A Research Agenda for Collaborative Roadmapping Supported by Blockchain Technology

Abstract

Roadmapping is a well-known management approach that helps with the collaborative development and management of technology and innovation planning. In this context, the management of shared information is critical to effective and reliable collaboration. Blockchain technology supports disruptive and distributed IP management solutions, especially in a multi-stakeholder environment. This research investigates opportunities to apply blockchain to support collaborative roadmapping. First, a literature review was conducted to identify potential benefits provided by blockchain technologies. The connections between the collaborative roadmapping gaps and potential blockchain benefits were translated into research opportunities. Blockchain by nature can support two unsolved gaps in collaborative roadmapping: confidentiality and security. Additionally, the research reveals three new potential benefits of blockchain technologies: certification, shared value, and traceability.

1. Introduction

The economy has become much more connected in a massive network [1]. Innovation emerges through interactions between sectors, where digital platforms assume a central role in competition in innovation ecosystems. Therefore, technological innovation depends on the ability to understand complementarity and to quickly develop new partnerships.

The management of strategic collaborations is essential for innovation ecosystems [2,3], which involves technology planning [4,5,6]. In this context, the most common approach is collaborative roadmapping (CR) [7]. It can be used for systematic information gathering, sharing, and elaboration through different functional areas, linking business and market strategies to products and technologies [5]. CR supports networked innovation as a tool for guiding decisions made by multiple organizations about how to pool complementary resources, reduce R&D costs, and manage technological uncertainties [3].

Despite its contributions, CR faces many concerns including intellectual property and information security [8]. Participants can conclude that there are relevant risks regarding the confidentiality of strategic information and the security of critical technologies [9]. Consequently, they can avoid exposing confidential information with transparency, which can hinder technology planning [10].

A recent study about technology roadmapping shows how necessary it is to explore new digitalization aspects to be incorporated into web-based technologies [2]. Blockchain (BC) is a new foundational technology that can contribute to the issues of intellectual property and information security presented in collaborative foresight [10]. BC is a distributed database system that makes cryptographic registers of transactional information, with linear and immutable events among actors not depending on a central entity [11]. It delivers data integrity, transparent processes, and high-quality data [12,13] that do not display single points of failure [12] and that provide symmetric information to all participants [14].

In this sense, it is possible to consider the use of BC to improve CR. However, there is no article exploring this use in the literature. The objective of this paper is to identify opportunities, issues, and challenges by proposing a research agenda. To reach this aim, a literature review of research on potential blockchain benefits in innovation management until 2021 was conducted and compared with the roadmapping gaps.

The next section describes the theoretical background of collaborative roadmapping gaps and the blockchain technology. Second, the research method adopted for this study are presented followed by the results and the research agenda with open issues and challenges. At the end, conclusions are drawn, and recommendations for future research are presented.

2. Theoretical Background

2.1. Gaps in Collaborative Roadmapping

Collaborative roadmapping is a tool that can be used for systematic information gathering, sharing, and elaboration through different functional areas, linking business and market strategies to products and technologies [5]. It facilitates communication among teams and different units [15,16], supporting consensus building to appropriately move forward or clarify a vision [17] and to be more effective in managing the product development [3].

In this paper, the scope of collaborative roadmapping encompasses a network of three or more organizations. The network partners carry out activities jointly, sharing strategic information and seeking constant alignment to develop collaborative roadmaps or to drive their roadmaps.

Although collaborative roadmaps have been widely developed in different contexts, there are still challenges that minimize their effectiveness.

It is necessary to manage different visions of markets, products, technologies, resources, and objectives, minimizing the effectiveness of collaborative roadmapping [18,19]. This problem is reinforced considering that different stakeholders have different information needs [20,21]. To collect information in a structured way, there are studies of some fundamental techniques and methods such as graphic design principles [22,23], data mining [8,24,25], and the Delphi method [9].

Another gap is in keeping representative key companies in the field, manufacturers, consumers, and research institutions continuously updated with the key performance indicator (KPI) to promote collaboration [3,5,20].

The lack of alignment between multiple interrelated roadmaps can be critical [24,26,27]. It is a barrier to identifying complex connections between projects [28] and coordinating multilevel and multilateral policy [3]. When different organizations have a common goal but their roadmaps are largely disconnected, it can increase the risks of the inefficient use of resources, duplicating efforts, and missing out on the opportunity to capture technology value [21]. For roadmap alignment and systematic connections, there are studies using fuzzy set theory [29], future-oriented analysis (FTA) [24,30], and subject–action–object (SAO) analysis [31]. Other authors have developed modularized roadmapping methods to make the process aligned and flexible with a unified view [20,26].

According to [30], there is no clear evidence regarding how companies can systematically synchronize strategic planning (roadmaps). To facilitate companies with multiple business units in clarifying integration, there are studies on a framework using the synchronization roadmapping [32].

There are other collaborative roadmapping challenges with few studies about methods of minimizing them. To develop efficient collaborative technology planning, different stakeholders have to share sensitive information [23]. Trust is emphasized as a gap and a necessary condition [33]. Different actors must trust each other to share information and data about their technological plans and results [34] without fear of losing know-how [33]. When partners do not share information, it can make it difficult to identify complex connections [28] in multilevel and multilateral policy coordination [3].

Security is also needed for regulatory issues and policy considerations [18]. It is necessary to protect the roadmap against competitive intelligence, which implies careful handling and management of tacit specialized knowledge [35] so as not to encourage opportunistic behaviors [36]. There is the necessity of ensuring transparency [27,37], tracking the performance of individual and collaborative development [36,38], and identifying weaknesses and potential improvements for the development [39]. Table 1 summaries the gaps in collaborative roadmapping according to areas.

2.2. Blockchain Technology

The idea of blockchain technology was introduced in 2008 by [40], who implemented the digital cryptography known as bitcoin. Also called a safety protocol, blockchain became a component of the bitcoin operation, eliminating the need for any central authority to execute financial and data transactions [41].

BC is currently considered the foundation of reliable economic transactions [42], high-quality data [12], and failure-free data [41]. It also provides symmetric information to all participants in a network [14] as well as data integrity, security, transparent processes, ref. [13] and distributed consensus [43].

In addition to processing money transfers, blockchain technology can guarantee compliance with programmable rules in the form of smart contracts [44,45]. Smart contracts are autonomous applications with preestablished entries and exits, allowing parties to register a trustworthy partnership [46]. The registration of a smart contract is stored and certified as a transaction called distributed ledger [12]. The ledger is composed of a sequence of blocks united by their values in chronological order to maintain the integrity and the punctuality of the data [41]. These transactions are tracked and combined in blocks, each one of them with a single headline through public keys and digital signatures [11,12].

With cryptography, the keys have the contents of the blocks, which are basically constituted by the headline and the body [11]. The headline of the block specifies the metadata, including the hash (what guarantees the integrity of the data) of the previous and current blocks. The body contains and stores the verified transactions [47].

Through the verification and chaining of the previous blocks, there is no way to manipulate blockchain data, since the alterations are immediately reflected in every active copy of the network [41]. While the transactions occur, the chain builds a digital ledger that is distributed, sequential, and digitally signed, and it contains validated property registers [11].

If new blocks are created in individual nodes as a complement to the existing blockchain, a consensus on the change may be reached in the whole network [11]. These records can be altered only if more than 51% of the nodes are under the control of hackers [48].

In smart contracts, rules of consistency can be added to each transaction [42]. They specify what must be verified in a transaction and what monitoring activities must be triggered, formulating the participants’ rights and obligations according to the prescribed rules [47].

For example, if the arrival of a certain good is documented in the blockchain, a smart contract can automatically trigger the payment process in the sustainable supply chain [49]. This integrated automation allows for the reengineering of many processes, the elimination of intermediaries and agencies, and the consistency of information according to audit requirements.

Despite its advantages and potential to significantly alter the existing business systems and processes, BC also involves limitations and challenges [13]. These demand a system integration strategy and, consequently, high investments for implementation [11].

3. Method

A literature review (LR) was conducted to explore, organize, and analyze historical data to identify theoretical challenges [50]. Because it is an emergent technology, there are studies that develop LRs to address challenges, opportunities, and research agendas related to the blockchain technology in different contexts, i.e., context supply chain management [45,51,52], business [53], and IOT [54]. This LR was conducted to understand how blockchain technology can support collaborative roadmapping challenges.

The LR process was organized in three main activities: data collection, analysis, and reporting [55].

3.1. Data Collection

The first step in the data collection consisted of identifying gaps in the collaborative roadmapping literature. The collected articles from Web of Science (WOS) and Scopus scientific databases were used, and only studies that met the inclusion criteria were incorporated into the review [56]. The search was designed to find papers that address potential benefits created by blockchain technology in the technology roadmapping field: our first string was: (“blockchain” or “block chain”) AND (roadmap*). We had 62 results, but none fit the criteria: papers addressing blockchain technology in project management, technology planning, or collaboration management contexts.

Analyzing the results of this search, we identified the absence of blockchain solutions specifically developed for technology roadmapping. Then we formulated a second string aimed at finding applications of blockchain technology in correlated areas of roadmapping considering topics correlated with technology management. The analyses in [57,58] address that the field of technology management is a multidisciplinary area that has different contexts of engineering, management, and economics [58]. Using bibliometric techniques, ref. [57] classifies six major areas of publication: business and management, marketing, economics, planning and development, information science, industrial engineering, and operations management. In this study, we are concerned with the most operational aspect linked to planning and development from technology to product. Thus, the subtopics we selected as correlated areas in which blockchain technology solutions could be compared with roadmapping were product development, design management, product management, and innovation management.

Then we applied a border search string and no period restrictions: (“block chain” or “blockchain”) AND (“roadmap*” OR “TRM” OR “product development” OR “design management” OR “project management” OR “technology management” or “innovation management”). The search was carried out in November 2021. This second search resulted in 215 papers.

To evaluate the studies’ relevance, the inclusion criteria were defined we: (i) present a sufficient level of information about how applications of blockchain technology can support collaboration in project management and/or technology planning. Studies were excluded if they were: (i) non-English, (ii) not accessible, or (iii) duplications.

The results of both searchers were filtered initially by the title, abstract, and keywords. Then, the researchers read the papers’ introduction and conclusion, analyzing for the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Lastly, the papers were fully read to close the final sample. As a result, 23 papers were selected. Figure 1 summarizes the flow chart conducted according to PRISMA.

3.2. Data Analysis

Firstly, based on the selected papers, we verified the contexts in which the blockchain technology was applied: product development, design management, product management, or innovation management. In this way, it was possible to identify potential blockchain benefits in each paper to form an initial list. In the second analysis, we used an open coding procedure to identify categories of these potential benefits. The result was the “category of contribution” described in the results. We compared these categories with the gaps in collaborative roadmapping.

We also verified which gaps already have methods or tools to support the roadmapping challenges, presented in Section 2.1. Through this comparison, it was possible to identify a list with potential benefit categories provided by blockchain technology and which of them could anticipate, in hypothesis, potential gaps for collaborative roadmapping. Lastly, we developed a research agenda that can guide opportunities for researchers in the area.

4. Results

4.1. Descriptive Findings

Out of the 23 selected studies about blockchain technology in project management and technology planning, 12 (52% of total) were published in academic journals and 11 (48% of total) in conference proceedings. Papers were published in a total of 10 different academic journals from different knowledge areas, such as construction management, manufacturing, and sustainability. The number of papers in progress indicates the emergent knowledge related to using blockchain technology in project management. The first publication related to blockchain technology in project management was in 2017.

Figure 2 shows the distribution of papers by journals and publishing sources from 2017 to 2021. The rising trend is associated with blockchain technology research projects in different contexts. Figure 3 shows the contexts. Around 52% of the 23 publications are in the construction context, 13 % in P&D, 9% in product lifecycle management, 9% are generic context in project management, 9% are in education context, 4% in manufacturing, and 4% in power system. Papers selected are shown in Table A1 (Appendix A).

4.2. Potentials of Blockchain Technology Applications

To identify in which contexts blockchain technology can minimize gaps, first, it is necessary to verify the type of project and whether traceability, transparency, and trust are the main requirements in the business network [59]. In the literature review, we identified that address project management in a generic way [60]. According to [61], BC technology can provide a way to record and transfer data in a secure, auditable, and transparent way, optimizing manual processes, improving communication with stakeholders, and providing a transparent record at different stages of the PM. In addition, it can be used in contract management to minimize friction in workflow due to information asymmetry [59].

Other authors address the use of blockchain technology and project management for specific contexts. In power systems [62], it is applied for more formal management, avoiding the emission of unreliable data. In this way, emergencies during the engineering design deployment process can be tracked accurately and quickly, improving the manageability.

Some authors address the use of blockchain technology to enhance the management of national R&D projects [63]. The technology can minimize R&D challenges to share the results without duplication [64] and to block unintended sharing of project results, avoid counterfeiting, and manage the delivered tasks [63].

In an education context, ref. [65] report the use of blockchain technology on a platform to store a student’s resume and training certificate published after verification. On this platform, a company can post a problem, and students work to solve it reliably. Each month, mentors evaluate students’ training performance, assignments, and social skills using a score. The projects studied in [66,67] apply in the same context, but with different objectives, ref. [66] to minimize falsification, adulteration, and plagiarism in the project application and [67] for storing and exchanging data during their projects and secure evaluations.

Blockchain technology can also support a project’s life cycle management by monitoring tasks delivered, budget, and payments with security and transparency. According to the authors, stakeholders can assess the project’s requirements, results, and feedback and agree on project deliverables. In addition, stakeholders outside the network, such as recycling companies, can search for all documentation needed to recycle and disassemble the product [68].

The authors of [69] used blockchain connected to the concept of open manufacturing. Manufacturing companies recorded in the platform could attribute different tasks and projects to their partners through entrepreneurial knowledge sharing based on their core knowledge and competence. Thereby, companies do not need to develop services on their own; they can focus on their main businesses, and based on their needs, they can use other partners’ knowledge and services.

In the civil construction context, blockchain technology makes it possible to simplify and automate collaborative construction processes, establishing the transparency, traceability, and symmetry of information between business parts [70]. Authors developed frameworks using building information management (BIM) and blockchain technology for payments to be made throughout the process and to check the performance and results in real time [71,72,73,74,75]. To support full integration across the entire construction project life cycle, ref. [74] addressed the use of smart contracts and nonfungible tokens (NFTs). Table 2 summarizes the potential benefits of blockchain technology.

5. Research Agenda

The previous sections described the gaps in collaborative roadmapping (Section 2.1) and the potential benefits of the blockchain (Table 2). In this section, results from these sections are integrated and analyzed to identify research opportunities that form the research agenda, as described in the research method. Figure 4 depicts the overall connections forming the research opportunities of the research agenda.

In the literature, some tools or methods aim to minimize gaps related to communication, unified vision, project performance, and updates. However, no proposals were found to improve reliability, security, and transparency. Potential benefits created by blockchain can support possible solutions for collaborative roadmapping gaps that do not have methods or tools to support them. Each research opportunity will be explained.

5.1. Roadmapping with Sharing Information and Continuous Updating with Transparency

The first research opportunity identified is related to a new and disruptive stage of transparency and traceability that could be established with blockchain technology. It would support information sharing with new partners, including contexts when there is no previous collaborative experience. The quantity of information stored is expected to increase, and consequently, the quality of collaboration and new ideas would improve.

The transparency in sensitive information exposure is reinforced due to the immutability of the timestamp in smart contracts [9,24]. Once a work has been registered, that information cannot ever be lost or changed [63,78,84]. The partners can trace and appeal if there is counterfeiting or illegal use in technological project data.

It is also possible to control project performance with transparency due to distributed ledger and the documents stored into smart contracts. In this way, co-located partners can trust and interact more, checking the status of each technology delivery with an online system and unified view to manage the deliveries.

Research opportunity #1. New and disruptive solutions for collaborative roadmapping, for sharing information and continuous roadmapping updating with transparency.

5.2. Roadmapping with IP Management

The second research opportunity focuses on collaborative gaps related to security and reliability and potential benefits for transactional costs. When one organization finds a new potential partner, it must overcome the effort required to make it official, which most frequently involves high costs with intermediaries: lawyers, patent offices, etc. [85]. As explained in the literature review, BC technology does not need a central entity to store the information such as a patent office or lawyer [86], and the information cannot be deleted.

If partners are properly informed about this new principle and assign general terms of a nondisclosure agreement, it will not be necessary to discuss and assign specific agreements for each transaction.

All transactions and sensitive data will be protected against counterfeiting: When contracts are established and the development begins, a new secured collaboration process will be started. All shared documentation, IP, and recording traded between partners will be protected in a trustworthy way [51,80].

More security means new incentives to share details about each technology and knowledge involved at the roadmapping. The partners will have a better comprehension of results and the contribution of each one to the network.

Partners could take into account their technological development dependencies, as shown in [9]. If this potential benefit is well explored, it will reduce transaction costs for licensors and licensees in IP management [87] and improve the agility and number of contracts [76].

Research opportunity #2. New and disruptive roadmapping solutions for IP management capable of providing security, reliability, lower transaction cost, and agility.

5.3. Roadmapping and Traceability

The third research opportunity is aligned with the collaborative roadmapping gap about project performance and the potential benefit of traceability when BC is used. Collaborative roadmapping is in essence an open innovation instrument. Connecting business partners in a collaborative roadmapping process, especially with distributed and secure databases means that business partners could be involved in the early stages of technology development, during the roadmapping, and in monitoring all processes (traceability).

To facilitate the performance management of each partner, indicators could also be used to quantify the contribution of each partner, technology risks, and technology valuation. In this way, when finalizing the development of the product or technology, each partner can check what each partner contributed and how much they received.

Management performance and technology valuation can help to deal with contract breaches and can explore solutions for a “heterarchical” network, as described in [3], a network where a non-leading central orchestrator is present and the mechanisms of competition are used in parallel of collaboration.

In sum, this means also a research opportunity to search for new KPIs that allow for continuous assessment, roadmapping, and technology development.

Research opportunity #3. New and disruptive roadmapping solutions for traceability in managing the roadmapping performance and identifying the contribution of each partner.

5.4. Roadmapping with Continuous Valuation

This research opportunity is related to collaborative roadmapping gaps related to the update and potential benefit of the blockchain for valuation. The classical roadmapping methodologies consider phases of roadmap development and roadmap implementation. Later, the organization must constantly review the information, updating the roadmap. This is a barrier demonstrated by [88]. If opportunities 1, 2, and 3 were successfully explored, they could be combined to support regular cycles of roadmapping and valuation, creating new continuous roadmapping processes.

For example, consider multiple stakeholders developing a potential roadmap integrating all their technologies. When it is developed as the first roadmapping version, each partner shares, discusses, and assigns the agreement at the platform, registering the potential result as a set of blocks in a blockchain. This consensus is registered with the timestamp, and they could spend time on technology development duties as presented in this plan.

After ending a cycle, they upload their results at the platform, and review each partner task; when a new consensus is built, a new round of registration will be performed, and new blocks will be added to the platform. Each cycle is a round of negotiation: aligning expectations, sharing deliveries, and agreeing with technology valuation.

This is the fourth research opportunity: the possibility of investigating new roadmapping procedures capable of implementing this “rounded” perspective and as a result delivering continuous roadmapping. During each one of these rounds, a new technology valuation and product revenues could be estimated, in parallel with the indicators of the contribution of each partner. This could bring transparency to the process of building and sharing value across the roadmapping and technology development.

In practical terms, this could be deployed into a list of research topics, including new automated valuation processes considering algorithms capable of linking market data and risks indicates into each technology delivery at the platform; new business rules for the commercialization of partial deliverables, in case of partners interested in leaving the project; or new automatized systems to attribute monetary credit for deliverables, considering the data collected into each cycle or roadmapping round.

The online collaboration roadmapping platform, if associated with blockchain, has the potential to generate disruptive functions, integrating with digital coins. Consider, for example, companies and research centers that develop their technologies separately and afterward, through a currency of technological and scientific fomenting, pay and integrate them with the security of distributed ledger stored into smart contracts. In the future, the payments could be made by these platforms too, enjoying the resources of digital coins. What kind of new features and possibilities can emerge from this kind of integration? This is an example of those interesting research questions to be explored.

Research opportunity #4. New and disruptive roadmapping solutions for updating and continuous valuation.

5.5. Long Term Research Opportunity with Potential Performance Parameters

These four opportunities summarize research directions for introducing blockchain technology into collaborative roadmapping research. The sum of these efforts certainly is capable of producing disruptive and long-term results with two distinct natures: (a) new practices or methodologies for a roadmap with continuous updating and valuation; (b) new collaborative roadmapping platforms (sites, software, and digital tools such as apps and others capable of supporting these methods.

Finally, the literature review and analysis performed allowed us to identify some of the performance parameters that could be used to evaluate these new proposals. All potential applications of blockchain technology observed are (i) secure, (ii) agile due to no need to involve the centralized third party and the few legal contracts needed to establish a partnership; the status of the project can be verified in real-time, and the information can be validated quickly, leading to (iii) lower transaction costs. The last ones are potential benefits from the continuous roadmapping updating: a phenomenon that could provide the merger between roadmapping and roadmap implementation processes in the future.

For researchers who will study these research opportunities and follow the research agenda, we suggest considering four potential performance parameters: (i) capacity to diminish the transaction cost; (ii) capacity to improve the security and IP risk; (iii) capacity to improve the agility; and (iv) capacity to guide roadmapping for new solutions with continuous updating and continuous evaluation.

Figure 5 illustrates the research agenda describing the research opportunities, the two long-term results, and the performance dimensions applicable to evaluating new proposals.

6. Final Considerations

Despite being a promising contribution to the challenges of open innovation and promote innovation ecosystems, there are still significant challenges when an organization is involved in blockchain development. Through a literature review, we identify a lack of supporting tools for addressing the barriers: reliability in sharing data, transparency during its development, and security to maintain the intellectual property generated during the collaboration. This research agenda brings insights into how blockchain technology could allow managers to provide a direction of possible solutions to minimize challenges for interorganizational partnerships.

The results have supporting evidence in the literature showing that blockchain technology has the potential to support gaps cited in the collaborative roadmapping literature. Three of them were cited in collaborative roadmapping literature: reliability, transparency, and security. Additionally, this study identified aspects cited in the collaborative roadmapping literature not as gaps but as potential benefits of adopting BC: traceability, continuous valuation, and less transactional costs.

These aspects must be considered hypotheses to be investigated by researchers in the field. We reinforce that they were identified by similarity and analogy. It is necessary to make an effort to understand and analyze more deeply. We believe that these are new areas in which BC can improve the performance of collaborative roadmapping applications.

The analysis of potential benefits created by blockchain technology, extracted from BC proposals in the literature, with applications and cases of these technologies, allow us to indicate a research agenda organized into four research opportunities, two long-term results, and four potential performance parameters that can be used to guide the investigation in this new and exciting research field.

In addition, CR brings fields to be explored in project management related to how blockchain technology can influence project management [61]. We also invite other researchers to contribute to this field. This effort can converge to a new generation of roadmapping platforms capable of taking this tool to a new and disruptive level of application.

We hope to make real the promise of continuous and agile roadmapping, effective engagement in the collaborative technology development effort, continuous valuation, alignment of partners’ expectations throughout the roadmapping and technology development process, less confrontation, and decreasing transaction costs. Altogether, fulfilling this promise will result in new tools for a new competition based on innovation ecosystems.

Author Contributions

All authors were responsible for the conceptualization of the paper. The methodology, I.N.P.; analysis, I.N.P., D.C.A. and M.G.D.O.; supervision, D.C.A.; review & editing, I.N.P., D.C.A. and M.G.D.O.; original draft, I.N.P. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

No new data were created or analyzed in this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this article.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the funding of Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES).

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures and Tables

Figure 1. Steps of flow chart conducted according to PRISMA.

Figure 2. Distribution of papers by journal and publishing source.

Figure 3. Distribution of papers by context.

Figure 4. Connections among collaborative roadmapping gaps, methods and tools’ contributions, and potential benefits of blockchain.

Figure 5. Research agenda for collaborative roadmapping and blockchain.

Table 1

Gaps in collaborative roadmapping.

Gap Area	Gaps in Collaborative Roadmapping	References
Unified view & Communication	Necessity of managing different information needs	[18,19]
	Difficulty managing different interests, expertise, and objectives	[20,21,22,23]
	Lack of alignment between different roadmap approaches	[20,21,24,26,27,29,31]
	Lack of alignment between multiple interrelated roadmaps (multilevel and multilateral)	[27,32]
	Lack of know-how to synchronize different roadmaps	[27,32]
Update & KPI	Continuously updated different points of view and the roadmap	[2,3,9,20]
Security	Few regulatory issues and policy considerations in the collaborative roadmapping due to sensitive information	[18,23,33,36]
Reliability	5-Low trust in partners due to information shared	[28,34,35]
Transparency	Little transparency in the results of collaborations	[18,24,35,36,37,38,39]

Table 2

Potential benefits of blockchain in technology management applications.

Category of Contribution	Potential Blockchain Benefits	References
ReliabilitySecurityTransparency	To provide trust and transparency in relationships through timestamp, distributed ledger, and smart contracts	[51,63,75,76,77,78,79,80]
Security	To attribute different tasks and projects to partners in distributed ways	[48,63,64,81]
	To support a project’s life cycle (block unintended sharing of project results, avoid counterfeiting)	[63,64]
TransparencySecurityTraceability	To improve interactions and information sharing between stakeholders even though they don’t know or trust in each other due to the record and tracking of all interactions	[51,77,80,81,82,83]
	To be used as a new payment system for transactions	[63,76,77,78,79,80]
Traceability	To monitor and agree with the the performance and results in real time due to the distributed ledger stored into smart contracts	[71,73,76]
	To monitor tasks delivered, budget, feedback and transactions	[76,77]
Reliability	Select partners according to their reputation	[83]
SecurityReliability	To manage the delivered tasks, deal with contract breaches, project deadlines, and illegal use of funds	[79]

Appendix A

Table A1

Selected articles related to BC applications in projects, technology, and innovation management.

Authors	Paper	Context
[68]	A novel paradigm for managing the product development process utilising blockchain technology principles	PLM
[89]	A Study on the Application of Blockchain Technology in the Construction Industry	Construction Industry
[74]	Applications of distributed ledger technology (DLT) and Blockchain-enabled smart contracts in construction	Construction Industry
[65]	Architecture of an Enterprise Project Life Cycle using Hyperledger platform	PLM
[90]	Assumption of the application of block chain technology in engineering project management	Construction Industry
[59]	Blockchain for business value: A contract and work flow management to reduce disputes pilot project	Project Management
[69]	Blockchain-based customization towards decentralized consensus on product requirement, quality, and price	Manufacturing
[63]	Blockchain-based perfect sharing project platform based on the proof of atomicity consensus algorithm	R&D projects
[70]	Designing a Collaborative Construction-Project Platform on Blockchain Technology for Transparency, Traceability, and Information Symmetry	Construction Industry
[73]	Framework for Automated Billing in the Construction Industry Using BIM and Smart Contracts	Construction Industry
[72]	Integrated project delivery with blockchain: An automated financial system	Construction Industry
[91]	Integration of blockchains and smart contracts into construction information flows: Proof-of-concept	Construction Industry
[64]	Project management model based on consistency strategy for blockchain platform	R&D projects
[92]	Prospect of blockchain technology for construction project management in Malaysia	Construction Industry
[66]	Researchain: Union Blockchain Based Scientific Research Project Management System	Educational
[93]	Sub Contractor Life Cycle Management in Enterprise System Using Blockchain Technology	PLM
[62]	The Application of Blockchain for the Management of Engineering Projects in Power System	Power system
[94]	The effectiveness of project management construction with data mining and blockchain consensus	Construction Industry
[59]	The impact of blockchain on project management	Project Management
[95]	The Role of Blockchain Technologies in Construction Engineering Project Management	Construction Industry
[79]	Towards Secure and Efficient Scientific Research Project Management Using Consortium Blockchain	Educational

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