Blockchain Papers

Jace (Jeong Hyeon) Kim

Abstract Modern societies are shaped not only by visible institutions, laws, and technologies, but also by invisible structures that quietly govern the flow of information, incentives, resources, and human behavior. These hidden dynamics often remain unnoticed because they emerge gradually through countless local interactions, institutional routines, economic feedback loops, and algorithmic systems. By the time their consequences become visible, they are frequently perceived as isolated events rather than manifestations of deeper structural patterns. The Hidden Ledger presents a collection of seventeen visual essays that examine these invisible mechanisms through symbolic narratives accompanied by technical reflections. Rather than advancing a single political, economic, or technological thesis, the collection proposes a conceptual framework for exploring how complex societies organize themselves through distributed systems of incentives, institutional memory, information control, financial architecture, organizational design, and increasingly autonomous artificial intelligence. The visual essays employ metaphor and systems thinking to illuminate relationships that conventional analytical writing often struggles to communicate intuitively. Each episode functions as a conceptual thought experiment, inviting readers to examine how seemingly unrelated phenomena—including digital surveillance, data extraction, media ecosystems, bureaucratic inertia, scientific gatekeeping, economic dependency, charitable institutions, social exclusion, labor transformation, and AI alignment—may share common structural characteristics rooted in hidden feedback mechanisms. Although every essay focuses on a distinct domain, they collectively argue that modern civilization increasingly operates through invisible ledgers: distributed systems that continuously record incentives, redistribute risks, accumulate influence, and shape collective behavior without requiring centralized control or explicit coordination. These ledgers are not literal accounting systems but conceptual representations of the often unseen processes through which power, trust, responsibility, and information circulate across societies. The objective of this work is not to provide definitive explanations for contemporary social problems, nor to promote predetermined ideological conclusions. Instead, it offers a visual framework for interdisciplinary reflection, encouraging readers to move beyond isolated events and consider the structural conditions from which those events emerge. By integrating symbolic illustration with technical commentary, The Hidden Ledger demonstrates how visual reasoning can complement traditional scholarly discourse in exploring complex adaptive systems whose most influential mechanisms often remain hidden beneath everyday experience. Ultimately, this collection argues that understanding the future of human societies requires more than observing visible outcomes. It requires learning to recognize the invisible structures that quietly shape them long before they become apparent. Author's Note The Hidden Ledger began with a simple question: What if the most influential forces shaping modern society are not the ones we immediately notice, but the ones quietly operating beneath everyday events? Many discussions about artificial intelligence, economics, institutions, governance, and social change focus on visible outcomes. We debate policies, technologies, organizations, and individual decisions, yet we often overlook the invisible incentive structures and feedback mechanisms that connect them. This collection was created as an attempt to visualize those hidden relationships—not as definitive explanations, but as conceptual maps that encourage structural thinking. Each episode explores a different domain. Some focus on artificial intelligence, others on media, bureaucracy, science, finance, charity, religion, education, labor, or human psychology. Although these subjects appear unrelated at first glance, they gradually converge around a common question: What invisible systems quietly shape the visible world? For that reason, the episodes are intended to be read both independently and collectively. Individually, they function as symbolic thought experiments exploring specific structural phenomena. Together, they reveal recurring patterns—feedback loops, incentive structures, institutional memory, information asymmetries, distributed responsibility, and emergent behaviors—that transcend disciplinary boundaries. The technical reflections accompanying each illustration are therefore not literal explanations of the cartoons, but invitations to continue the conversation from multiple academic perspectives. This distinguishes The Hidden Ledger from my previous visual essay, The Age of Mirrors. While The Age of Mirrors explored the symbolic and relational dimensions of human–AI coevolution—asking how intelligent systems reshape meaning, identity, and human relationships—The Hidden Ledger shifts its attention outward toward the invisible architectures that organize societies themselves. One examines reflection; the other examines structure. Together, they represent two complementary ways of thinking about an increasingly interconnected world. Both collections share a common belief: visual narratives can communicate complex systems in ways that conventional academic writing sometimes cannot. A carefully constructed image can reveal relationships that might otherwise require pages of formal exposition. Rather than replacing analytical research, these visual essays seek to complement it by providing an additional language for interdisciplinary exploration. This work is also an experiment. I did not begin this series with a long-term publication plan, nor did I know where it would ultimately lead. It emerged gradually through curiosity, observation, and a desire to preserve ideas before they disappeared into the continuous flow of everyday conversations. Whether future visual essays will continue this series or move in an entirely different direction remains an open question. At the time of writing, I am simply exploring new subjects that may deserve similar treatment. Working as an independent researcher without institutional affiliation has, perhaps unexpectedly, become one of the greatest advantages of this journey. Without predefined disciplinary boundaries or organizational expectations, I have been free to move between artificial intelligence, psychology, economics, systems science, philosophy, governance, and visual storytelling—following questions wherever they seemed to lead. This freedom has made it possible to experiment with forms of scholarship that might not fit comfortably within conventional academic categories. If there is a single purpose behind this collection, it is not to convince readers that these interpretations are correct, nor to prescribe how society should change. My goal has always been more modest: to observe carefully, to connect ideas honestly, and to preserve those observations in a form that others may examine, question, refine, or even disagree with. Knowledge advances through conversation, not certainty. If The Hidden Ledger encourages readers to look twice at familiar systems, to ask different questions, or to notice structures that previously remained invisible, then it has already achieved more than I originally hoped. Finally, thank you for taking the time to explore this experimental work. As an independent researcher, I have the freedom to explore unconventional ideas and formats without being constrained by disciplinary boundaries. That freedom has made projects such as The Hidden Ledger possible, and I am grateful for the opportunity to share them openly. Constructive criticism, thoughtful discussion, and alternative perspectives are always welcome. If this collection encourages even a small number of readers to examine familiar systems from a different structural perspective, then this experiment has served its purpose. This collection represents an experiment rather than a conclusion, and I look forward to discovering where the next question may lead. Disclaimer: The analyses presented herein are not directed toward attributing fault or intent to any specific organization. Rather, they are intended as a conceptual and technical investigation of alignment methodologies, focusing on structural mechanisms and systemic trade-offs. Interpretations should be regarded as provisional, research-oriented hypotheses rather than conclusive statements about institutional practice. Notice: This work is disseminated for the purpose of advancing collective inquiry into generative alignment. Reuse, adaptation, or extension of the presented concepts is welcomed, provided that proper attribution is maintained. Instances of unacknowledged appropriation may be addressed in subsequent publications.

Christel van de Wal

Advances in data-sharing technologies offer governments opportunities to improve efficiency and public service delivery. However, ethical risks, legal constraints, and concerns about public trust often limit the adoption of data-sharing practices within governmental organisations. This study examines how Value-Sensitive Design (VSD) and collaboration technologies, including Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs), can support responsible and trustworthy data sharing in public governance. The research addresses ethical, legal, and organisational tensions while safeguarding public values and fundamental rights. A mixed-method research design combines literature reviews, qualitative case studies, and empirical validation, structured according to design science research principles. Building on analyses of governance frameworks and case studies in Dutch governmental organisations, the study develops and operationalises a methodological and normative framework for responsible data sharing. The research adapts VSD to governmental data ecosystems and provides a structured design approach supporting ethical and privacy-preserving data-sharing practices in public administration.

Ghassan Al-Sumaidaee, Rami Alkhudary, Željko Žilić, Pierre Féniès · 5 authors

• Address interoperability limits in healthcare supply chains. • Use NFTs as identifiers that reference patient data distributed across multiple blockchains. • Propose a Selective Trust Architecture, with patient-controlled access via token ownership. • Introduce the concept of Layer-2 Interoperability in decentralized healthcare systems. • Link artifact design to theory development in blockchain and trust research.

Joelson Patrick Leal

Decentralized identity (DID) systems promise improved privacy, user control, and interoperability in regulated digital identity verification, including in banking contexts. However, existing DID implementations often introduce usability barriers that limit adoption, particularly for non-technical users navigating Know-Your-Customer (KYC) onboarding—a mandatory process requiring banks to verify customer identity to prevent fraud and financial crime. This poster presents a UX-centred, four-phase mixed-methods investigation comparing a high-fidelity DID-based onboarding prototype with a traditional Web2 (centralised, platform-owned) KYC flow. Results show that DID significantly reduced task completion time (178s vs. 665s), improved perceived usability (SUS: 93.4 vs. 71.3), and increased user trust (6.1 vs. 5.1 on a 7-point scale). At the same time, wallet setup, private-key management, and the absence of onboarding-phase recovery guidance remain critical sources of user anxiety. We contribute five user-centered design principles for DID-enabled financial onboarding and discuss implications for designers working at the intersection of Web3 (decentralised, blockchain-based systems), fintech, and regulated digital services.

Sabrina Wollenschläger, Michael Lustenberger

This study examines how Decentralized Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) could be incorporated into municipal administration to improve citizen participation and transparency. As DAOs in governance are attracting growing academic and practical attention, this research uses scenarios to analyze the conditions for their application at municipal and regional levels. It takes a conceptual, scenario-based approach to develop a model for DAO-based e-participation, identifying key concepts and their relationships to explain how DAOs operate as self-regulated systems for digital participation. The research is structured into three phases: First, in the foundational phase, this study synthesizes existing research on DAOs and participatory governance models, contrasting blockchain-based and traditional processes to establish a framework for DAO integration. Second, the application phase uses illustrative scenarios to explore how DAO mechanisms might influence participation and decision-making in municipalities. Third, the evaluation and recommendation phase consolidates insights into a structured model for implementation, highlighting task characteristics, contextual conditions, and organizational capacities that shape DAO feasibility. The analysis suggest that DAOs may enable new forms of participation and more transparent procedures, but only when antecedent conditions such as digital literacy, administrative capacity, and infrastructure stability are sufficiently met. Future work should look at long-term effects, compare cases across municipalities, and examine the role of legal and regulatory frameworks.

Cathal Doyle

The Information Systems research discipline claims to build a cumulative Knowledge Base to inform practice, yet it is organised around a closed loop of self-referential simulation. We diagnose this state as hypernormalisation-a late-Soviet condition in which official rituals are meticulously performed despite a widespread recognition that they no longer map reliably onto lived reality. We identify four escalating mechanisms that sustain this institutional order: the Simulation of Accumulation, in which the journal article functions as a proof-of-work token; the Simulation of Relevance, in which "Implications for Practice" operate as rituals of displacement; the Simulation of Problem Solving, in which Design Science Research produces perpetual prototypes; and the Simulation of the Scholar, in which researchers inhabit a split subjectivity (Living Vnye). We argue that Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) constitutes the discipline's Glasnost moment. By automating the generation of methodologically fluent, theoretically compliant text at near-zero marginal cost, GenAI precipitates the collapse of the proof-of-work signalling economy not by attacking its institutions, but by exposing their performative nature. It renders the underlying logic visible, stripping the journal article of its value as a proxy for cognitive labour. Instead of offering renewal, this transparency forces a structural reweighting of epistemic authority: away from the mechanical production of form (Episteme), now inexpensive and abundant, toward judgment grounded in direct contact with reality (Phronesis) and exposure to consequence-a signal that cannot be sustained without the friction of the world.

Giorgia Sampó, Oliver Baumann, Marco Peressotti

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) integrate blockchain-based automation with novel forms of collective governance, yet research on them remains fragmented across technical and organizational silos, hindering a comprehensive understanding of DAOs as socio-technical systems. To bridge these gaps, we first conduct a systematic umbrella review of 12 prior surveys to map research themes and persistent gaps. Based on this analysis, we propose a novel, three-layer framework that explicitly links (i) technical artefacts (the infrastructure, e.g., tokens, smart contracts), (ii) governance logics (the rules, e.g., incentives, consensus mechanisms), and (iii) organizational manifestations (the outcomes, e.g., proposals, votes). By making cross-layer dependencies explicit, the framework enables more holistic theorizing, supports comparative empirical work, and provides a diagnostic tool for practitioners dealing with design trade-offs between decentralization, efficiency, and participation.

Yusuke Okamoto

Abstract This study aims to sociologically understand the ideas about organizations, mechanisms to realize those contained in Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), and Web3. It specifically focuses on the unique relationship between people and objects in this context. In this study, DAO refers to an organization on the Internet that uses blockchain technology and that has no specific administrator (that is decentralized and flat), whereas Web3 refers to the way that the Web is organized premised on such an organization. A DAO attempts to reduce uncertain elements and create a firm, flat organization by introducing the physical technology of blockchain into an organization composed of people. However, its operation is more intricate. For example, blockchain is not purely an object but humans are embedded within it and their desires are harnessed as its driving force. This study attempts to describe such an intricate construct and specifically focuses on the effort needed to create a “flat” organization. It is not simply realized mechanically through the blockchain but people are also substantially involved, including in the pre-discussion process (off-chain). For example, whether a DAO becomes a flat organization may depend on the original relationships between its members. The workings of the blockchain are more dependent on the people participating in it and their relationships than they appear. Recently, some DAOs have placed less emphasis on protocols, such as on the automatic execution of the content of contracts, and more emphasis on community. However, irrespective of where they place the emphasis, no essential difference exists between them on the point that people are involved in them to a greater or lesser extent.

Stepan Bakhaev, Jos� Carlos Camposano, Annika Wolff, Kari Smolander

This paper analyzes stakeholders’ understanding of an electronic identification (e-ID) system based on artificial intelligence and distributed ledger technology. We address the question "How is the trustworthiness of a novel information system for e-ID influenced by the stakeholders’ understanding of its base technologies?". Our findings are based on a qualitative analysis of a questionnaire and interviews with stakeholders from a system development project focused on e-ID for online public services. We found that current e-ID systems have good usability but lack dialog and feedback mechanisms, whereas technical robustness and data protection are deemed essential attributes of emerging solutions. We identified four profiles of prospective users according to variations of trust in the new e-ID system. These findings suggest the need for greater transparency to facilitate the adoption of nascent digital identity solutions.

Vladislav Olegovich Sayapin

The article offers an innovative theoretical and methodological framework for analyzing technosocial reality through the synergy of three approaches: transduction (G. Simondon), systems theory (N. Luhmann), and network analysis (M. Castells). In conditions of digital turbulence, when traditional disciplinary models fail to explain the dynamics of hybrid systems (algorithms, digital platforms, cyber-physical spaces), this triad overcomes the limitations of reductionism. Transduction reveals the mechanisms of spontaneous genesis of novelty, network theory maps out the flows of resources and power, while the systemic approach provides the tools for understanding the resilience of structures in a metastable environment. The complementarity of these perspectives allows for capturing the key dynamics of the formation of modernity, which includes significant factors: processuality, nonlinearity, and conflict, inaccessible to each paradigm separately. This theoretical "alchemy" transforms the methodological crisis of the digital age into a powerful tool, where the metastability of technosocial formations acquires intelligible contours. The methodological toolkit of the article is based on the sequential application of four complementary methods within the framework of the complementary triad (Simondon – Luhmann – Castells): comparative analysis, case-oriented modeling, genetic-structural method, and dialectical hermeneutics. This synthetic framework overcomes the static nature of traditional methods, replacing linear causality with the analysis of feedback loops in procedural reality. The key task of the methodology is to unveil the complementary triad for subsequent effective understanding of the contingent and recursive process of the technosocial phase of individuation, producing operationally closed (autoethetic) systems. The study synthesizes three heterogeneous theoretical traditions for the first time, creating a language for analyzing the elusive ontology of the digital age, where human and non-human actors co-evolve through autopoiesis, transductive leaps, and network topologies. The relevance of the work is determined by the crisis of classical sociocultural methods in the face of phenomena such as artificial intelligence in management, which not only executes commands but generates solutions based on data, or blockchain communities that are decentralized around distributed ledger technologies. The practical significance of the approach lies in the development of tools for: forecasting points of bifurcation in technosocial systems (at the intersection of Simondonian metastability and Luhmannian selection); deconstructing the power of algorithms through the lens of network asymmetry (Castells) and operational closure (Luhmann); and the ethical design of digital environments where transduction becomes the creation of a new metastable state of the system.

Christian Schröder

This paper uses the concept of transpoiesis to describe the mechanisms that sustain social movements. Emerging from ethnographic research on the World Social Forum (WSF) and inspired by systems theory, transpoiesis emphasizes the dynamic balance within social movements between decentralized organization and strategic coherence. This differentiates it from autopoiesis, which focuses on self-sustaining systems that maintain and reproduce their structure autonomously through internal processes, rather than emphasizing the dynamic balance between decentralized organization and strategic coherence. Transpoiesis offers a particularly instructive model in the digital age, when classical explanations often fail to account for the rapid pace of change, innovation, flexibility and decentralized collaboration that characterize modern organizations. The concept aids in understanding how social movements build collective identities, navigate organizational dynamics, structure collective learning, and contribute to social change. Moreover, it reflects the broader shift toward network-based arrangements in contemporary organizations, an adaptation to the complexities of the digital environment.

Primavera De Filippi, Tara Merk

No abstract is available for this record.

Nick Große, Frederik Möller, Thorsten Schoormann, Michael Henke

In times of rapid and unpredictable developments, companies experience significant volatility in capacity utilization. Virtual capacity exchange platforms help to mitigate this challenge by exchanging capacities with anonymous participants in market-like peer-to-peer networks. However, its efficiency is hindered by behavioral uncertainties, including a lack of inter-organizational trust in other participants. To leverage the potential of such exchange platforms, this paper reports on a Design Science Research project aiming to derive and validate design principles for establishing trust in inter-organizational capacity exchange in two design iterations. Using blockchain technology, we instantiate six design principles into an artifact and perform experimental evaluations to investigate their effect on perceived trust. Our paper contributes to research and practice by identifying and applying prescriptive design knowledge and advancing our understanding of how to design trust-enabling inter-organizational systems. The originality lies within the empirical investigation of how and why different design principle combinations can be established through blockchain technology as one of the promising approaches for establishing trust. In doing this, we also disclose future pathways for IS and blockchain researchers and practitioners.

Mikael Lindquist

No abstract is available for this record.

Insaf Khelladi, Sylvaine Castellano, Catherine Lejealle

Although academic and practical interest in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has continuously increased over the last few years, there is still a need to better understand their social acceptability. The aim of the study was to explore the double edge of NFT legitimacy for NFTs by unveiling the role of sustainability and by adopting technology legitimacy and the field of sustainability transition studies as a theoretical lens. Specifically, this research investigates the role of sustainability in securing and maintaining technology legitimacy within NFT projects. We interviewed 12 experts through exploratory qualitative research. The findings highlight three main ways in which sustainability participates in the legitimation of NFT projects. While sustainability can be inherent in the NFT project itself, this legitimation can also be derived from the perceived sustainability of the NFT technology or be part of innovative business models. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are then discussed. JEL CODES: O33, O35, O50

Josh Wei-Jie Hsiao

This project embarks on a spatial inquiry into Web3. Often hailed as the next iteration of the internet, Web3 is more than a facelift; it’s a calculated unveil that prompts us to re-examine Web2’s participatory past. Importantly, Web3’s algorithmic architecture both expands the web’s horizons and reflexively delineates its own perceptual identity. As it rises alongside digital platforms’ hegemony, we must scrutinize the territories it foregrounds — the very “wheres”— and the underlying “whys” that sculpt its distinct vantage for vested agendas. Drawing insights from media studies, critical data studies, and STS, this project focuses on influential powers sculpting the interplay between corporate developers and the Web3 landscape. The theoretical framework is primarily organized around the concepts of news cartography, architects’ gaze, and software performativity. Methodologically, this tripartite study leans on multiple ethnographic works to go beyond just studying tech structures, capturing both material and discursive forces that mold them. My empirical focus is grounded in specialist journalistic publications (in chapter 1), ethnographic observations, and aggregated data of sites (in chapters 2 and 3). Each chapter underscores its rationale for data collection, yet aliging with the ethos of infrastructure ethnography. My research pivots on the argument that Web3 gives rise to “algorithmic spatiality.” It extends beyond software’s materiality, echoing geographers’ assertions that (digital) space is programmed, assembled, and arranged. Thus, I view Web3 not just as a deliberate construct, but also as a dialogical practice of shaping and organizing its very essence. Influenced by Massey’s (1999) portrayal of power as spatial-relational dynamics, I employ “power-geometries” as a foundational lens to discern the varied influences of Web3 on sociality. This juxtaposes with the pervasive power of existing digital platforms, often termed the Web2 status quo, awaiting transition. For new media research, approaching Web3 with an algorithmic and spatial lens invites us to see sociality as a dynamic reshaping, subtly directed by coded practices, often obscuring their corporate genesis. I argue that to truly fathom our unfolding digital landscape, it’s imperative to closely scrutinize the pivotal roles of key actors. Especially, the corporate-scripted agents, in all their forms, actively molding these emerging topographies.

Paul J. Ennis, Donncha Kavanagh, Luís Araújo

This paper inquires into the dynamic imaginaries of the Ethereum project. We present Ethereum as animated by three such imaginaries: the world computer (technical), productive money (economic) and public goods (political). We examine how these imaginaries are materialized, carried forward and evolve through the Ethereum ecosystem, focusing on how Ethereum’s prefigurative logic underpins this dynamism. In our analysis, we pay particular attention to how the imaginaries overlap and often generate contradictions that nonetheless do not seem to undermine the cohesion of the project. We introduce the concept of ‘prefigurative imaginaries’ to describe how prefiguration works to create multiple, mutually entangled but distinct imaginaries.

Vincent Schlatt, Johannes Sedlmeir, Simon Feulner, Nils Urbach

Know your customer (KYC) processes place a great burden on banks, because they are costly, inefficient, and inconvenient for customers. While blockchain technology is often mentioned as a potential solution, it is not clear how to use the technology's advantages without violating data protection regulations and customer privacy. We demonstrate how blockchain-based self-sovereign identity (SSI) can solve the challenges of KYC. We follow a rigorous design science research approach to create a framework that utilizes SSI in the KYC process, deriving nascent design principles that theorize on blockchain's role for SSI.

Balázs Bodó, Heleen Janssen

No abstract is available for this record.

Ulrich Schmitt

The predicted embracing of thriving knowledge societies is increasingly compromised by threatening perceptions of information overload and attention poverty, opportunity divides and career uncertainties. By integrating system dynamics, discrete-event, and agent-based modeling, this paper traces the roots of these symptoms back to their causes of information entropy and structural holes, invisible private and undiscoverable public knowledge which together characterize the sad state of our current knowledge management (KM) and creation practices. Looking forward, it proposes a decentralized generative KM approach that prioritizes the capacity development of autonomous individual knowledge workers not at the expense but as a viable means to foster a fruitful co-evolution with traditional organizational KM systems. As part of an ongoing design science research and prototyping project, this systems thinking and hybrid model perspective complements a succession of prior multidisciplinary publications on the subject.

Sarah Manski

Organizations are utilizing new technologies including distributed ledgers to challenge value accounting within global capitalism. This paper investigates new radical digital accounting practices underpinning this form of organizing and explores the development of new technologies of value accounting practices enabled by distributed ledger technologies, such as generative value accounting. This theory paper makes use of the concept of the sociotechnical imaginary as it offers a framework for understanding how a technologist’s vision of the ideal future influences their design choices in the present with Holochain as a specific case.

Chris Elsden, Kate Symons, Raluca Bunduchi, Chris Speed · 5 authors

Recent work within HCI and CSCW has become attentive to the politics of data and metrics in order to highlight the implications of what counts and how. In this paper, we relate these discussions to the longstanding distinctions made between value and values. We introduce literature on 'Valuation Studies' and argue for understanding the politics of data through valuation - an ongoing social practice that transforms socially embedded values into different forms of more abstract value. This theoretical work is developed through an ethnographic study of contemporary UK charity shops, as a site focused on the labour of valuation, but embedded in both local and global values. Through this study, we consider implications for the intervention and design of 'data-driven innovation', with a particular focus on distributed ledger technologies. We argue that these technologies inevitably engage in valuation, and require careful attention to the ongoing processes by which value is translated and performed by different stakeholders.

Jonas Valbjørn Andersen, Claire Ingram Bogusz

Given the ubiquity of digital technologies, and increased use of autonomous algorithms, it is likely that many of today’s social and organizational processes will one day include autonomous elements. The Bitcoin blockchain is likely the first case of an increasingly generative and autonomous way of organizing, and the specific properties of blockchain infrastructures—distribution of control, openness to manipulation, and generativity of the underlying source code—make it an ideal case to study patterns of self-organizing. This paper investigates the phenomenon of self-organizing through a study of forking in the Bitcoin blockchain infrastructure between 2010 and 2016. It adds to the emerging body of research on digital infrastructures, and particularly blockchain infrastructures, by conceptualizing forking as a pattern of self-organizing in blockchain infrastructures that specifically involves the underlying infrastructure, the scale of code changes, individual objectives, and collective adoption, whether specific or general. Thus, this paper demonstrates how forking in blockchain infrastructures mediates between divergent organizing objectives and existing capabilities, on the one hand, and generates self-organizing on the other hand. In this paper, we further contextualize our findings in extant work on digital infrastructures, offer a guide for designers of blockchain infrastructures, and propose the concept of “generative mirroring” as a pattern through which blockchain infrastructures and organizing adaptively coevolve.

Yingli Wang, Catherine Huirong Chen, Ahmed Zghari-Sales

While blockchain technologies are gaining momentum within supply chains, academic understanding of concrete, real-life design and implementation is still lagging, hence offering very limited insights into the true implications of blockchain technology on supply chains. This paper reports a two-year design science research (DSR) study of a smart contract initiative piloted by a consortium in the UK’s construction sector. We seek answers to the research question, ‘How should a blockchain enabled supply chain be designed?’ Guided by the theory of business model, we explore how a group of supply chain actors collectively designs and pilots a blockchain solution that addresses the supply chain transparency and provenance problem. Our research is one of the very few longitudinal empirical studies to offer in-depth evidence about how blockchain is deployed in complex multi-tier supply chain networks. In compliance with DSR research paradigm, we make contributions at three levels: designing and instantiating the blockchain architect and proving its utility in addressing the target problem; developing a set of design principles as a mid-range theory that can be applied and tested in different blockchain supply chain contexts; and refining and extending the kernel theory of business value at supply chain network level.