The rise of blockchain technology could radically disrupt the global economy. As an emergent technology, blockchain is of broad and current interest in the tourism industry. Small island economies are at the forefront of adopting this digital asset and technology. For instance, the Caribbean economies are launching their first digital legal tender, and Aruba is developing a blockchain platform to boost tourism revenue. Given the velocity of adoption, blockchain technology holds significant implications for tourism development. This research letter provides a discourse on the adoption of blockchain technology among small island economies concerning the opportunities and potential challenges faced and offers practical implications for tourism stakeholders.
The rapid proliferation of digital technologies with new functionalities has profoundly changed competitive environments, reshaping traditional business strategies and processes (Bharadwaj, Sawy, Pavlou, & Venkatraman, 2013). Such technologies also give rise to new ways of collaboration, leveraging resources, product/service design, development, and deployment over open standards and shared technologies (Markus & Loebecke, 2013). At the microlevel, digital technologies also reshaped the mentality of entrepreneurs (Domenico, Daniel, & Nunan, 2014) and hence affect their decision-making processes (Shepherd, Williams, & Patzelt, 2014). Digital entrepreneurship includes ventures and transformation of existing businesses by creating novel digital technologies and/or novel usage of such technologies. Currently, many countries consider digital entrepreneurship as a critical pillar for digital economic development. It is imperative to develop a fine-grained understanding of digital entrepreneurship. Traditionally, research on entrepreneurship seeks to understand “how, by whom, and with what effects opportunities to create future goods and services are discovered, evaluated, and exploited” (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000) and how entrepreneurial activities, processes, and outcomes are influenced by certain contexts (Zahra, Wright, & Abdelgawad, 2014). Despite the increasing numbers of entrepreneurs and businesses that are currently using digital technologies to pursue opportunities, research has lagged far behind practice and paid limited attention to the phenomenon (Grégoire & Shepherd, 2012). Particularly, the understanding about the role that digital technologies play in entrepreneurship and the role that users and agents play in digital entrepreneurship remains limited (Nambisan, 2016). Several review articles on entrepreneurship also clearly point out the gaps in understanding the novel usage of digital technologies by entrepreneurs (Kiss, Danis, & Cavusgil, 2012; Mainela, Puhakka, & Servais, 2014; Shepherd et al., 2014). Research in the IS field has a relatively long tradition of investigating entrepreneurial actions enabled by digital technologies within an organizational context (Bharadwaj et al., 2013; Sambamurthy, Bharadwaj, & Grover, 2003). However, only a few recent studies have shed light on the characteristics and design of digital platforms for entrepreneurial activities, such as crowdfunding (Burtch, 2013; Burtch, 2014; Zheng, Li, Wu, & Xu, 2014). The objective of this special issue is to provide a forum for IS and other business scholars to engage in this important dialogue on digital entrepreneurship and to contribute to the development of cumulative knowledge in this pivotal area. The selected articles address digital entrepreneurship from quite diversified perspectives with different methodologies and shed light on the roles of technologies. In particular, these studies reveal some interesting interactions among platforms, players, institutions, and agency and offer rich insights to guide future research on digital entrepreneurship. The study on “Digital Transformation by SME Entrepreneurs: A Capability Perspective” by Li, Su, Zhang, and Mao (2018) offers a special perspective to understand the transformation of SMEs in a digital ecosystem. This paper presents case studies that describe how seven SMEs have transformed from local, incapable small firms to active and successful cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) players on the Alibaba platform. From the authors' view, these Chinese firms were “least likely to embrace IT and complex digital platforms for foreign trade.” The miracle happened through dynamic managerial capability building, organization capability building for CBEC, and strategic changes. A key perspective to appreciate the paper is its exposition on how SMEs acquire capabilities through the Alibaba digital platform. While the authors rightfully focus on SMEs' acquisition of capabilities necessary for CBEC and beyond, a reader may as well appreciate how a digital platform plays a nurturing role in this process. Almost at every step, the platform goes the extra mile in motivating SMEs, providing hands-on training on the use of the platform, providing social networking and mutual learning among SMEs, building CBEC tools to overcome trading barriers, and motivating SMEs for strategic transformation. Therefore, the moral of the story is really not only about how individual SMEs became heroically successful but also about what a platform should do to build a digital ecosystem, with CBEC being an example. The authors call it the “management-oriented service” of the platform, which could be interpreted as the “nurturing,” “coaching,” and “scaffolding” roles of the platform. The intricate relationship between the platform and SMEs is what makes this case study different. A plausible explanation of this phenomenon is the Chinese business culture on relationships or “guanxi.” If so, this study offers an interesting contrast to the typical arms-length business relationship that exists between firms and a platform in the West. The paper, “From a Marketplace of Electronics to a Digital Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (DEE): The Emergence of a Meta-Organization in Zhongguancun, China,” by Du, Pan, Zhou, and Ouyang (2018), focuses on the digital entrepreneurial ecosystem (DEE) and, particularly, the role of the external environment, using a case-based approach. The paper reports on the findings from a single case study of an emerging DEE in China, often referred to as “China's Silicon Valley.” Meta-organizational theory is used to show that the emergence of the DEE involves the development of a meta-organization or “community.” The meta-organization comprises elements of labour (institutional supporters, coworking space operators, and niche players) and integration effort, which is concerned with the construction of a common infrastructure and the cultivation of an entrepreneurial culture. The study adds to the literature by providing a rich account of the emergence of a DEE and showing the importance of taking a community perspective in examining how the actors involved organize to exploit the entrepreneurial opportunities available through digital technologies. Given that much of the research on digital entrepreneurship is at the single firm level, this study makes an important contribution by examining the ecosystem and the meta-organization formation process. This provides a richly grounded basis for guiding entrepreneurs on the dynamics of a DEE and the roles and processes involved. Sometimes, digital platforms may pose negative challenges to heterogeneous entrepreneurship. The stigma of a digital platform is one of such challenges that might affect entrepreneurs and their ventures on the platform. The study by Ingram Bogusz and Morisse (2018), entitled “How Infrastructures Anchor Open Entrepreneurship: The Case of Bitcoin and Stigma,” brings a fresh perspective to understand the relational aspects of digital platforms by using an ideological lens to examine how a digital platform (in this case bitcoin infrastructure) is described and interpreted by open entrepreneurs and how such ideologically heterogeneous entrepreneurship responds to stigma towards bitcoin communities. The authors used a case study of the bitcoin community and entrepreneurs to reveal the possible ideologies held by entrepreneurs over bitcoin communities, ranging from mainstream, pragmatist, technologist to libertarian. Entrepreneurs with different ideologies develop different interpretations of the stigma towards bitcoin communities and hence respond in different ways. Financing is a critical issue for entrepreneurship, and crowdfunding offers a novel approach. Two papers in this special issue provide interesting and supplementary insight. The paper entitled “Sponsor's Cocreation and Psychological Ownership in Reward-based Crowdfunding” by Zheng, Xu, Zhang, and Wang (2018) addresses the topic of online reward-based crowdfunding. The study draws on data from a sample of individual crowdfunding investors in China. It focuses on how the sponsor's psychological ownership of the entrepreneurial project is promoted by their value cocreation process and leads to an improvement of the sponsor-entrepreneur relationship and commitment. Sponsor's cocreation positively influences psychological ownership by generating perceptions of control and intimate knowing about the project, which the authors showed as important mediators of the relationship. The study found that the relationship between sponsor cocreation and psychological ownership was moderated by the entrepreneur's activeness, as well as by social connections, implying that active involvement of the entrepreneur and sharing of information were important factors in enhancing the relationship. The paper makes an important contribution to a so-far neglected area of reward-based crowdfunding research by focusing on the postinvestment behaviours and relationships of sponsors and entrepreneur. By considering the role of sponsor cocreation on the relationship and the sponsor's ongoing commitment to the project, the paper provides useful insights into the psychological and behavioural dimensions associated with reward-based crowdfunding. The study by Thies, Wessel, and Benlian (2018), entitled “Network Effects on Crowdfunding Platforms: Exploring the Implications of Relaxing Input Control,” sheds light on the mechanisms that drive the evolution and growth of a crowdfunding platform. Using 8-year data from one of the most popular reward-based crowdfunding platforms, Kickstarter, the authors seek to answer whether, in such digital platforms, the platform growth is mainly driven by funders, entrepreneurial projects, or their reciprocal relationship. The findings suggest asymmetric network effects, in that increasing the number of entrepreneurial projects, as compared with the number of funders, contributes more to network effects and is more critical for platform growth. Hence, should losing input control, one of the mechanisms to increase the number of entrepreneurial projects, be a reasonable choice? The results show that both same-side and cross-side network effects would be compromised. The value in this research is to offer a useful way to understand the dynamics in digital platforms resulting from network structures. The selected articles investigate quite a diversified yet related set of phenomena in digital entrepreneurship and reveal the rich interaction among digital platforms, entrepreneurs, institutions, and investors. We believe these studies add great value to enrich our understanding of digital entrepreneurship and hope the exploration effort made by the authors in this special issue will inspire future research developments. Dr Kathy Ning Shen is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Business and Management at the University of Wollongong in Dubai. She received her Doctoral degree in Information Systems from the City University of Hong Kong and was the Chairperson of the Management Information System Department at Abu Dhabi University. Her main research areas include human-computer interaction, applications of information systems in organizations, e-marketing, virtual communities, and knowledge management. She has published more than 60 refereed journal and conference articles. Her work has appeared in top refereed journals such as Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Information & Management, Journal of Business Research, Communications of the ACM, Behaviour and Information Technology, Journal of Computer Information Systems, and Internet Research and top conferences in the field. Professor Valerie Lindsay is Professor of Entrepreneurship and Management, and Director of Graduate Programs (SBA) at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) in the UAE. She has a PhD from the University of Warwick in the UK. Prior to joining AUS, she was the Dean of the Faculty of Business at the University of Wollongong in Dubai, held academic positions at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and at the University of Warwick, UK, specializing in international business and strategy. Professor Lindsay's research interests lie in the area of international strategy, specifically, internationalization and market entry, SMEs, services internationalization, and business in Asia. Her work has been published in leading journals, including Management International Review, Organizational Dynamics, Industrial Marketing Management, and International Journal of Services Industry Marketing, and she coauthored the book Knowledge at Work. Before joining academia, Valerie was the New Zealand Marketing Manager for ICI Pharmaceuticals and also worked in two New Zealand government departments in the areas of trade and tertiary education. She has consulted widely in strategy and marketing in industry and in government over many years. Professor Yunjie (Calvin) Xu is a Professor at the School of Management, Fudan University, Shanghai, China. He received his PhD in Management Information Systems from Syracuse University, New York, USA. His research interests include electronic commerce, knowledge management, and social media. His research publications appeared in various information systems journals, including Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of Association for Information Systems, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, Communication of the ACM, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Journal of Retailing, and Decision Support Systems.
In this report, Shakow explains how a decentralized autonomous organization functions and interacts with the U.S. tax system and presents the many tax issues that these structures raise. The possibility of using smart contracts to allow an entity to operate totally autonomously on a blockchain platform seems attractive. However, little thought has been given to how such an entity can comply with the requirements of a tax system. The DAO, the first major attempt to create such an organization, failed because of a programming error. If successful examples proliferate in the future, tax authorities will face significant problems in getting these organizations and their owners to comply with the tax laws.
This paper proposes a scheme to use blockchain technology for rideshare services. This paper replaces the centralized authority that matches drivers and riders, with block chain and a matching application that uses two types of coins, which encourages the drivers turning into miners. To evaluate the proposed system, this paper applies the proposed blockchain rideshare service to a case study to simulate and find the least matching probability to make drivers benefit from this system. Furthermore, this paper establishes a mathematical model of the stationary distribution of drivers and calculate the stationary profit of each driver in the blockchain rideshare system.
Aug 1, 2018·2018 17th IEEE International Conference On Trust, Security And Privacy In Computing And Communications/ 12th IEEE International Conference On Big Data Science And Engineering (TrustCom/BigDataSE)
Emerging blockchain systems have been widely adopted in sharing economy, such as e-commerce, to allow mutually distrustful parties to transact fairly without trusted parties. Most blockchain systems, however, lack transactional privacy protection. All transactions, including trading relationship between pseudonyms and content transacted, are exposed on the blockchain. Although many existing privacy protection methods on the blockchain have been proposed, it is difficult to find a trade-off between keeping speed and protecting privacy of transactions. To address this limitation, we propose a novel privacy-preserving method RZKPB that does not store financial transactions in clear on the blockchain, thus retaining transactional privacy from the public's view. Meanwhile, these transactions are as proofs to solve disputes between trading partners. RZKPB ensures fairness and privacy of transactions between participants without adding a new trusted party and breaking the verifying protocol on the blockchain. We take the e-commerce as an example in sharing economy to introduce RZKPB in our paper. Our experimental results show that compared with existing privacy-preserving methods based on the blockchain, RZKPB is more efficient under different settings.
Aug 1, 2018·2018 17th IEEE International Conference On Trust, Security And Privacy In Computing And Communications/ 12th IEEE International Conference On Big Data Science And Engineering (TrustCom/BigDataSE)
Blockchain is a distributed system with efficient transaction recording and has been widely adopted in sharing economy. Although many existing privacy-preserving methods on the blockchain have been proposed, finding a trade-off between keeping speed and preserving privacy of transactions remain challenging. To address this limitation, we propose a novel Fast and Privacy-preserving method based on the Permissioned Blockchain (FPPB) for fair transactions in sharing economy. Without breaking the verifying protocol and bringing additional off-blockchain interactive communication, FPPB protects the privacy and fairness of transactions. Additionally, experiments are implemented in EthereumJ (a Java implementation of the Ethereum protocol) to measure the performance of FPPB. Compared with normal transactions without cryptographic primitives, FPPB only slows down transactions slightly.
Jul 1, 2018·2018 IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things (iThings) and IEEE Green Computing and Communications (GreenCom) and IEEE Cyber, Physical and Social Computing (CPSCom) and IEEE Smart Data (SmartData)
This article explores the potential probability of blockchain technology in assisting enhanced application for ridesharing services. The development of the sharing economy brings numerous novel ideas and generates many innovative businesses. However, the wide range of the sharing economy also causes disputes and questions, including labor, organizations, and regulations. Blockchain technology (hereafter blockchain) can facilitate virtual and physical networking symbiosis. This situation would motivate a new model of governance, namely, the bottom-up organization. Therefore, the blockchain would push governances and citizens to reorganize current complicated systems. In this work, we demonstrate SmaRi to achieve a decentralized transaction system combined with the blockchain as our case. Our proposed system provides users with automated execution and immutable record and distributes more decision-making power from centralized organization to users. These measures may fulfill the core value of the sharing economy through peer-to-peer exchanges. Furthermore, we illustrate how SmaRi can be combined with current management systems. By linking with the original system, SmaRi can establish comprehensive functions quickly. In this work, we can expect modern society to become closer to future smart cities.
Jul 1, 2018·2018 IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things (iThings) and IEEE Green Computing and Communications (GreenCom) and IEEE Cyber, Physical and Social Computing (CPSCom) and IEEE Smart Data (SmartData)
We present a distributed ledger application for the world of citizen philanthropy and social entrepreneurship, with stakeholder incentives designed to increase social good through accountability, transparency, and flexibility. In this system, called Directed Cash, individual donors specify conditions (the “Directed” part) attached to their donation or investment (“Cash”), that are then efficiently paired with interested recipients or aggregators of recipients (charities, social entrepreneurs) using distributed consensus so that the intent and pairing are open while maintaining donor anonymity. Furthermore, Directed Cash flows both ways to promote accountability and transparency: after receipt, a validation flows backwards to return to the donor so that the donor receives a report of how their donation was spent. While some elements of the system borrow from existing cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies, we propose alternative incentives for distributed consensus that are better aligned with the application and promote social good through the stakeholders. This paper describes the goals and concepts, and a system design to achieve these goals, a primary feature of which is a simple SQL-like language to enable specifying conditions, pairing, aggregation and publicly-verifiable reporting.
In the future, ecosystems for managing travel and all the associated services will be more diverse and innovative. These Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) ecosystems will combine services in an unforeseen way to enable fluent travel experiences. However, to succeed, MaaS ecosystems require integrators and enablers. Blockchains can serve as an technology enabler, but to reach their best potential blockchains need to tackle new business needs. MaaS ecosystems form an excellent arena for this. We present a model of a MaaS ecosystem, enabling easy, quick and trusted transactions taking advantage of artificial intelligence and blockchain-enabled smart contracts. We also present a subset demonstration of this model, TravelToken, which utilizes QR code that stores and uses travel information in smart contract over Ethereum. The benefits are that all travel data can be stored in one ticket, information stays unaltered in blockchain, and value-share as well as compensations in case of delays will be automatic.
A blockchain enabled ‘Digital Single Economy” can act as a catalyst for growth and could provide a platform where borderless innovative practices will thrive and create a true collaborative global economy, with shared goals and objectives for the benefit of wider community. A society where digital economy flourishes irrespective of geopolitical ideologies and where a technology like Blockchain holds transformative potential to unite the nations together. The UK currently has strong collaborations around blockchain including with the British Blockchain Association which aims to integrate with the EU on the adoption of Blockchain based methods around a range of application areas. However, at the core of these alliances must be the promotion of technology which link industry, the public sector, and academia, whilst also integrating key stakeholders, such as law enforcement, finance, health care, professional bodies and the legal industry.
Abstract Access to housing is a crucial issue worldwide. It is still under discussion whether collaborative economy is enhancing or, on the contrary, constraining access. In this context, the concept of ‘collaborative housing’ (collaborative economy applied to the funding, access and organisation of housing) arises to address a range of situations that might potentially help people to access housing, such as co-housing or the so-called ‘intermediate tenures’. Disintermediation through blockchain technology, and the resultant effect of a reduction in the transaction costs of access to housing, is one of those trends regarding collaborative housing. Accordingly, the adaptation of the disintermediation mechanism to the real estate conveyance and land registry, as in many other sectors of the collaborative economy, is timely. This can be achieved by exploring the potential of this mechanism in enhancing traditional methods of this sector through possible technological solutions. This paper presents a preliminary discussion on the different types of collaborative housing and the potentials of the blockchain technology to facilitate access to housing in relation to real estate conveyancing and registration.
Pradeep Murugan, Suraj Subramanian, Mr. V Pandarinathan Dr. D. Rajinigirinath
A new model for building massively scalable and profitable applications is emerging. Bitcoin paved the way with its cryptographically stored ledger, scarce asset model, and peer-to-peer technology. These features provide a starting point for building a new type of software called decentralized applications, or dapps. They are more flexible, transparent, distributed, resilient, and have a better incentivized structure than current software models. Centralized systems are currently the most widespread model f software applications. Centralized systems directly control the operation of the individual units and flow of information from a single center. Blockchain, a massively replicated database of transactions that's able to avoid Sybil attacks. For the first blockchain lets us achieve decentralized consensus without the use of a centralized server.
Chris Elsden, Kate Symons, Chris Speed, John Vines · 5 authors
Abstract The OxChain project is investigating the design of blockchain applications in partnership with a large and traditionally trusted institution, Oxfam. We outline some of the potential opportunities that distributed ledger technologies could offer the charity and development sector as a whole, but focus on the challenges of undertaking co-design work in the context of large institutions. We suggest the need to leverage existing trusted relationships and understand the unique value that such institutions offer.
Jan Krämer, Jan Martijn E. M. van der Werf, Johan Stokking, Marcela Ruiz
Distributed Infrastructure Initiatives (DIIs) are communities that collaboratively produce and consume infrastructure. To develop a healthy ecosystem, DIIs require an economic model that balances supply and demand, but there is currently a lack of tooling to support implementing these. In this research, we propose an architecture for a platform that enables DIIs to implement such models, focused around a digital currency based on blockchain technology. The currency is issued according to the amount participants contribute to the initiative, which is quantified based on operational metrics gathered from the infrastructure. Furthermore, the platform enables participants to deploy smart contracts which encode self-enforcing agreements about the infrastructure services they exchange. The architecture has been evaluated through a case study at The Things Network (TTN) a global distributed crowdsourced Internet of Things initiative. The case study revealed that the architecture is effective for the selected case at TTN. In addition, the results motivate future research lines to support scalability (i.e., to deploy the architecture on a larger scale) and security.
Sina Rafati Niya, Florian Shupfer, Thomas Bocek, Burkhard Stiller
Smart Contracts (SC) extend the applicability of Blockchains (BC) in various decentralized use cases. This work demonstrates the design and implementation of a trading application which, employs SC and Ethereum BC. This Decentralized Application (Dapp) provides flexibility in requesting user Identity (ID) directly by seller/hirer and buyers/renter. To provide trust, deposits are paid by two sides while setting up contracts. WiFi- Direct is the chosen Device to Device (D2D) communication protocol which provides high data rates and secure data transmission. Light-Weight SC are introduced in this work which, use D2D communications for sending sold or rented object's or each party's images, and ID data directly to other party instead of storing them in the public BC to reduce the costs. Evaluations in terms of D2D deployment, transaction costs, and privacy, indicate that this system is time-efficient and manages the process in a cost-efficient fashion without the need to store and publish all of the user's ID information in BC.
The phenomenal growth of Internet-services has created a vibrant new domain for sharing economy. Millions of users around the world share personal services and possessions with others - often complete strangers. Such sharing schemes also increase the risk of violation of one's informational and physical privacy. Strangers often have to trust each other with their privacy (e.g. a surveillance camera in an Airbnb room). However, very little research has been devoted to investigate privacy in sharing economy. In this paper, we explore the privacy concerns associated with contractual renting or leasing of IoT devices-enabled home. We propose a methodology to eliminate privacy threats from IoT-enabled telematics devices in a smart home via blockchain-based smart contract. For the purpose of illustration, we focus on how we can circumvent the privacy threat from indoor surveillance IP cameras in a smart home-sharing economy.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to argue for the role of the blockchain, i.e., distributed ledger technology, in building innovative business models, including machine money, autonomous economic agents and decentralised organisations. Design/methodology/approach The paper is conceptual/argumentative. As such, it draws on research on (e-)commerce, theories of markets, disruptive innovation and extant studies and conceptual work at the intersection of cryptocurrencies, machine-to-machine commerce and the Internet of Things. Findings The authors highlight three application areas for blockchains, whereby they can function as applications, can help develop autonomous economic agents and can lead the development of decentralised autonomous organisations. With regards to the question of market disintermediation, the authors suggest that, rather than complete disintermediation, the most probable scenario is that of new types of intermediaries finding previously unthinkable roles to play in mediating blockchain-based economic transactions. With regards to the inhibitors that slow down the technology’s adoption and, therefore, the development of new business applications, the authors posit that these relate mainly to the inherent risk of the technology, infrastructure requirements, scepticism of early decision makers and the lack of required new skills and competencies. Originality/value The authors examine how new forms of digital money and technologies embedding trust in decentralised networks will alter markets and commerce, at a time when many regulatory issues remain unresolved; in doing so, the authors focus on how blockchain-enabled technologies can be used to enable and further develop decentralised trusted peer-to-peer transaction ledger systems and applications and lead to sustainable business models.
Alexander Babkin, Т. А. Головина, A.V. Polyanin, Yulia Vertakova
The modernization of traditional process and service industries, organization of trading and procurement procedures, related financial and logistical operations, change in the structure of consumption associated with the through penetration of information technologies and digitization of economic processes creates the basis for formation of new markets and conditions for their functioning. As employees, consumers, businesses, and manufacturing processes become increasingly related as a single digital space, digitalization offers wide possibilities for new decision-making models being the basis for ongoing global economic and social transformations which change business and consumer models, one of which is the sharing economy. The digital model of sharing economy will be developed and transformed in the next few years to achieve the main purpose – the use of unengaged or underused assets in the economy. In this regard, the search for new tools and technologies for business models development is vital. The authors present the content, advantages, current state and prospects for development of the distributed registry technology (blockchain). It is presented that it will increase transparency, security and efficiency of transactions of economic entities in various financial and non-financial fields. A transactional model of the economic system based on the blockchain technology is presented. The sharing economy features and characteristics are given.