Blockchain: a strategic resource to attain and sustain competitive advantage

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to offer exploratory remarks by discussing whether blockchain can help organizations attain sustained competitive advantage in view of its increased applications and untapped potential. Organizations are yet to test its utilization as an intangible strategic resource at a time when organizational strategic landscapes – rapidly changing in a globally networked digitally empowered world – require them to enhance capability of combining resources for meeting stakeholders’ expectations.

Design/methodology/approach

Blockchain as an emerging technology draws frequent industry announcements and specialists’ posts on daily basis in media, and there exist inadequacies with respect to the availability of relevant studies in the extant literature on the subject of blockchain, which itself is in infancy. Keeping in view the limitations associated with the traditional understandings of scholarship underscoring, thereby that research and knowledge discovery have been restricting the progress across disciplines on account of which knowledge domains fail to make a meaningful effect; research design of the paper comprises the scholarship of integration method, which might appear to be less systematic but was more emergent in comparison to a traditional methodology of systematic literature review, and suitable for conducting this study.

Findings

Findings of this study suggest that blockchain with huge popularity as a technological innovation has huge potentialities and promises to be a strategic intangible resource for organizations helpful in attaining sustained advantage. However, the findings also suggest several cautionary remarks.

Research limitations/implications

This paper offers exploratory remarks by discussing blockchain in the context of its consideration as a significant intangible strategic resource helpful in attaining sustained competitive advantage, emphasizing the need for continuous attention and revision with its increased applications. It attempts to assess the untapped potential of blockchain incorporating ample scholarly value in this era of fourth industrial revolution. The findings offer greater significance for different stakeholders including researchers and policymakers. However, this paper limits itself by throwing light on the strategic aspects only while attempting to touch upon only those aspects of blockchain that were perceived to be helpful in understanding it as a resource of sustained competitive advantage.

Originality/value

This paper presents originality and value by offering exploratory remarks that can be immensely useful given the scarcity of literature on the novel blockchain with respect to its consideration as a strategic resource. This paper attempts to provide much needed underpinnings to the notion whether blockchain can help organizations attain and sustain competitive advantage.

Citation

Kant, N. (2021), "Blockchain: a strategic resource to attain and sustain competitive advantage", International Journal of Innovation Science, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 520-538. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJIS-07-2020-0094