An Empirical Study on the Adoption Determinants of Permissioned Blockchain as Decentralized Inter-organizational Systems

Abstract

Permissioned blockchain is a technology relevant for business-to-business transactions among partners with low trust. An extensive literature review indicates an inadequate comprehension of the adoption determinants of permissioned blockchain as the next generation of decentralized inter-organizational systems. To address this gap, this study builds the theoretical model by extending the technology–organization–environment framework to the permissioned blockchain context and incorporating inter-organizational factors. A mixed methodology is adopted to identify and investigate the determinants, including interviews with 10 senior information technology (IT) executives and a questionnaire survey of IT managers with blockchain experience from 212 organizations. A total of 11 factors is identified through literature review and interviews. The empirical results indicate that top management support is the most significant determinant, followed by perceived benefits, technology maturity, trading partner readiness, and perceived advantages of the blockchain industry consortium. Besides, competition intensity is identified as a weak determinant. The implications for theoretical development and professional practice are examined. Longitudinal and latitudinal studies are recommended for future research.

Received: 2 August 2025 | Revised: 16 October 2025 | Accepted: 4 January 2026

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

Data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Author Contribution Statement

Leo Yeung: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Yulin Fang: Writing – review & editing, Supervision. Ting Xu: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.