Knowledge diffusion paths of blockchain domain: the main path analysis
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Knowledge diffusion paths of blockchain domain: the main path analysis Dejian Yu1 · Libo Sheng1 Received: 3 February 2020 © Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary 2020
Abstract Blockchain technology, as a disruptive technology, has received widespread attention in the past few years from all over the world, leading to rapid growth in research outputs. This paper adopts a quantitative method, the main path analysis, to comprehensively and systematically investigate the development trajectories of blockchain. Four different main paths, the global main path, the forward local main path, the backward local main path and the key-route main path are conducted simultaneously. By analyzing these various paths, on the one hand, this paper finds that papers on paths focus on two aspects, cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based applications. On the other hand, this paper discovers several major research areas of blockchain, including internet of things (IoT), healthcare, energy industry, voting, insurance and supply chain management. At the same time, this paper further analyzes the research hotspots, as well as the development trajectories of blockchain in the areas of IoT, healthcare and supply chain management by using the key-route main path analysis. This paper is conductive for both the new and experienced researchers to identify some influential papers and grasp the knowledge diffusion paths in these domains. Keywords Blockchain · Main path analysis · Internet of things · Healthcare · Supply chain management
Introduction In the past few years, blockchain, as an emerging technology, has been widely known and understood by both academics and practitioners. The notion of blockchain can be tracked back to 2008 (Nakamoto 2008). It is a public ledger that all transactions will be stored in blocks and then will be linked in chronological order by nodes on the peer-to-peer network. This distributed peer-to-peer linked-structure is able to be independent of trusted third parties, thereby solving the problem of double payment and making the transactions in a more
* Libo Sheng [email protected] Dejian Yu [email protected] 1
Business School, Nanjing Audit University, Nanjing 211815, Jiangsu, China
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Scientometrics
transparent way. The key characteristics of blockchain can be described as decentralization, persistency, anonymity and auditability (Zheng et al. 2018). The first application of blockchain technology is a cryptocurrency called bitcoin, which is a decentralized digital currency. It is usually considered as an important investment and speculative device (Merediz-Sola and Bariviera 2019). Since it was first proposed by Nakamoto (2008), it has attracted widespread attention from a number of researchers and practitioners. Recently, the cryptocurrency market has grown rapidly and a variety of cryptocurrencies have emerged since the advent of bitcoin (Hölbl et al. 2018). The boom in the cryptocurrency market proves the importance of blockchain technology. In addition, the rise of smart contract
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