Challenges of blockchain technology adoption for e-government

Abstract

The ability of blockchain technology to record transactions on distributed ledgers offers new opportunities for governments to improve transparency, prevent fraud, and establish trust in the public sector. However, blockchain adoption and use in the context of e-Government is rather unexplored in academic literature. In this paper, we systematically review relevant research to understand the current research topics, challenges and future directions regarding blockchain adoption for e-Government. The results show that the adoption of blockchainbased applications in e-Government is still very limited and there is a lack of empirical evidence. The main challenges faced in blockchain adoption are predominantly presented as technological aspects such as security, scalability and flexibility. From an organizational point of view, the issues of acceptability and the need of new governance models are presented as the main barriers to adoption. Moreover, the lack of legal and regulatory support is identified as the main environmental barrier of adoption. Based on the challenges presented in the literature, we propose future research questions that need to be addressed to inform how the public sector should approach the blockchain technology adoption.

New Kid On The Block! Understanding Blockchain Adoption in the Public Sector

“…Regulations can speed up innovation, for example by making a technological inovation essentially mandatory due to imposing constraints on an industry (such as pollution-control) and similarly innovation in industries can be hampered by constraining laws (such as privacy requirements) [12]. The regulatory environment has been shown to be influential on the adoption of a range of novel technologies [25], [27], including Blockchain [2]- [4], [22]. As discussed in the introduction section, the specific role of public organizations in society has such a close task-technology fit with blockchain, that one can expect an even greater influence of regulation to adoption.…”

“…Parties can trust the system, instead of counterparties or an intermediary [1]. The immutability, and transparency of the blockchain system may enhance, or even create trust among all parties [1], [4]. Furthermore, the technology supports information exchange and transactions that require authentication and trust [8], [32].…”

“…For the public sector, adoption of new technologies to increase effectiveness and efficiency has become critical and blockchain could indeed bring great benefits that match the specific role of many public organizations in society, due to its role as trusted party and the key role security, traceability, transparency, and accountability play in its services and transactions [3]. Benefits include improved data integrity and -quality, avoidance of fraud and manipulation, reduced corruption, and enhanced trust [4]. Furthermore, blockchain is believed to bring valuable opportunities for the improvement of core governmental activities such as digital ID management, secure record-keeping, and document handling.…”

On the Narratives and Background Narratives of e-Government

“…Take the case of blockchain technology as an example (see [32] for a systematic literature review on the application of blockchain technology in the area of e-government). First, many of the existing e-government blockchain projects might not be accepted as real blockchain implementations by the hard core blockchain community, i.e., whenever the "blockchain" project is merely about the implementation of a classic audit log (without distributed ledger and without consensus mechanism) that is just named a blockchain due to marketing reasons.…”

Digital Ledger Technology based Real Estate Transaction Mechanism & its Block Size Assessment

“…Many researchers are also working on alternative approaches to these algorithms and its optimisation. Batubara et al (2018) systematically review relevant blockchain technology findings for the adoption of applications based on blockchain in e-government platforms that foster the transactions to occur in a more auditable, persistent and decentralised manner. Several technological aspects such as scalability, security, flexibility, anonymity, interoperability, and organisation readiness are also discussed in detail.…”