Why Blockchain will Disrupt Corporate Organizations: What can be Learned from the “Digital Transformation” (original) (raw)
Related papers
We went through a considerable restructuring of how information is processed and shared, and the impact on governments, the financial framework, and corporate governance are remarkable. Distributed Ledger Technology and Blockchain was foreseen by renowned scholars almost forty years ago but could only be applied using the technology we have available today. The implementation was also dependable on the opportunity to be accepted after chaotic events that affected trust and certainty in the financial system. Now it passes through a period of regulation and practice adjustments to adapt the technology on every single sector of the industry, as well the very basis of our financial system, including Central Banks and Stock Markets. Digital transformation allowed tokenization of assets and other revolutionary practices that changed Corporate Governance core principles.
Proceedings
In recent years, the concept of digital transformation has emerged as an area where businesses have been working intensively. Digital transformation refers to the holistic transformation of businesses in human and business processes and technology elements in order to provide more effective and efficient services. Therefore, blockchain, which is called a disruptive technology, has great importance in ensuring the digital transformation of businesses. In this study, some determinations have been made about the adoption of blockchain technology and situation analysis while performing digital transformation in businesses. In this context, semi-structured interviews were held with experts in the blockchain field.
Hanseatic Governance: Understanding Blockchain as Organizational Technology
2019
Blockchain technology provides a distributed ledger and is based on a logic of peer to peer authentication. It gained prominence with the rise of cryptocurrencies but provides a much broader field of possible applications. While it has been originally closely linked to a libertarian agenda rejecting organizations, its developments have illustrated that this ideological framing is being reversed in practice. Based on contrastive empirical cases, the purpose of our paper is to discuss blockchain as an organizational technology. Its peculiar mode of governance, which we name ‘Hanseatic’, needs to mediate between the fluidity typical of Free and Open Source Software development and the immutability that use organizations adopt blockchain for.
2023
The article discusses how the new information and communication technologies (NICTs) interrelate with the control and surveillance of systems through the case study of blockchain technologies. Initially, considering the debates in the sociology of work and the resources for a qualitative methodology, we analyze how blockchain technologies arise due to the economic crisis and the need for regulation of the post-2008 crisis markets. In the first part, we look at the surveillance and market control dimensions that emerged in this context. In the second part, we discuss the emergence of the crypto-assets market led by Bitcoin and, mainly, the technological dimension of the blockchain network. We understand that, although there is an attempt to analyze Bitcoin as a financialization of capital, the measurement of technical advantages and disadvantages in the creation of the blockchain network is a substantial factor and of significant impact on the decision-making of companies in the most varied fields. The last part of the article points out, through the quantitative analysis of reports and surveys, a meeting of the operability offered by blockchain technology and the expectation of implementation of this technology in various business sectors, elucidating the competitive advantages listed by them. We seek, then, to understand how implementing these new technologies deepens the dimensions of control and surveillance of production chains.
2020
Traditional contracts are being replaced in an increasing number of instances by smart contracts that is, “decentralized agreements built in computer code and stored on a blockchain”, which are able to automatically execute the terms within the contract and control the relations between parties so that no further “explicit but redundant” negotiations are needed. This paper assesses current and evolving concerns regarding the adoption of blockchain technology in the areas of financial services, and corporate and public governance. The author evaluates the risks and benefits of the utilization of smart contracts and assesses their suitability (in terms of transparency, accountability, responsibility and fairness) for use in the public services’ “space”. It concludes that while the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, great care should be exercised in terms of design and use because this is still a developing area in terms of both the technology itself and the regulatory environment.
Blockchain Leadership & Management: Business-As-Usual or Radical Disruption?
Eureka, 2017
The Internet provided the world with interconnection. But it did not provide trust. Trust is lacking everywhere in our society and is the reason for the existence of powerful intermediaries aggregating power. This has consequences for organizations: They are inefficient because time, energy, and money are wasted on verifying, monitoring and policing contracts and transactions. Managers play the role of intermediaries: They connect experts with each other and instruct them what to do. As a result, people engagement is low because no one is there to inspire and empower them. In other words, our society faces an unprecedented lack of leadership. Given these shortcomings, this article explores the potential repercussions, especially in the context of management, of implementing a Blockchain infrastructure in any type of organization. Blockchain technology seems to be able to remedy to those issues, for this distributed and immutable ledger provides security, decentralization and transparency. In the context of a blockchain economy, the findings show that value creation will be rearranged, with experts directly collaborating with each other and hierarchy being eliminated. This could, in turn, render managers obsolete, as a blockchain infrastructure will automate most of the tasks. As a result, only strong, action-oriented leadership would maintain alignment in the organization. This Leadership-In-Action would consist in building strategy alignment; empowering people to take action; and coaching members of the organization to maximize innovation and productivity.