Traceable and Transparent Supply Chain Management for Agri-food Sector in Malaysia using Blockchain Technology”, International Journal of Advanced Com-puter Science and Applications, Vol. 10 No. 11, available at:https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2019.0101120.

Chang, S.E., Chen, Y.-C. and Lu, M.-F. (2019), “Supply chain re-engineering us-ing blockchain technology: A case of smart contract based tracking process”, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Vol. 144, pp. 1–11.

Chiacchio, F., D’Urso, D., Oliveri, L.M., Spitaleri, A., Spampinato, C. and Giordano, D. (2022), “A Non-Fungible Token Solution for the Track and Trace of Pharmaceutical Supply Chain”, Applied Sciences, Vol. 12 No. 8, p. 4019.

Chowdhury, M.J.M., Colman, A., Kabir, M.A., Han, J. and Sarda, P. (2018), “Blockchain Versus Database: A Critical Analysis”, presented at the 2018 17th IEEE International Conference On Trust, Security And Privacy In Computing And Communications/ 12th IEEE International Conference On Big Data Science And Engineering (TrustCom/BigDataSE), IEEE, New York, NY, USA, pp. 1348–1353.

Chowdhury, M.J.M., Ferdous, MD.S., Biswas, K., Chowdhury, N., Kayes, A.S.M., Alazab, M. and Watters, P. (2019), “A Comparative Analysis of Distributed Ledger Technology Platforms”, IEEE Access, Vol. 7, pp. 167930–167943.

Compagnucci, L., Lepore, D., Spigarelli, F., Frontoni, E., Baldi, M., & Di Berardino, L. (2022), “Uncovering the potential of blockchain in the agri-food supply chain: An interdisciplinary case study”, Journal of Engineer-ing and Technology Management, Vol. 65.

Dabbene, F., Gay, P. and Tortia, C. (2014), “Traceability issues in food supply chain management: A review”, Biosystems Engineering, Vol. 120, pp. 65–80.

Del Monte, G., Pennino, D. and Pizzonia, M. (2020), “Scaling blockchains without giving up decentralization and security: a solution to the blockchain scalability trilemma”, Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Cryptocurren-cies and Blockchains for Distributed Systems, presented at the MobiCom ’20: The 26th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, ACM, London United Kingdom, pp. 71–76.

Dib, O., Brousmiche, K.-L., Durand, A., Thea, E. and Hamida, E.B. (2018), “Con-sortium Blockchains: Overview, Applications and Challenges”, Interna-tional Journal on Advances in Telecommunications, Vol. 11 No. 1–2.

Döringer, S. (2021), “‘The problem-centred expert interview’. Combining qualita-tive interviewing approaches for investigating implicit expert knowledge”, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 265–278.

Dujak, D. and Sajter, D. (2019), “Blockchain Applications in Supply Chain”, in Kawa, A. and Maryniak, A. (Eds.), SMART Supply Network, Springer In-ternational Publishing, Cham, pp. 21–46.

Edwards, R. and Holland, J. (2013), What Is Qualitative Interviewing?, Blooms-bury, London : New Delhi.

EU Blockchain Observatory & Forum. (2020), EU Blockchain Ecosystem Devel-opments, Thematic Report, available at: https://www.eublockchainforum.eu/sites/default/files/reports/EU%20Blockchain%20Ecosystem%20Report_final_0.pdf.

Festa, G., Rossi, M., Kolte, A. and Situm, M. (2020), “Territory-based knowledge management in international marketing processes – the case of ‘Made in Italy’ SMEs”, European Business Review, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 425–442.

Galati, A., Vrontis, D., Giorlando, B., Giacomarra, M., & Crescimanno, M. (2021), “Exploring the common blockchain adoption enablers: The case of three Italian wineries”, International Journal of Wine Business Research, Vol. 33 No. 4, pp. 578–596.

Garrard, R. and Fielke, S. (2020), “Blockchain for trustworthy provenances: A case study in the Australian aquaculture industry”, Technology in Society, Vol. 62, p. 101298.

Gharehgozli, A., Iakovou, E., Chang, Y. and Swaney, R. (2017), “Trends in global E-food supply chain and implications for transport: literature review and research directions”, Research in Transportation Business & Manage-ment, Vol. 25, pp. 2–14.

Gobel, J. and Krzesinski, A.E. (2017), “Increased block size and Bitcoin block-chain dynamics”, 2017 27th International Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference (ITNAC), presented at the 2017 27th Interna-tional Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference (IT-NAC), IEEE, Melbourne, VIC, pp. 1–6.

Gonczol, P., Katsikouli, P., Herskind, L. and Dragoni, N. (2020), “Blockchain Im-plementations and Use Cases for Supply Chains-A Survey”, IEEE Ac-cess, Vol. 8, pp. 11856–11871.

Guido, R., Mirabelli, G., Palermo, E. and Solina, V. (2020), “A framework for food traceability: case study – Italian extra-virgin olive oil supply chain”, International Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 50–60.

Haq, I. and Muselemu, O. (2018), “Blockchain Technology in Pharmaceutical In-dustry to Prevent Counterfeit Drugs”, International Journal of Computer Applications, Vol. 180 No. 25, pp. 8–12.

Hausman, N. (2012), “University Innovation, Local Economic Growth, and Entre-preneurship”, US Census Bureau Center for Economic Studies, Vol. CES-WP-12-10, available at:https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2097842.

Hepp, T., Sharinghousen, M., Ehret, P., Schoenhals, A. and Gipp, B. (2018), “On-chain vs. off-chain storage for supply- and blockchain integration”, It - Information Technology, Vol. 60 No. 5–6, pp. 283–291.

Hofstede, G.J., Beulens, A. and Spaans-Dijkstra, L. (2004), “Transparency : per-ceptions, practices and promises”, In T. Camps, Paul Diederen, & Gert J. Hofstede (Eds.), The Emerging World of Chains and Networks, Bridging Theory and Practice, Reed Business Information, pp. 285–310.

Hosseini Bamakan, S.M., Ghasemzadeh Moghaddam, S. and Dehghan Manshadi, S. (2021), “Blockchain-enabled pharmaceutical cold chain: Applications, key challenges, and future trends”, Journal of Cleaner Pro-duction, Vol. 302, p. 127021.

Iftekhar, A., Cui, X., Hassan, M. and Afzal, W. (2020), “Application of Blockchain and Internet of Things to Ensure Tamper-Proof Data Availability for Food Safety”, Journal of Food Quality, Vol. 2020, pp. 1–14.

Islam, M.N. and Kundu, S. (2019), “Enabling IC Traceability via Blockchain Pegged to Embedded PUF”, ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 1–23.

Kittipanya-ngam, P. and Tan, K.H. (2020), “A framework for food supply chain digitalization: lessons from Thailand”, Production Planning & Control, Vol. 31 No. 2–3, pp. 158–172.

Laforet, L. and Bilek, G. (2021), “Blockchain: an inter-organisational innovation likely to transform supply chain”, Supply Chain Forum: An International Journal, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 240–249.

Longo, F., Nicoletti, L., Padovano, A., d’Atri, G. and Forte, M. (2019), “Block-chain-enabled supply chain: An experimental study”, Computers & Indus-trial Engineering, Vol. 136, pp. 57–69.

Ma, J., Lin, S.-Y., Chen, X., Sun, H.-M., Chen, Y.-C. and Wang, H. (2020), “A Blockchain-Based Application System for Product Anti-Counterfeiting”, IEEE Access, Vol. 8, pp. 77642–77652.

Mahyuni, L.P., Adrian, R., Darma, G.S., Krisnawijaya, N.N.K., Dewi, I.G.A.A.P. and Permana, G.P.L. (2020), “Mapping the potentials of blockchain in improving supply chain performance”, edited by Foroudi, P.Cogent Business & Management, Vol. 7 No. 1, p. 1788329.

Manzini, R. and Accorsi, R. (2013), “The new conceptual framework for food supply chain assessment”, Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 115 No. 2, pp. 251–263.

Mao, D., Wang, F., Hao, Z. and Li, H. (2018), “Credit Evaluation System Based on Blockchain for Multiple Stakeholders in the Food Supply Chain”, In-ternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol. 15 No. 8, p. 1627.

Mirabelli, G. and Solina, V. (2020), “Blockchain and agricultural supply chains traceability: research trends and future challenges”, Procedia Manufactur-ing, Vol. 42, pp. 414–421.

Nakamoto, S. (2008), “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”, Cryptog-raphy Mailing list, https://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2008-October/014810.html, available at: https://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf.

OECD (2018), “Trade in Counterfeit Goods and the Italian Economy: Protecting Italy’s Intellectual Property”, OECD, available at: https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264302426-en.

Olsen, P. and Borit, M. (2013), “How to define traceability”, Trends in Food Sci-ence & Technology, Vol. 29 No. 2, pp. 142–150.

Ospital, P., Masson, D., Beler, C., & Legardeur, J. (2022), “Toward product transparency: Communicating traceability information to consumers”, In-ternational Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education, pp. 1–12.

Prause, G. (2019), “Smart Contracts for Smart Supply Chains”, IFAC-PapersOnLine, Vol. 52 No. 13, pp. 2501–2506.

Pujawan, I.N. and Bah, A.U. (2022), “Supply chains under COVID-19 disruptions: literature review and research agenda”, Supply Chain Forum: An Interna-tional Journal, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 81–95.

Rogerson, M. and Parry, G.C. (2020), “Blockchain: case studies in food supply chain visibility”, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 25 No. 5, pp. 601–614.

Saberi, S., Kouhizadeh, M., Sarkis, J. and Shen, L. (2019), “Blockchain technol-ogy and its relationships to sustainable supply chain management”, In-ternational Journal of Production Research, Vol. 57 No. 7, pp. 2117–2135.

Salah, K., Nizamuddin, N., Jayaraman, R. and Omar, M. (2019), “Blockchain-Based Soybean Traceability in Agricultural Supply Chain”, IEEE Access, Vol. 7, pp. 73295–73305.

Schmitz, H. and Knorringa, P. (2000), “Learning from Global Buyers”, Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 37 No. 2, pp. 177–205.

Seidman, I. (2006), "Interviewing as qualitative research: a guide for researchers in Education and the Social Sciences (3rd edition)". New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Shahid, A., Almogren, A., Javaid, N., Al-Zahrani, F.A., Zuair, M. and Alam, M. (2020), “Blockchain-Based Agri-Food Supply Chain: A Complete Solu-tion”, IEEE Access, Vol. 8, pp. 69230–69243.

Song, J.M., Sung, J. and Park, T. (2019), “Applications of Blockchain to Improve Supply Chain Traceability”, Procedia Computer Science, Vol. 162, pp. 119–122.

Sparer, D., Günther, M. and Heyer, C. (2020), A Multi-Light-Node Blockchain Ar-chitecture, Fraunhofer IML, available at: https://blockchain-europe.nrw/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/30112020_Whitepaper_Blockchain_Europe.pdf (accessed 13 May 2021).

Sternberg, H.S., Hofmann, E. and Roeck, D. (2020), “The Struggle is Real: In-sights from a Supply Chain Blockchain Case”, Journal of Business Logis-tics, Vol. 42 No. 1, pp. 71–87.

Sun, S. and Wang, X. (2019), “Promoting traceability for food supply chain with certification”, Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 217, pp. 658–665.

Sund, T., Lööf, C., Nadjm-Tehrani, S. and Asplund, M. (2020), “Blockchain-based event processing in supply chains—A case study at IKEA”, Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, Vol. 65, p. 101971.

Tan, A. and Ngan, P.T. (2020), “A proposed framework model for dairy supply chain traceability”, Sustainable Futures, Vol. 2, p. 100034.

The European Union Blockchain Observatory & Forum (2019), “Scalability, in-teroperability and sustainability of blockchains”, available at: https://www.eublockchainforum.eu/sites/default/files/reports/report_scalaibility_06_03_2019.pdf

Violino, S., Pallottino, F., Sperandio, G., Figorilli, S., Antonucci, F., Ioannoni, V., Fappiano, D., et al. (2019), “Are the Innovative Electronic Labels for Ex-tra Virgin Olive Oil Sustainable, Traceable, and Accepted by Consum-ers?”, Foods, Vol. 8 No. 11, p. 529.

Violino, S., Pallottino, F., Sperandio, G., Figorilli, S., Ortenzi, L., Tocci, F., Va-sta, S., et al. (2020), “A Full Technological Traceability System for Extra Virgin Olive Oil”, Foods, Vol. 9 No. 5, p. 624.

Viriyasitavat, W. and Hoonsopon, D. (2019), “Blockchain characteristics and consensus in modern business processes”, Journal of Industrial Infor-mation Integration, Vol. 13, pp. 32–39.

Wang, S., Li, D., Zhang, Y. and Chen, J. (2019), “Smart Contract-Based Product Traceability System in the Supply Chain Scenario”, IEEE Access, Vol. 7, pp. 115122–115133.

Westerkamp, M., Victor, F. and Küpper, A. (2020), “Tracing manufacturing pro-cesses using blockchain-based token compositions”, Digital Communi-cations and Networks, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 167–176.

Wu, H., Li, Z., King, B., Ben Miled, Z., Wassick, J. and Tazelaar, J. (2017), “A Distributed Ledger for Supply Chain Physical Distribution Visibility”, In-formation, Vol. 8 No. 4, p. 137.

Xu, X., Weber, I., Staples, M., Zhu, L., Bosch, J., Bass, L., Pautasso, C., et al. (2017), “A Taxonomy of Blockchain-Based Systems for Architecture De-sign”, presented at the 2017 IEEE International Conference on Software Architecture (ICSA), IEEE, Gothenburg, Sweden, pp. 243–252.

Yu, H., Neal, J.A. and Sirsat, S.A. (2018), “Consumers’ food safety risk percep-tions and willingness to pay for fresh-cut produce with lower risk of foodborne illness”, Food Control, Vol. 86, pp. 83–89.

Zhang, A., Zhong, R.Y., Farooque, M., Kang, K. and Venkatesh, V.G. (2020), “Blockchain-based life cycle assessment: An implementation framework and system architecture”, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Vol. 152, p. 104512.

Zheng, Z., Xie, S., Dai, H.-N., Chen, W., Chen, X., Weng, J. and Imran, M. (2020), “An overview on smart contracts: Challenges, advances and plat-forms”, Future Generation Computer Systems, Vol. 105, pp. 475–491.

Zhou, L., Wang, W., Xu, J. (David), Liu, T. and Gu, J. (2018), “Perceived infor-mation transparency in B2C e-commerce: An empirical investigation”, In-formation & Management, Vol. 55 No. 7, pp. 912–927.

Creative Commons License

Questo lavoro è fornito con la licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 4.0 Internazionale.

Copyright (c) 2023 Niccolò Testi