The Impact of Blockchain on Competitive Strategy: A Case Study of a Digital Market Place in Nigeria
A CASE STUDY OF A DIGITAL MARKETPLACE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61143/umyu-jafr.8(1)2025.020Keywords:
Blockchain, Competitive Strategy, Digital Marketplace, Transparency, EfficiencyAbstract
This study examines the role of blockchain technology in shaping competitive strategy within digital marketplaces. By leveraging primary data collected through surveys and statistical analysis, the study evaluates blockchain’s influence on key strategic components such as transparency, operational efficiency, cost reduction, and user trust. Specifically, it explores how blockchain adoption can act as a differentiating factor for businesses in a highly competitive digital space. The findings indicate that blockchain significantly enhances competitive advantage by streamlining processes, reducing transaction costs, improving security, and fostering trust among participants. Furthermore, blockchain’s role in eliminating intermediaries and enabling real-time, transparent transactions is shown to improve overall market dynamics. The study also highlights potential challenges businesses face in implementing blockchain, such as regulatory uncertainty, scalability issues, and high initial costs. It concludes by providing actionable recommendations for industry stakeholders, suggesting that blockchain adoption can be a transformative tool for digital marketplaces, but only if approached strategically with careful consideration of both the technological and business environments.
Metrics
References
Antonopoulos, A. M. (2017). Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking digital cryptocurrencies. O’Reilly Media.
Barney, J. (1991). Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1), 99–120. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920639101700108
Bower, J. L., & Christensen, C. M. (1995). Disruptive technologies: Catching the wave. Harvard Business Review, 73(1), 43–53.
Buterin, V. (2014). Ethereum: A next-generation smart contract & decentralized application platform. Ethereum.org. https://ethereum.org/en/whitepaper/
Casino, F., Palacios, R., & Ziegler, T. (2019). A survey of smart contract formal specification methods and tools. International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 60(3), 202–215. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJCAT.2019.100072
Christensen, C. M. (1997). The innovator’s dilemma. Harvard Business Review Press.
Davidson, S., De Filippi, P., & Potts, J. (2018). Disrupting governance: The blockchain technology and the challenge to conventional corporate governance. Harvard Law Review, 131(8), 1920–1935.
Gans, J. S. (2016). The disruption dilemma. MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262034487.001.0001
Hughes, L., Khosrow-Pour, M., & Borenstein, D. (2019). Blockchain technology for digital marketplaces: Trust and security applications. International Journal of Digital Transformation, 6(2), 54–70.
Iansiti, M., & Lakhani, K. R. (2017). The truth about blockchain. Harvard Business Review, 95(1), 118–127.
Kim, H., & Laskowski, M. (2021). Blockchain for digital marketplaces: A case study on implementation and impact. Journal of E-commerce and Business, 9(4), 34–45.
Kshetri, N. (2018). Blockchain’s roles in meeting key supply chain management objectives. International Journal of Information Management, 39, 80–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2017.12.005
Laudon, K. C., & Traver, C. G. (2020). E-commerce 2020: Business, technology, society. Pearson Education.
Nakamoto, S. (2008). Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
Pilkington, M. (2016). Blockchain technology: Principles and applications. In Research handbook on digital transformations (pp. 225–253). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781784717766.00019
Porter, M. E. (1985). Competitive advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance. Free Press.
Saberi, S., Kouhizadeh, M., Sarkis, J., & Shen, L. (2019). Blockchain technology in supply chain management: A review of the literature and applications. International Journal of Production Research, 57(7), 2117–2136. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2018.1533261
Swan, M. (2015). Blockchain: Blueprint for a new economy. O’Reilly Media.
Tapscott, D., & Tapscott, A. (2017). Blockchain revolution: How the technology behind Bitcoin is changing money, business, and the world. Penguin.
Treleaven, P., Brown, R. G., & Yang, D. (2017). Blockchain technology in finance. Computer, 50(9), 14–17. https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2017.3571047
Williamson, O. E. (1985). The economic institutions of capitalism. Free Press.
Xu, M., Chen, X., & Kou, G. (2019). A systematic review of blockchain. Financial Innovation, 5(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40854-019-0147-z
Yermack, D. (2017). Corporate governance and blockchains. Review of Finance, 21(1), 7–31. https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfw074
Zhang, L., & Wang, X. (2020). Blockchain-based digital marketplaces: A new competitive paradigm. Journal of Business Research, 12(3), 67–82.
Zheng, Z., Xie, S., Dai, H., Chen, X., & Wang, H. (2018). Blockchain challenges and opportunities: A survey. International Journal of Web and Grid Services, 14(4), 352–375. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJWGS.2018.095647
Zohar, A. (2015). Bitcoin: Under the hood. Communications of the ACM, 58(9), 104–113. https://doi.org/10.1145/2701411
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 UMYU Journal of Accounting and Finance Research
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
