Purpose: In the era of digitalisation, blockchain has the potential to fundamentally change the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry's workflow, trust and procurement environments. However, few studies have investigated blockchain adoption barriers in the AEC industry in detail. Therefore, the study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of these barriers and their interdependent relationships in the context of the AEC industry.Design/methodology/approach: Based on a review of the literature, industry reports and expert feedback, 11 barriers towards adopting the blockchain were identified. Then, the authors investigated the interdependencies amongst the factors by adopting a two-stage integrated interpretive structural modelling (ISM) and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method.Findings: The findings show that the lack of information technology infrastructure (BC4) and legal and regulatory uncertainty (BC11) are the most prominent barriers towards blockchain adoption in the AEC industry.Practical implications: The research contributes in providing a clearer understanding of related barriers and potential solutions for practitioners in this area. Subsequently, the identification of adoption barriers can enable an important knowledge foundation and suggest possible solutions for adopting blockchain techniques successfully and effectively in the AEC industry.Originality/value: The study lays an essential research foundation for the effective adoption and use of blockchain in the AEC industry.

Smart contracts have been well‐received by researchers and practitioners for the unique features of automatic execution, transparency, and nontampering in a blockchain environment. However, little is known about the current development status of knowledge and practice regarding the application of smart contracts in various industries, especially from the procurement perspective. Thus, this paper aims to address the gap with a mixed method of bibliometric analysis and systematic literature review. Based on the evaluation of 174 filtered publications, the review has analyzed the current development status of this research area with its distributions in years and journals, cooperation networks between authors, institutions, and countries, keywords cooccurrence network, and classifications of the application of smart contracts. The results show the application of smart contracts has attracted global attention since 2016 with the Ethereum and Hyperledger fabric as the main platforms in various industries, especially in information communication technology (ICT), public management, supply chain, energy, finance, and healthcare. Various functions and benefits of smart contracts, as well as their potential advantages, have been identified and articulated from the procurement perspective. A research framework has also been developed to highlight future procurement needs in business operations across the industries via an integrated procurement approach of smart contracts.

Blockchain is regarded as a potential technology for transforming the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry, and the number of related publications is increasing rapidly. However, a systematic review of blockchain applications in the AEC industry is lacking. The objective of this study was to review the current status of blockchain applications via a bibliometric analysis combined with a systematic literature review. According to related articles collected from databases, the present status of blockchain was analysed with regard to the distribution of articles over publication years, journals, institutions, countries, cooperation networks between authors, keyword co-occurrence networks, and research methodologies. The results indicated that research on blockchain applications is still relatively new and fragmented with regard to several topics. Five areas of benefit were identified: (i) supply chain management, (ii) contract management, (iii) information management, (iv) stakeholder management, and (v) integration management. On the basis of the technology–organisation–environment framework, nine types of challenges were identified. Future research opportunities were proposed according to the research findings. This study contributes to the current body of knowledge and provides guidelines for further research on blockchain applications in the AEC industry.