Blockchain technology through a paradox lens: Bridging the gap between promise and reality?

Blockchain technology has been praised as a means to improve collaboration within and beyond the value chain. Key features, such as transparency and the immutability of data in a blockchain, lead to higher quality and enhanced product lifetime, improved circularity, and, ultimately, more reliable supply and cheaper offerings. Nevertheless, the promises of blockchain technology are not mirrored in reality. Based on a multiple-embedded case study from the wind turbine industry, this paper sheds light on how various paradoxes on the individual, intra-, and inter-organizational levels hamper the successful implementation of blockchain technology. Unlike general B2B collaboration challenges, these paradoxes are rooted in blockchain's technological architecture—particularly its decentralization, immutability, and trustless nature—which introduce tensions that are both temporal and contextual. These paradoxes are both identifiable on the contextual level (the setting in which blockchain technology is implemented) and on the temporal level (the impact of both prior experiences and the perception of future commitments and collaboration). Theoretically, the paper provides a more nuanced perspective on the existing literature on blockchain technology, which has traditionally been marked by transaction-cost-based frames of understanding while emphasizing the role of individuals and organizations in blockchain adoption. The presented analysis also has managerial implications in terms of the essential need to understand blockchain as more than a mere (software) implementation exercise.