Implicit Business Model Effects of DLT Adoption

The significance of supply chain collaboration, communication and data exchange along with the importance of the relationships established among interconnected parties in a digital connected world, indicates the power of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to transform the business model. In our study we set out to advance our understanding on how DLT impacts the business model. Since DLT is in its primitive stage of development, most studies focus into the implementation aspect of the technology and limited research has been done into the business model implications. Our research closes that knowledge gap in the literature by answering the question of “What are the secondary effects in business model that stem from DLT adoption?” Due to the inherent characteristics of the DLT, in respect to its network facet and the network effects created, we argue for a business ecosystem approach for our research. The main contributions of this paper are twofold. It presents implicit effects on business model beyond the direct trust and data openness aspects, and it also provides managers and scholars a process model for assessing how each implicit effect impacts the various business model dimensions.