Knowledge, diffusion and interest towards blockchain technology in SMEs

2020 IEEE International Conference on Technology Management, Operations and Decisions (ICTMOD) | 978-1-7281-5950-8/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICTMOD49425.2020.9380582

Mouhcine Tallaki Enrico Bracci Riccardo Ievoli Sonia Diplotti

Department of Economics &
Management)
University of Ferrara
Ferrara, Italy
mouhcine.tallaki@unife.it
Department of Economics &
Management)
University of Ferrara
Ferrara, Italy
enrico.bracci@unife.it
Department of Economics &
Management)
University of Ferrara
Ferrara, Italy
riccardo.ievoli@unife.it
Department of Economics &
Management)
University of Ferrara
Ferrara, Italy
sonia.diplotti@student.unife.it

Abstract— Blockchain technology could can lead
to radical changes by improving business model and
process. Employing this technology in small and
medium enterprises (SMEs) still represents a novel
idea. Moreover, not much is actually known about
the benefits brought by technology to SMEs. This
research focuses on how SMEs perceive the new
technology, in doing that we analyze the degree of
knowledge, diffusion, and interest of the blockchain
by SMEs. We designed and addresses a
questionnaire to a sample of 300 SMEs in Italy.
Results show that blockchain technology is quite well
known, but the level of knowledge is quite limited.
Moreover, the research reveals that the rate of
adoption is very low. Regarding the interest to
implement blockchain in the future results are
optimistic.
Keywords—blockchain diffusion,
knowledge, interest in blockchain
I. LITERATURE OVERVIEW: BLOCKCHAIN
BENEFITS, CHALLENGES AND DIFFUSION
Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology
which uses a decentralized network of nodes to
perform digital transactions peer-to-peer. [1, 2].
Employing this technology in the small and medium
enterprises still represents a novel idea. These
innovations can lead to radical changes, not only in
the industries and in the creation of new business
models [3], but also in the way in which the society
is organized. Blockchain technology presents
various advantages and opportunities, but it has also
various challenges to overcome [4, 5]. Advantages of
the blockchain technology could include trust,
security, transparency, immutability and cost
benefits [1, 5]. Blockchain technology guarantees the
978-1-7281-5950-8/20/$31.00 ©2020 European Union
security and trust of the system. Distributed ledger
technologies permit users to modify records in a
shared database without the need of a central entity
that imposes its standards and methods [6]. Indeed,
without the presence of a central authority, nobody
can control and manipulate the data, this provides
trust between partners and validate the transaction
and increase security [7]. Moreover, it is important
to specify that the data of a block can’t be changed
retroactively. Thus, immutability represents a
fundamental feature of blockchain technology [8].
However, eliminating intermediation and central
body reduces times and cost of transaction and
increases efficiency [5]. Transparency could be
relevant in creating trust with different organization
stakeholders[9]. However, the lack of a clear
regulation represents the main challenge of
blockchain technology. There is need for an
blockchain agreement to define the fundamental rules to operate
[5]. The adoption of blockchain technologies could
be decelerated by government regulations. Countries
are different and governments could act in distinctive
ways in terms of laws. With respect to GDPR
(General Data Protection Regulation) in European
Union, Finck, (2018) affirmed, “most current
blockchain projects are likely incompatible with the
GDPR. This is because General Data Protection
Regulation was created especially for centralized
systems. Moreover, the differences in process and
policy between organizations worldwide make this
task very hard [11]. Another challenges that
blockchain faces regards privacy, security,
integration with company process and unfamiliarity
with blockchain. Despite the use of highly
sophisticated algorithms that make technology safe,
some aspects related to safety, privacy and

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integration with company process remain to be
addressed because new technology often has system
bugs in the beginning of diffusion [1, 5]. Another
aspect that can present a challenge for blockchain,
especially in the short term, is the initial investment
costs [5]. In the long term, technology can help
reduce costs, but in the short term, companies face
significant investments that not all are able to sustain
them. Nevertheless, blockchain technology is novel
and still in its infancy and users are not yet familiar
with it. The concept is recent, novelty represents a
challenge and its adaptation requires time [1]. In fact,
Risk of adoption may be related also to resistance in
behaviour change, this because people are still in a
situation of “not complete trust” with this technology
[12].
Considering the various advantages and the
benefits of the technology which could improve the
operation of company, many sectors have been and
continue to be attracted by this technology. The
blockchain is expanding rapidly in both public and
private sector [13–15]. Higginson et al. (2017)
reported that among 2014 and 2015 investors
contributed with more than $800 million into
blockchain related start-ups. Moreover, the World
Economic Forum survey reported that 10 per cent of
the global domestic product (GDP) will be stored on
blockchain technology by 2027 [17]. PwC (2018) in
his report survey affirmed that 84 percent of the
respondents, which are 600 executives from 15
territories, said their companies have some
involvement with blockchain.
Opportunity to use Blockchain technology could
be related to various sectors and activities, like
sharing economy, health information exchange,
service delivery, logistic process, distributed
electricity generation and markets, property ledgers,
security markets and financial transaction, fraud
prevention [1, 4, 13, 15, 18]. The diffusion is
growing rapidly in particular financial sector.
Various financial institutions, like Goldman Sachs
and JP Morgan, are investing in this technology
kicking off potential changes in traditional payment
approaches [19]. SMEs too can benefit from
technology not only large companies, blockchain
enables simpler, cheaper and more efficient ways to
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do business for SMEs [20]. Blockchain technology
could be helpful for example to access credit even if
they do not have sufficient guarantees by enabling
them to display their credibility and risk category
through information exchange in the network [21].
SMEs could also benefit from the reduction of
transaction cost with help them to cut cost and make
them more competitive [1].
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: BLOCKCHAIN
II.
DIFFUSION IN SMES
Blockchain technology can provide innovative
solutions for SMEs in their business. Various authors
analysed factors that could impact innovation
adoption and diffusion in SMEs. Diffusion of
innovation in SMEs could be for example enabled by
personal relationship and it’s depends on various
factors like trust, shared values [22], belonging to a
network [23]. Another factor that could impact on the
innovative capacity of SMEs is the sector, firms
operating in high-tech markets tend to be innovative
[24], human capital and dimension of the enterprise
[25]. Various theories are used to explain why firms
adopt innovative solution [26]. Rational accounts
perspective, for example, highlighted that innovation
diffusion is the consequence of an adaptive
responses to environmental pressures. Institutional
theory, instead, affirms that innovation diffusion is
result of a legitimation process in the company
context. The theories indicated are useful if we want
study the reasons that push a company to adopt a new
technology. Considering that the spread of new
technology takes considerable periods of time and
giving that blockchain is new technology, research
has to focus also about the interest to use and
knowledge about technology [27]. Further interest
and knowledge of a technology represent a phase
prior to the adoption of the technology itself. Our
goal, therefore, is not only to measure the level of
diffusion but also the current state of knowledge and
further interest towards blockchain. Our study adopts
explorative approach to analyze the level of
knowledge, interest, diffusion and adoption of
innovation in SMEs. As highlighted in the previous
section, blockchain has various benefits and
advantages. Our study, in analyzing the blockchain
diffusion, focused on the how knowledge could be
relevant to determine further interest. To assess IV. RESULTS ANALYSIS
knowledge and diffusion of blockchain we
A. Descriptive statistics
considered various possible applications of
blockchain technology for SMEs, namely: smart In Table 1 we present the socio-demographic
contract, Internet of Things, smart property, financial covariates of the interviewed. Sample includes 96
services and banking, cryptocurrencies, supply chain respondents, where 39 are female (41 per cent) and
management, sharing economy, crowdfunding. 57 (59 per cent) are male. Regarding their age, 42 are
under 40 years old, while 44 respondents declare an
METHODOLOGY
III. age between 40 and 60 years. Finally, 10 subjects
We developed and addressed in October 2018 a share an age of over 60 years old. In terms of
web based questionnaire, using Google Forms, to a education level, 56 (58 per cent) of subjects did not
sample of 300 companies affiliated to go beyond the high school, while 40 (42 per cent)
Friulinnovazione, Area Science Park and DITEDI claim to have almost a degree. In terms of role held
(Industrial District of Digital Technologies). The in companies, 45 per cent of respondents are
companies contacted are all affiliated to research classified as “General Manager”, 18 per cent as Area
centres or districts that deal with innovation or ICT. Manager while remaining 37 per cent is composed
They must be the first to know and adopt new by employees.
technologies such as blockchain. The questionnaire Knowledge of blockchain:
was addressed to staff interested in innovation. We In Table 1 we report descriptive statistics about
received 96 responses (rate 32 per cent). The the knowledge of blockchain and bitcoin technology.
questionnaire was composed by four distinct 56 respondents (about 58 per cent of the sample)
sections. The first one regarded general information. answer to have heard of the blockchain, while this
The second section related the knowledge of
number increases to 79 (82 per cent) when the same
blockchain technology. The third part was addressed
to the firms that are already adopting blockchain question is referred about bitcoin cryptocurrency.
technology in their activities. Questions concerned Only 3 subjects are experts and practically apply
benefits, advantages, disadvantages connected to the blockchain technology in their business, while only
use of blockchain. We also asked about the 18 (about 19 per cent) claim to have a certain
applications of blockchain within companies. The knowledge. Moreover, a large part of respondents
measurements regarding the benefits, disadvantages has null or little knowledge about blockchain.
and applications were based on the literature analysed Table 1: Knowledge about Blockchain and Bitcoin
previously. In particular, for benefits we used the technologies
following items: reduction costs, rapid execution, Frequ
transparency, immutability, security, privacy and Variable ency Rate
decentralization [1, 3, 5, 8, 28, 29]. For disadvantages 58,3
we used the following items: little knowledge, cyber Knowledge about Yes 56 per cent
security, high volatility, initial costs. Lack of privacy blockchain technology 41,7
and immutability [1, 5, 10–12]. For possible
No 40 per cent
applications of blockchain in SMEs we considered
the following items: cryptocurrencies, supply chain Noth 42,7
management, traceability of the products, smart ing 41 per cent
contracts, internet of the things, sharing economy and 35,4
Level of knowledge
crowdfunding. The fourth part was forward to firms Poor 34 per cent
about blockchain
which are not utilizing blockchain technology and, Goo 18,8
technology
thus, the questionnaire aims to comprehend the d 18 per cent
interests of companies on the future possibility to use 3,1 per
the examined technology. User 3 cent

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Knowledge about bitcoin Yes
technology
No
Adoption of blockchain
Results highlighted that only 3 respondents over
96 apply blockchain technology in practice, taking
benefits especially in the following aspects: a)
immutability of the transactions, b) privacy and c)
security. They also do not identify particular
disadvantages except the high volatility of
cryptocurrencies and the little knowledge from the
stakeholders. Finally, they also recommend the
introduction of blockchain technologies to other
companies.
Interest and further interest to adopt blockchain
We asked if companies are interested potential
practical usage and if there are interested to
implement the technology in the future. A half of the
respondents declare the interested in further
application of blockchain in their companies. Interest
in potential practical usage of blockchain is also
investigated in the questionnaire and main results, in
terms of Likert scores, are showed in Figure 1. To
summarize, only 24 respondents (25 per cent) are
very or extremely interested in practical usage of
blockchain (4 and 5 scores).
Figure 1: Levels of interest in blockchain
technology: 1 corresponds to "not at all interested"
and 5 corresponds to "extremely interested
Regarding the sectors considered able to obtain
benefits from blockchain technology according to
the respondents, Figure 2 shows that scores are quite
high for all four sectors, which are
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82,3 Financial/Banking, Public, Logistics and
79 per cent Technological. The highest value of agreement is
17,7 reached by the Financial/Banking sector with the 73
17 per cent per cent of scores greater than 3, followed by
Technological sector (70 per cent). On the contrary,
Public and Logistics sectors are somewhat deemed
less useful, sharing some disagreement with
respectively 9 per cent and 11 per cent of scores
below 3. We need to remark that these items share a
non-negligible 16 per cent of missing responses.
Figure 2: Likert plot of the sectors which may have
benefits from the introduction of blockchain
Respondents also expressed their opinion regarding
benefits and disadvantages occurring in the
implementation of blockchain technology. Principal
advances, depicted in Figure 3, are the reduction of
costs and the rapid execution of the transaction,
presenting respectively 72 per cent and 69 per cent
of positive responses in terms of agreement, and then
transparency and immutability. On the other hand,
decentralization and privacy are deemed less
relevant in order to produce benefits.
The little knowledge about the blockchain
technology is considered the main disadvantage (72
per cent of agreement), while immutability of the
transaction and privacy are the item receiving lowest
agreement (respectively 30 per cent and 20 per cent
of scores below 3), resulting not to worryingly for
our respondents. Again, in this set of items we must
report a percentage of missing data between 8 per
cent and the 11 per cent.
In Table 2 we report the possible applications of
blockchain. It can be seen from this analysis that the
most selected themes are: traceability of the
products, internet of the things and smart contracts,
chosen by over the 30 per cent of the respondents.
Figure 3: Likert plot of the possible benefits from
adopting blockchain technology
Figure 4: Likert plot of the possible disadvantages
from adopting blockchain technology
Table 2: Possible applications of blockchain in the
future (multiple choices are allowed)
Possible usages of blockchain Freq. Rate
Cryptocurrencies
Supply chain management
Traceability of the products
Smart contracts
Internet of the things
Sharing economy
Crowfoundings
Other
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We evaluate reliability of three aspects of the
questionnaire. Sectors that would have
improvements from adopting blockchain (4 items);
Benefit of the introduction of blockchain (7 items);
and Disadvantages of the introduction of blockchain
(6 items)
Regarding dimensions of Sectors and Benefit,
estimated alpha is safely greater than the empirical
threshold of 0,80 in both cases, while for the
disadvantages dimension the estimate is slightly
slower and equal to 0,76. According to the literature,
values greater than 0,8 are considered satisfactory,
while values over 0,7 are deemed acceptable (see
also the Meta analysis of Peterson, 1994). We also
report the asymptotic confidence intervals, based on
the asymptotic method [30] and intervals obtained
through B = 9999 number of bootstrap replications
[31], in order to measure the uncertainty around the
estimated coefficient. Based on these evidences, the
“Disadvantages” seem to be the less reliable
dimension among others, mainly because both type
of confidence intervals include values which are
lower than 0,7.
B. Multivariate analysis: statistical association
In this subsection we compute and evaluate the
statistical associations between a selected set of
previously introduced variables from the
questionnaire. Thus, the three target or dependent
variables are: Knowledge about blockchain (Yes or
No); Interest in blockchain (agreement > 3); and
Interest in further use of blockchain (Yes or No).
Covariates used for the pairwise analysis are in the
13 14,6 following list: Age (minor than 40 years, between 40
and 60 years, greater than 60 years); Gender: male or
23 25,8 female; Degree: If the subject is graduated or not;
33 37,1 Role: General manager, area manager or employee;
and Bitcoin: Knowledge about Bitcoin
31 34,8 Regarding the knowledge about blockchain, the
30 33,7 most associated variables are the Role, the Gender
18 20,2 and the knowledge about bitcoin (according to their
Cramer's V which is greater than 30 per cent), while
10 11,1 the Age can be viewed as an independent variable
2 2,2 (Table 3). According to Chi-square statistic and p
value of the tests, the education level (degree) also
shows a moderate association with the knowledge of
blockchain. Males knows more often blockchain
than female, managers are definitely more informed also (with less evidence) by Role, Gender and Age
about this technology, knowledge of blockchain of (considering a nominal level of 0,1), while degree
can be reasonably driven by knowledge of bitcoins and knowledge of blockchain appear practically
and also the education level may have a certain role. independent according to statistical tests and
Table 3: Pairwise association. Dependent variable is Cramer’s V estimates. Surprisingly, middle-aged
knowledge of blockchain respondents (between 40 and 60 years) are more
Vari Chisq-stat Fisher Cram CI*(V; 95 interested in this further implementation with respect
able (p value) (p value) er's V per cent) to younger interviewed.
Gen 15,202 (0,231; Table 5: Pairwise association. Dependent variable is
der (0,0001) 0,0001 0,419 0,598) future interest about blockchain
0,626 (0,029; Chisq- Fisher Cra CI*(V;
Age (0,7312) 0,7631 0,081 0,298) stat (p (p mer's 95 per
Degr 6,705 (0,090; Variable value) value) V cent)
ee (0,0096) 0,0064 0,286 0,467) 6,763 (0,069;
27,763(<0, (0,388; Gender (0,0093) 0,0107 0,276 0,471)
Role 0001) <0,0001 0,547 0,706) 5,816 (0,091;
Bitc 12,109 (0,199; Age (0,0546) 0,0519 0,256 0,469)
oin (0,0005) 0,0003 0,383 0,549) 0,466 (0,005;
Analyzing the interest of blockchain in practice Degree (0,4947) 0,5273 0,072 0,280)
(Table 4), the only two variables with an evidence of 11,174 (0,180;
association are the knowledge of Bitcoins and the Role (0,0037) 0,0040 0,354 0,556)
Role. In practice, managers are more interested than 15,315 (0,218;
Employees in further applications and also the Bitcoin (0,0001) 0,0002 0,415 0,599)
knowledge of bitcoins can determine interest in the Knowledg
immediate implementation of blockchain. e
Table 4: Pairwise association. Dependent variable is Blockchai 0,271 (0,004;
interest in blockchain n (0,6030) 0,7654 0,055 0,265)
Chisq- Fisher Cra CI*(V; Interest in
stat (p (p mer' 95 per Blockchai 8,062 (0,107;
Variable value) value) s V cent) n (0,0045) 0,007 0,301 0,481)
0,705 (0,004; .
Gender (0,4010) 0,4763 0,086 0,270)
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
V.
1,486 (0,038;
Age (0,4758) 0,5881 0,124 0,306) Results show that blockchain technology is quite
0,229 (0,004; well known. It emerges that bitcoin, which uses
Degree (0,6326) 0,6412 0,049 0,254) blockchain technology, is better known than the
8,928 (0,156; technology itself. Results reveal that blockchain
Role (0,0115) 0,0067 0,305 0,480) technology is or could be exchanged by bitcoin. This
14,629 (0,237; could create a wrong perception of blockchain and
Bitcoin (0,0001) 0,0001 0,390 0,527) be limit to the diffusion of other tools that use the
Knowledg blockchain. However, the level of knowledge of the
e. 1,93 (0,012; technology is quite limited. This confirms what was
Blockchain (0,1648) 0,2241 0,142 0,283) said before with respect to the limits of the diffusion
Finally, the willingness to implement blockchain in of technology in SMEs. A first step in diffusion
the future is reasonably driven by knowledge about blockchain technology is to work on explaining the
bitcoins and interest in blockchain, as expected, but technology itself, its potential and possible

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