Responsive innovation of blockchain technology in traditional supply chains

As a form of distributed ledger technology, blockchain is being increasingly studied for renovating traditional supply chains both theoretically and practically with a few real-world applications. However, the adoption of this technology may also lead to socioeconomic and environmental side-effects that could deviate it from the goal of being a responsive innovation. The recognition and understanding of the potential negative impact and risks of blockchain technology is a relatively recent development, especially for applications to operations and supply chain domain. In this chapter, we will scan a few recent studies by focusing on several potential challenges and disruptions for responsive integration of the technology into supply chain systems. Though few new suggestions are given, we highlight a need for careful considerations of these challenges and disruptions as well as creative and proactive system and policy design. Instead of giving a comprehensive literature review or discussion of this broad research topic, the main purpose of this chapter is to extract a few good examples and points from representative recent literature, so as to trigger timely investigations and explorations into the subject.