# At the Nexus of Blockchain Technology, the Circular Economy, and Product Deletion
## 5 Implications and Future Research
### Future Research  
Blockchain as an enabler for facilitating business activities has received significant attention. Blockchain has some unique features that elevate this technology beyond the traditional supply chain integration information systems, e.g., Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Traditionalinformation systems mostly use centralized databases that are vulnerable to being manipulated or crashing. Decentralized structures provided by blockchain technology removes central authorities from systems and minimizes the likelihood of system failure. In addition, blockchain uses a cryptographic signing structure that increases the reliability and security of records. Disintermediation, the immutability of information, trustless environment, and smart contracts are other specific technologies underpinning blockchain. However, blockchain is an emergent technology that requires greater clarity. What is and what is not blockchain and what characteristics exist is part of the essentially contested concept of blockchain. Additionally, there is confusion about the real-world and large-scale business applications and interoperability of blockchain, especially the scalability issue. More research is needed to address the real-world application of blockchain technology to clearly define this technology in different business contexts and elaborate on the governance and business models and structures for using blockchain.  
As implied by many of the theoretical and practical implications, significant future research can be targeted for the study of the discussed joint topics: blockchain, CE, and product deletion. The studies can be at the dyadic level--such as blockchain and CE only--or at all three topics simultaneously. We posit further future research directions.  
The first step may be to identify some real-world studies, especially case studies that attempt to consider all three actions. Data acquisition and empirical data are needed to further advance the application of blockchain technology in product deletion decisions in the circular economy context. Hypothesis development and testing may be possible with additional data acquisition for additional relationship identification and evaluation. Simulations can be completed to address various business scenarios including the industry type, product portfolio size, life cycle maturity and product characteristics to test the likelihood of deletion for circular economy reasons; as well as whether adopting and utilizing blockchain technology in those business scenarios is appropriate and feasible.  
Sensitivity analysis and robustness can help validate and evaluate blockchain technology applications in product deletion decision making processes. Given the relative novelty of all three areas, simulation analysis may be the most appropriate approach for further investigation. In this situation, tools such as system dynamics can be developed and applied to determine what occurs in different scenarios. The complexity of relationships would need to be explicitly modeled and then executed to determine long-run implications at the various levels of analysis.  
Stakeholders might have diverse opinions and concerns on blockchain technology application in strategic organizational decisions. Future research could develop certain tools or models to quantify their beliefs and concerns into the revitalization and evaluation processes for more rational and appealing product deletion decisions.  
These future research directions are mostly considering the use of various tools and techniques. The many questions identified earlier in the discussion are also open research questions. We do not repeat them here given that this paper provides a conceptual series of issues that need to be studied. For example, each of the relationships identified in Table 1 can and should be investigated.