Abstract
Blockchain technology is a trending research topic due to its application in cryptocurrency and metaverse, but there is a disparity between its hype and actual adoption rate. Our systematic review focuses on the factors influencing adoption from an organisation’s perspective and use a mixed method approach that combines qualitative data coding and quantitative data analysis. Our review first summarises 29 themes related to adoption factors, reflecting the current state of literature. We then draw on two perspectives to enhance the understanding of these themes. The first perspective is the well-known technology-organisation-environment (TOE) framework, which categorises adoption factors into three contexts and computes the TOE compositions within corresponding themes. The distribution of themes along the TOE dimensions suggests that technological issues are often analysed by looking into the organisational or environmental sides. The second perspective focuses on the influence of adoption factors, including barrier-enabler-ambiguous (BEnA) dimensions, which we developed based on the sample. The distribution of themes along the BEnA dimensions indicates that the current literature focuses on improving the understanding of blockchain technology while seeking facilitating conditions for its successful adoption in both organisational and environmental contexts. Finally, we identify the progression direction of the literature on adoption factors and themes. Our findings suggest an involution pattern in the development rather than an evolution, with existing themes being elaborated upon rather than new themes being introduced. This pattern is accompanied by a ‘directed’ attention change, whereby prevalent themes receive more factors, and less popular themes are less elaborated.