The Convergence of Emerging Digital Technologies : Examining the Interplay of the Internet of Things and Distributed Ledger Technology

Abstract

Digitalization is driven by the fast emergence and adoption of digital technologies (DTs), the questioning of societal conventions and the adjustment of organizational routines. DTs play a visible role in our daily lives, both on an organizational and indeed on an individual level. Despite extensive efforts in research and industry, questions remain unanswered, be they about theoretical underpinnings or their respective influence on practical use. This lack of a thorough understanding limits the scientific discourse and denies practical users the full value of DTs. To fill in this research gap, the cumulative doctoral thesis contains within these pages comprises five research articles which examine the two DTs that are the Internet of Things (IoT) and distributed ledger technology (DLT). Upon examining each of these technologies in their own right, the subsequent sections of this dissertation will shed light on the convergence of these DTs, their implementation, and their adoption. The thesis covers questions of research as well as challenges in practice. It is thus relevant to researchers and practitioners alike. The IoT connects physical objects with the digital world through sensors, networking capabilities, and digital logic. To a large extent, the IoT builds on smart things, the term ‘smart’ commonly being used to describe the features and capabilities of such things. However, a clear understanding of smartness as one of the key concepts of the IoT has not been defined as of yet. The subsequent thesis addresses this knowledge gap by proposing the concept of a ‘smart action’ and deriving from it a general definition of smartness (research article #1). DLTs are distributed and physically decentralized databases which store information in a tamper-resistant way. For a decade, research on DLT was technology-driven, but nowadays it faces the challenge that technological progress was largely unaware of regulatory boundaries. After all, establishing rules and conventions of compliance is essential for the practical use of DLT. That is why this thesis conceptualizes how DLT could be designed to comply with the GDPR (research article #2). The IoT, much like DLT, are DTs that affect systems at the data layer. With a firmer grasp of the mutual influence of these DTs, DLT could serve as a storage for data generated by smart things of the IoT. The effects and interdependencies resulting from such a convergence of both DTs are, however, still unknown. To resolve this problem, research article #3 is an attempt to identify certain design principles for the development of a DLT-based IoT system. Although the convergence in question offers multiple opportunities for a variety of organizations, many of them have to date struggled to gain value from digitalization and successfully embed DTs in their processes. With regard to the implementation of DTs, research article #4 then provides a success model for process digitalization projects by highlighting factors that drive the success of such implementation projects. Throwing a glance at the users reveals that products and services based on DTs are often hard to comprehend and suffer from lacking adoption. As such a novel technological concept at the intersection of the IoT and DLT, a self-sovereign identity enables users to manage their digital identities in a privacy-preserving manner. To explain and predict its use, research article #5 investigates the effect of information privacy on the adoption of a self-sovereign identity.