Smart Contracts and SME Resilience: Business Model Adaptation and International Considerations

Smart contracts (SCs), appended to a blockchain, protect digital environments and their resources, processes and structures, reducing mismatches between legal and actual rights and ownership. They enhance digital resilience by improving transparency, traceability and trust in digital transactions. Utilizing SCs requires businesses to adapt their models, revenue streams and customer relationships. For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), SCs present challenges, requiring proactive decision-making for their effective utilization and the trade-offs involved. By employing the integrated multilayer ISM-MICMAC-SWARA framework (Interpretive Structural Modelling, Cross-Impact Matrix Multiplication Applied to Classification and Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis), we explain the complex interrelationships among the challenges and propose mitigating risk management strategies. We identify technical limitations and human errors as key drivers, confidentiality and manipulation as linkage challenges and fraud and hacking as dependence challenges. These findings highlight the interconnected nature of the challenges and their impact on SMEs, and we emphasize the need for targeted resilience strategies. Our research highlights the global dimension of SC adoption. When deploying SCs, SMEs must navigate international regulations, cross-border transactions and cultural diversity. This global perspective informs smart contracts' strategic, business and organizational aspects. Our findings offer insights for academics, industry leaders, managers and policymakers seeking to understand the potential and risks of adopting SCs in SMEs.