Timing of blockchain adoption under market acceptance uncertainty in a competitive shipping supply chain: Ex ante or ex post?

IF 6.3 2区工程技术 Q1 ECONOMICS

Transport Policy Pub Date : 2025-05-02 DOI:10.1016/j.tranpol.2025.04.021

Huijie Li , Jinwu Gao , Xiang Li , Wen He

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

It is natural to expect that blockchain technology would drive the growth and digitization of the shipping industry due to its unique advantages, but TradeLens, the blockchain platform pioneered by Maersk, was unexpectedly shut down. Some viewpoints attribute this closure of TradeLens to the market acceptance uncertainty of blockchain technology dominated by a shipping company. We therefore investigate two competitive shipping companies’ blockchain adoption timing under market acceptance uncertainty. If one shipping company decides to adopt the ex post investment (PI) strategy, it can delay investment until the market acceptance uncertainty of blockchain technology is resolved. Otherwise, the ex ante investment (AI) strategy is adopted. By considering four blockchain adoption cases including the simultaneous ex ante adoption case, the sequential adoption cases, as well as the simultaneous ex post adoption case, we find that the information gap leads to differences in the (expected) optimal decisions of two shipping companies among these cases. We also find by the equilibrium profits that the shipping company postponing the blockchain investment could gain an additional information value. Moreover, as the investment efficiency drops, two shipping companies’ additional investment value within four cases reduces while the waiting value of one shipping company adopting PI strategy in the sequential adoption cases increases. We further obtain two shipping companies’ equilibrium strategies and optimal strategies, suggesting that the simultaneous ex ante investment strategy is always not the optimal strategy under any conditions while the simultaneous ex post investment strategy can be the Pareto optimal strategy for two shipping companies given certain market acceptance uncertainty conditions. Finally, our study provides several important management insights for practitioners and policy recommendations for policymakers regarding blockchain technology adoption in the shipping industry.

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竞争航运供应链中市场接受度不确定性下区块链采用时机：事前还是事后？

由于区块链技术的独特优势，人们自然会期待它能够推动航运业的增长和数字化，但由马士基首创的区块链平台TradeLens却意外关闭。有观点认为，TradeLens的关闭是由于航运公司主导的区块链技术的市场接受不确定性。因此，我们研究了两家竞争航运公司在市场接受度不确定性下的区块链采用时机。如果一家航运公司决定采用投资后（PI）策略，它可以推迟投资，直到区块链技术的市场接受不确定性得到解决。否则，采用事前投资（ex - ante investment， AI）策略。通过对同时事前采用、顺序采用和同时事后采用四种情况的分析，我们发现信息缺口导致两家航运公司在这四种情况下的（预期）最优决策存在差异。通过均衡利润，我们还发现航运公司推迟bbb的投资可以获得额外的信息价值。此外，随着投资效率的下降，在四种情况下，两家船公司的额外投资价值减少，而在顺序采用PI策略的情况下，一家船公司的等待价值增加。进一步得到了两家航运公司的均衡策略和最优策略，表明在任何条件下，事前同步投资策略都不是最优策略，而在一定的市场接受度不确定性条件下，事前同步投资策略可以是两家航运公司的帕累托最优策略。最后，我们的研究为从业者提供了一些重要的管理见解，并为决策者提供了有关航运业采用区块链技术的政策建议。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Transport Policy Multiple-

CiteScore

12.10

自引率

10.30%

发文量

282

期刊介绍： Transport Policy is an international journal aimed at bridging the gap between theory and practice in transport. Its subject areas reflect the concerns of policymakers in government, industry, voluntary organisations and the public at large, providing independent, original and rigorous analysis to understand how policy decisions have been taken, monitor their effects, and suggest how they may be improved. The journal treats the transport sector comprehensively, and in the context of other sectors including energy, housing, industry and planning. All modes are covered: land, sea and air; road and rail; public and private; motorised and non-motorised; passenger and freight.