The wide array of functions performed by a state referred to as public sector is increasingly applying the practices of supply chain management. The public sector has special emphasis on the aspects of transparency, efficiency, and resilience as increased awareness among the citizens is forcing the states to provide better value to the taxpayer money. Use of information and communication technologies has been attributed to improve the visibility and efficiency in public sector. Blockchain technology, being an emerging disruptive technology providing immutable distributed ledgers, has strong theoretical application in public sector. Following a systematic literature review the research establishes that Blockchain technology enables transparency, efficiency, and resilience in the supply chain. As these enablers are key determinant of success in public sector supply chain, therefore existing research on application of blockchain technology in the sector are explored to identify the current standing of the research on the subject and propose future course.
Top1. Introduction
Supply chain management (SCM) has emerged as a discipline that answers to the needs of the competitive modern globalized economy. Private enterprises over the years have shown enhanced productivity with reduction in cost by employing SCM practices (Khan et al., 2017; Skipper et al., 2009). From demand forecasting to successful execution of contracts, SCM principles have transformed the enterprises from operational level methods to the strategic approach to management (Haq, Khan, Parkash & Jabeen, 2016; Chong et al., 2009). One of the key attribute of SCM is that being a transformational paradigm it is open to incorporation of digital technologies in its practices to reach the ultimate goal of improving process efficiency.
However, traditional supply chains struggle to keep pace with modern demands due to opaqueness, inefficiencies, and vulnerabilities to fraud. Recent research (Ghouri et al., 2023; Calvera Isabal et al., 2023; Flores-Vivar & García-Peñalvo, 2023; Shaoliu & Tongbai, 2023) highlights persistent challenges, particularly in building trust and transparency. This lack of trust acts as a major bottleneck, hindering optimal performance and creating opportunities for fraudulent activities (Khan et al., 2017; Haq, Khan, Parkash & Jabeen, 2016). Addressing these systemic issues head-on is not only crucial for improving efficiency, but also for ensuring the long-term viability of traditional supply chains in today's rapidly evolving world.
The current world order created on the premise of nation states holds the governments responsible for the economic and social growth and prosperity of their respective citizens. Therefore, the state has to create a system of providing services that ensures social, political and economic security (Fukuyama, 2012). These services are rendered in a wide array of state functions and the finances for these services are acquired through collection of taxes from the citizens who are in the modern democratic order are also selecting the state representatives. Resultantly, states are held accountable to their own citizen who are the creators of the state wealth and also the beneficiaries of the service. The globalization of trade and with the dawn of digital age, the prospects of creating a services ecosystem by the states that is efficient as well as transparent is very much possible.
The need of the states to create an optimum service ecosystem and SCM principles ability to create an efficient process powered by inclusion of digital technologies implies that public sector can be a major benefactor from adoption of technology driven SCM practices. However, research indicates that public sector has been slow in adopting supply chain framework and have been looking towards private sector for duplication of process innovations (Gianakis & McCue, 2012). Considering its uniqueness in terms of its financial volume, socio-economic impact and compulsion of process transparency, it is imperative for the public sector to be self-innovative in transforming its process and include the new information communication technologies such as Blockchain technologies to improve its efficiency.
This section of the research will elaborate the scope of public sector and will create a rationale about how supply chain management principles are an important contributor to the successful execution of government functions. Later in the section the significance of factors such as transparency, efficiency and resilience in public sector will be touched upon followed by discussion on how ICT helps in improvement of Supply Chain Functions along with brief overview of Blockchain Technologies.