Abstract
Trust has been acknowledged as an essential element of inter-organizational relationships, and it also affects the efficiency of work operations. Although the construction industry has been pursuing trust for a long time, trust is still lacking and fragile among stakeholders. Blockchain seems to provide a promising approach through which trust can be rebuilt. This study aims to develop a deployment framework by following which construction stakeholders can develop blockchain-based solutions for rebuilding trust. A design science research (DSR) method is used to develop a blockchain-based framework. Then, the framework is prototyped and illustrated through a case study of construction supervision. It is discovered that the proposed framework can provide a promising approach to fostering trust. One contribution of this research is to articulate a normative vs. naturalistic trust-building spectrum and position blockchain-based trust-building in it. Practically, this research develops a framework that stakeholders can develop blockchain-based solutions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Data availability statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request (Blockchain prototype code).