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This paper aims to investigate the influence of trust on adopting and implementing blockchain technology in higher education institutions (HEIs) in Brazil.

This study uses an exploratory qualitative approach to understand the construct of trust in the context of the educational sector. Data were collected through semistructured questionnaires and online interviews.

The research identified that, for most potential blockchain users, trust positively influences the HEIs, because benefits such as secure data sharing and transaction transparency could optimize the daily routine and avoid fraud in academic documents, providing a cooperative and reliable working environment. In addition, the results suggest that trust is needed to overcome challenges related to issues such as costs and privacy.

This study contributes to the advances in the emerging literature on blockchain in the educational sector as a system with the potential to generate trust, as well as the literature on the technology acceptance models.

For HEI managers and practitioners, this study highlights the need for a greater understanding of the influence of trust in the relationships between HEIs and other stakeholders.

This work shows that adopting blockchain technologies would allow users to build social relationships of trust in a cooperative work environment and develop trusted behavior by sharing data securely and transparently.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies on the adoption and implementation of blockchain in the education sector in Brazil.

International Journal of Operations and Production Management (IJOPM)'s Impact Pathway (IP) section has been launched in 2020 to host short contributions grounded in current managerial practices and/or policy development, challenging established operations and supply chain management (OSCM) knowledge and highlighting innovative and relevant research directions. This commentary reflects on the achievements of the section, delineates the key features of IP papers and stimulates further development.

This commentary provides a brief overview of the IJOPM's IP section, taking stock of the contributions that have been published so far, analysing their topics, methodologies, insights and impact.

The 19 contributions published over the last three years have dealt with a variety of emerging topics, ranging from the COVID-19 response to additive manufacturing, leveraging on key evidence from managerial practice that challenges consolidated knowledge and theory, providing clear research directions as well as managerial and/or policy guidelines.

The commentary reflects on the importance of phenomenon-driven research that seeks to bridge the gap between theory and practice, thus increasing the impact and reach of OSCM research. This is a call for contributions from scholars, business leaders and policymakers to develop further impact-oriented research.