Determinants of digital technology adoption in supply chain. An exploratory analysis

Abstract

This paper is aimed at identifying the main patterns related to the application of new Digital Supply Chain Technologies that through the Industry 4.0 paradigm, are redefining supply chain organisations. To this end, a set of DSC initiatives has been analysed via an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to understand the influence of several social and economical factors on the implementation of DSC solutions. Results show that the time factor, the Gross Domestic Product per capita, the amount of foreign investment, and the expenditure in Research and Development are significant drivers of DSC technologies. In particular, Big Data are associated with a higher economic effort than Blockchain, although these two technologies, together with Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence, usually characterise most recent implementations. The present work might foster research about the contextual factors affecting the DSC diffusion it could assist both practitioners and policymakers in defining appropriate DSC strategies.