Alessandro Creazza

Purpose: While blockchain technology (BCT) is recognized for its potential, its adoption among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) remains limited. Existing literature focuses on large multinational enterprises, leaving a gap in understanding the challenges and opportunities SMEs face. This study aims to explore the adoption of BCT in an Italian manufacturing SME, assessing both the operational and sustainability implications. Design/methodology/approach: This study employs an action research approach grounded in the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology framework. Through iterative phases of research, it examines the key factors influencing blockchain adoption. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with department heads with follow-ups to validate findings. Findings: The research identifies fifteen critical challenges SMEs encounter in adopting BCT, including technological readiness, interoperability with existing systems, regulatory uncertainty and misconceptions stemming from blockchain's association with cryptocurrency. While blockchain offers potential benefits such as enhanced transparency, traceability and automation, its successful adoption requires substantial internal restructuring and stakeholder engagement. The study also highlights BCT's potential to support sustainability initiatives, such as digitalized tracking and paperless invoicing. Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature by shifting the focus from large corporations to SMEs, providing empirical insights into blockchain's real-world applications in a resource-constrained environment. This study is among the few to examine blockchain adoption in SMEs through an action research approach, enabling real-time observation and iterative validation of findings across multiple organizational departments. It underscores the importance of aligning blockchain adoption with business strategy rather than merely following technological trends. Furthermore, the study serves as a practical guide for managers, offering key considerations for evaluating the feasibility of blockchain integration and identifying trade-offs between expected benefits and implementation complexities.

Food waste is a sustainability concern in the food industry, which can be mitigated through a circular economy. Circularity can be limited by contextual constraints, such as the characteristics of the waste to be recovered. However, their study in the context of food waste is scarce. Through contingency theory, this work explores which food waste flow characteristics (homogeneous quality, certain timing, sufficient quantity, economic value, and nutritional value) play a role in achieving high circular economy performance. The food waste flows generated by 15 Italian food manufacturing firms are analyzed with qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). The analysis reveals that only a few characteristics may be sufficient for high circular economy performance. The characteristics are contingency factors: Depending on the recognized contingencies, firms may decide to prevent or recover food waste flows out of convenience, necessity, or because of ethics. To improve their circular economy performance, firms can also modify the contingencies themselves.

Supply chain sustainability and resilience have gained the interest of academic and industrial communities, and increasingly represent top priorities in organizations’ agendas. This article aims to measure the key dimensions driving sustainability and resilience in supply chains and their interrelationships. We propose a new composite indicator for their joint assessment through the application of a robust composite indicator development framework, and the integration of secondary data with primary data gathered from a survey in the Italian industry. Results show no evidence of a trade-off between supply chain sustainability and resilience and instead highlight a potentially important cross-fertilization from sustainability to resilience through supply chain collaboration when these transcend the internal boundaries of the firm. This is a significant contribution to the existing debate in the literature on the relationship between sustainability and resilience in the supply chain, thanks to the development of an integrative composite indicator and a quantitative approach to the explanation of this relationship. By fostering a deeper understanding of supply chain sustainability and resilience, this investigation informs decision-makers on potential avenues to concurrently build and sustain their firms’ supply chain sustainability and resilience.

Logistics 4.0 is a recent paradigm derived from the Industry 4.0 paradigm applied to the logistics sec-tor. Several new technologies have been developed to improve logistics performance. The presentresearch aims to build a maturity model to support 3PL providers in assessing their level of maturityand identifying the areas in which to invest to improve the logistics service offered through the imple-mentation of Logistics 4.0 technologies. The maturity model was developed using a structured frame-work of four main steps: the definition of the model scope; the model design (literature review onLogistics 4.0 and the existing maturity models); the model composition and validation; and pilot testsin three relevant 3PL providers. The proposed maturity model has four constructs (i.e. strategic out-comes, requirements, Logistics 4.0 technologies, managerial and capability supporters) and four matur-ity levels (i.e. initial, intermediate, advanced, cutting-edge).