Blockchain for Requirements Traceability: A Grounded Theory Approach

Blockchain technology has emerged as a “disruptive innovation” that has received significant attention in academic and organizational settings. However, the existing research is focused on technical issues of blockchain systems, overlooking the organizational perspective. This study adopted the Ground Theory methodology to unveil the blockchain implementation process in organizations from the lens of blockchain experts. The results revealed 3 main categories: key activities, success factors, and challenges related to blockchain implementation in organizations which was identified as the core category, along with 17 concepts. The study aims to contribute to the existing blockchain literature by providing a holistic and domain-agnostic view of the blockchain implementation process in organizational settings. This can potentially encourage the development and production implementations of blockchain solutions and guide practitioners who are interested in leveraging the inherent benefits of this technology. In addition, the results are used to improve a blockchain-enabled requirements traceability framework proposed in our previous paper [1]. The authors advocate the application of blockchain as a shared, trusted and available traceability knowledge base that keeps track of artifacts and trace links created by cross-organizational and distributed teams throughout the software development lifecycle.

区块链技术（Blockchain）作为一项"颠覆性创新"，在学术研究与组织实践场景中受到广泛关注。然而现有研究多聚焦于区块链系统的技术维度问题，却忽视了组织视角的相关探讨。本研究采用扎根理论（Grounded Theory）方法，从区块链领域专家的视角，揭示组织内区块链的落地实施全流程。研究结果提炼出三大核心类别：关键实施活动、成功影响因素以及组织区块链落地面临的挑战，其中该挑战类别被确定为核心范畴，同时衍生出17个相关概念。本研究旨在为现有区块链学术文献提供全景式、领域无关的组织内区块链实施流程视角，以丰富相关研究储备。这将有望推动区块链解决方案的研发与规模化落地应用，并为有意借助该技术固有优势的行业从业者提供实践指引。此外，本研究结果还用于优化我们此前发表于文献[1]中的区块链赋能需求可追溯性（requirements traceability）框架。作者倡议将区块链作为共享、可信且可及的可追溯知识库，用于追踪跨组织分布式团队在整个软件开发生命周期中产生的软件制品与追溯关联。