Blockchain and Smart Contracts for Entrepreneurial Collaboration in Maritime Supply Chains

Abstract

Smart contracts are scripts on the top of the blockchain technology. They represent a form of automation by what the layers of intermediaries can be reduced or even completely replaced. Accordingly, blockchain smart contracting systems decrease transaction and enforcement costs as well as process time. Moreover, we argue, blockchain and smart contracts can facilitate cross-organisational collaboration and their underlying business processes. Hence, they are able to support the integration of entrepreneurs and SMEs into trans-national supply chains by reducing high entry barriers and weakening the dominating position of big players. This paper discusses the research questions how blockchain smart contracting can facilitate the implementation of collaborative logistics structures and how the integration of SMEs into sustainable maritime supply chains can be safeguarded. The research bases on expert interviews and case studies. The results showcase the potentials of using blockchain smart contracting in the environment of trans-national and multimodal supply chains.

Blue Growth Potential in South Baltic Sea Region

“…These potential trends were chosen for the present study, since they are currently highly discussed in the research landscape on maritime industry (e.g. Henesey & Philipp, 2019;Madjidian et al, 2017;Meyer et al, 2020;Philipp et al, 2018Philipp et al, , 2019bPhilipp et al, , 2019cPhilipp et al, & 2020. By doing so, a five item scale was given with "(-2) Very negative", "(-1) Rather negative", "(0) Neutral", "(+1) Rather positive" and "(+2) Very positive", whereby participants also had the option to choose "Not aware", whichof courseis excluded from the following analysis.…”

Innovative Management of Common-Pool Resources by Smart Contracts

“…Innovative blockchain-based technology -especially in the form of Smart Contracts -could furthermore facilitate the implementation of collaborative governance structures of GTC, but also of common-pool resources in general. Philipp et al (2019) investigated the impact of blockchain technology and smart contracts to maritime supply chains and detected significant cost reductions as well as improvement potential in entrepreneurial collaboration.…”

“…This self-organised management of common-pool resources requires a multi-level approach, comprising an operative, a collective and a constitutional level necessary for the users to keep cooperation and self-organisation (Ostrom 1990(Ostrom , 2009. These principles can be transferred to GTC governance and implemented by blockchain technology (Prause, 2018;Philipp et al, 2019).…”

“…Hence, this technology bears the potential to foster entrepreneurial collaborations in logistics networks and supply chains across international borders. Hence, blockchain technology at first glance exhibits some unique features or characteristics, which at the same time, represent the critical advantages compared to other respective information technologies (Philipp et al, 2019):…”

“…However, as Phillip et al pointed out, «blockchain technology bears the potential to break these monopolies and enables these processes to be executed in a distributed way without the need of central authorities, i.e. smart contracts and blockchain technology can facilitate and improve the implementation of collaborative business structures for sustainable entrepreneurial activities in smart supply chains» (Philipp et al, 2019).…”