A Framework for the Evaluation of Factors Affecting Smart Contract Adoption and Enforceability in Port Supply Chain Industry in Ghana

Abstract

This study examines the adoption of smart contracts from the legal, technological, and cultural perspectives in the port supply chain network and how these factors influence smart contracts enforceability. This study follows a Design Science Research (DSR) approach that guides developing IT artefacts and their use in practice. To develop our framework, relevance was achieved by investigating shortcomings of smart contract implementations relative to enforceability within the knowledge base of blockchain technology implementations. Additionally, thirty-five major stakeholders were interviewed for their lived experiences. The constant comparative analytical method was applied using open coding for initial categorization of smart contract concepts and axial coding for removal of overlapping concepts while iteratively testing the concepts against data. The factors that emerge from the papers and the expert statements on the enforceability of the smart contract in the ports were abstracted and analysed for their interconnections. This was translated into a framework by semantically grouping the factors in categories. The study contributes to the scientific literature by synthesizing and operationalizing previous research efforts and empirical evidence from a case study into a novel framework for the evaluation of smart contracts adoption and enforceability. Practitioners can use the framework to understand the main factors of success or failure of the broader adoption of smart contracts in the port supply chain. � 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.