The open Source Software (OSS) became the backbone of the most heavily used technologies, including operating systems, cloud computing, AI, Blockchain, Bigdata Systems, IoT, and many more. Although the OSS individual contributors are the primary power for developing the OSS projects, they do not contribute to the OSS project's decisionmaking as much as their contributions in the OSS Projects development. This paper proposes a framework to democratize the OSS Project's decision-making using a blockchain-related technology called Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). Using DAO, contributors get incentive tokens as a reward in return for contributions. The earned tokens can be used in the process of decision-making governance. This governance model tends to allow OSS individual contributors to have a public voice in the OSS project's development roadmap in particular, and the OSS decision making governance in general.
Arthur Carvalho, Chad Anderson, Liudmila Zavolokina
Information systems (IS) conferences, as venues for the introduction of new knowledge to the IS community, require effective peer review systems to evaluate submitted research for quality, validity, and originality. We argue in this paper that questionable practices and degrading review quality may arise without direct incentives beyond reviewer altruism to engage in the peer review process. In particular, we highlight potential issues with arguably common practices in some IS conferences, such as peer review invitations sent to researchers who have also submitted papers for publication consideration and the increasing number of reviews performed by graduate students. To address these issues, we suggest three solutions: 1) quid pro quo rules; 2) the use of incentive-compatible methods whose scores are linked to relevant rewards; and 3) the use of blockchain-based tokens in tandem with smart contracts and zero-knowledge proofs. We conclude by offering directions the IS community can take to further study the highlighted issues and implement the proposed solutions.
In an era of rapid technological advancement, decisions about the ownership and governance of emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence will shape the future of both urban and rural environments in the Global North and South. This article explores how AI can move beyond the noise of algorithms by adopting a technological humanistic approach to enable Social Innovation, focusing on global inequalities and digital justice. Using a fieldwork Action Research methodology, based on the Smart Rural Communities project in Colombia and Mozambique, the study develops a framework for integrating AI with SI. Drawing on insights from the AI4SI International Summer School held in Donostia-San Sebastián in 2024, the article examines the role of decentralized Web3 technologies—such as Blockchain, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, and Data Cooperatives—in enhancing data sovereignty and fostering inclusive and participatory governance. The results demonstrate how decentralization can empower marginalized communities in the Global South by promoting digital justice and addressing the imbalance of power in digital ecosystems. The conclusion emphasizes the potential for AI and decentralized technologies to bridge the digital divide, offering practical recommendations for scaling these innovations to support equitable, community-driven governance and address systemic inequalities across the Global North and South.
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Innovative Approaches in Technology and Social Development
Jan 1, 2024·Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences/Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Annika Bengts, Ville Eloranta, Esko Hakanen, Taija Turunen · 5 authors
Business models integrate activities for value creation and capture. While ecosystems have emerged as potent catalysts for value creation through collaborative innovation, the common understanding is that value capture occurs within individual firms. This paper challenges this dichotomy. In an empirical study using a polar types case approach, we first illustrate how two ecosystems employ decentralization technology, specifically blockchain-based Web3 platforms, to elevate value capture to the ecosystem level. We then outline the implications beyond the blockchain domain using two non-Web3 cases. Specifically, we show—from the perspectives of value proposition, value constellation, and profit equation—how business models can rise to the ecosystem level.
Paul van Vulpen, H.M. Heijnen, S. P. van Mens, Thijn Kroon · 5 authors
Upgradeable smart contracts allow decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) to address bugs, enhance security, and expand functionality post-deployment. The proxy pattern enables smart contract upgradeability but introduces admin-centric governance, where power is concentrated in a single or small number of addresses. This paper explores the potential of decentralized smart contract governance to overcome admin centric governance while achieving flexibility in governing smart contracts. We investigate the Diamond Pattern as a flexible upgradeable contract framework that allows for modular smart contracts. Using the SecureSECO DAO as a case study, we examine how the diamond pattern can be configured for decentralized governance. The used architecture allows DAOs to upgrade smart contracts collectively through community consensus, and the implementation provides proposals, votes, and execution without requiring technical knowledge. The study highlights the benefits of this approach, namely, flexibility in smart contract governance, enhanced modularity, and a single point of interaction for governance. We also discuss limitations and challenges for upgradeable smart contracts such as the decision-making delays and potential vulnerabilities. To encourage adoption of consensus governance, we call for the creation of user-friendly tooling and smart contract facets.
Bug bounty programs play a pivotal role for companies in identifying vulnerabilities within their digital products through collaborations with a global network of security researchers. In this paper, we introduce the bug bounty trilemma challenge—a concept that entails the delicate balance of security, privacy, and rewards within these programs. We then delve into “Bounty 3.0” as an innovative approach, harnessing the transformative potential of blockchain and Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs). Blockchain technology ensures un-paralleled transparency, decentralization, and immutability in bug reports and token-based bounties, while ZKPs establish a secure, anonymous, and confidential reporting process that safeguards privacy. This approach acts as a bridge, seamlessly connecting traditional bug bounty programs with block-chainWeb3 solutions, effectively addressing the bug bounty trilemma.
A adoção de blockchain e Contratos Inteligentes (CI) tem se demonstrado uma opção valiosa para organizações inovarem em seus sistemas de informação. Nesse sentido, presencia-se uma adesão ao desenvolvimento open source por parte dos envolvidos em tal ecossistema, especialmente com base na plataforma Ethereum e no uso do GitHub. Logo, nota-se uma formação de um contexto sociotécnico para desenvolvimento de CI através do uso de plataformas para hospedagem de código-fonte como, por exemplo o GitHub. Porém, apesar da presença de pesquisas prévias sobre manutenção de CIs, constata-se uma lacuna de pesquisa como foco na compreensão de componentes sociotécnicos em tal domínio. Nesse sentido, sob um escopo metodológico exploratório pautado em Mineração de Repositórios de Software na Teoria Sociotécnica, este traba- lho tem como objetivo principal analisar componentes sociotécnicos em repositórios open source de contratos inteligentes implantados na plataforma Ethereum. Como contribuições alcançadas, quatro perspectivas principais foram contempladas: 1) na discussão sobre efeito do deploy na Ethereum sobre os aspectos colaborativos (com foco em contribuidores, commits e issues); 2) na compreensão sobre a caracterização dos contribuidores envolvidos nos projetos; 3) na categorização sobre o que mudou quanto à evolução de software em tais projetos a partir das mensagens de commits e 4) no entendimento sobre a relação entre métricas de mercado (valor de mercado e volume e evolução de software (em termos de commits).
Although the prices of cryptocurrencies remained volatile for the past decade, the factors that impact the price dynamics of the new type of investment instrument have not been fully identified yet. In this study, we recognize the dual nature of cryptocurrencies, that is, being a software program and a financial instrument, and examine the impact of software advancement on the price dynamics of cryptocurrencies. The open-source software (OSS) platform functionality enables social behaviors that we use as signals. Using data from the largest OSS platform, we establish the connection between open-source activities and the price movement of cryptocurrency. In particular, as project popularity (forks and watches) and users’ feedback (issues) increase, the market price increases by 4.3 percent, 2.4 percent, and 4.4 percent per annum, respectively. On the contrary, the number of code corrections (pull requests) is negatively related to prices leading to a 5 percent annual price decrease. Our results suggest that OSS contributions create a perfect selection mechanism, where higher quality projects receive more developers’ attention and user feedback, whereas lower quality projects do not, thus creating the separating equilibrium.
Presently to achieve enterprise digitalization technologies such as Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) has now been deployed to support digital services provided by enterprises. But several challenges in DLTs remain to be addressed, including the interoperability, standardization, and integration. Therefore, this study provides theoretical and practical understanding of DLT interoperability and identified the factors that influence the interoperability of DLTs. Also, an architecture is designed to shows how interoperability can be achieved in DLTs and legacy systems supported by Application Programming Interface (API). A case study is presented to illustrate the applicability of the architecture to support a digital energy marketplace.
Gongfan Chen, Min Liu, Huaming Li, Simon M. Hsiang · 5 authors
Establishing a fair benefit distribution system for construction projects, in which participants often need to work together in a highly uncertain and interrelated environment, is challenging. There is a lack of objective mechanism for construction projects to motivate reliable workflow automatically and instantly. The objective of this study is to develop Shapley value–based smart contracts to automatically assign fair rewards/penalties to motivate task-level collaborations. The research first developed a simulation model to quantify subcontractors’ marginal contributions under different coalitional scenarios. Then, the simulation results were aggregated using Shapley value to determine each participant’s reasonable rewards/penalties. Lastly, the payment was encoded in the smart contract and then deployed in the blockchain to self-enforce consensus executions. The results showed that Shapley value–based smart contracts exhibited incentives to motivate reliable contributions and enable peer negotiations to realize task-level production. The contributions of this study to the body of knowledge are (1) quantify subcontractors’ marginal contributions to the project, and (2) determine how to distribute fair collaborative outcomes when project participants can perform at different levels of effort. The incentives embedded in smart contracts can reshape project participants’ collaborative behaviors toward desired outcomes, enabling a self-manage, self-govern, and self-adjust decentralized autonomous organization.
This chapter highlights the need for a systemic, multi-disciplinary approach to understanding Web3's development. By disaggregating Web3 into interrelated networks of actors that hold distinct interests and beliefs, this chapter aims to describe and map Web3 to advance a more systemic understanding of its order and functioning. While presenting Web3 as a black box, the work underscores the importance of considering both the inherent nature of the technology itself and the broader societal context in which it operates and interacts with. Employing a Science, Technology, and Society lens, the work combines industry insights with a holistic approach to conceptualize the values, interests, and risks associated with Web3. The research holds that systemic challenges flow from Web3's inherent socio-technical and early-stage nature, and that its development is neither solely technologically determined nor entirely reliant on social actors. Instead, Web3's trajectory results from a complex interplay of its technological nature, societal values, stakeholder interests, and external (f)actors.
Blockchain technology promises to revolutionize not only the way we transact among peers but also the way we organize to create socio-economic value. Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are governed and owned by the community whose members follow a set of blockchain-embedded governance rules that define and control participation. In this chapter, we will clarify what governance decentralization and automation mean, examining DAOs’ distinguishing characteristics. We will also discuss the problems that DAOs solve (e.g., lack of extrinsic incentives, censorship, mismanagement and lack of transparency and accountability), as well as the problems they face (e.g., lack of participation, rigidity, voting misbehaviours and legal status).
Anne Ixmeier, Johann Kranz, Jan Recker, Roman Zeiß
A circular economy (CE), an alternative to the current take-make-waste economic model based on the gradual decoupling of economic activities from the consumption of finite virgin resources, cannot be implemented without the help of digital technologies, such as sensors, distributed ledgers, or analytics platforms, as key enablers. To mobilise the information systems (IS) field to help make the transition toward a CE, we outline several important areas of research that warrant our collective attention. Instead of presenting a list of research questions, we explore selected research challenges to stimulate both empirical research and novel solution-oriented theorising. We review hindrances that could undermine successful IS research on topics relevant to a CE and offer directions as pathways to building and evaluating the problem-solution pairing that could characterise a prolific CE–IS relationship.
We introduce the notion of \emph{traceable mixnets}. In a traditional mixnet, multiple mix-servers jointly permute and decrypt a list of ciphertexts to produce a list of plaintexts, along with a proof of correctness, such that the association between individual ciphertexts and plaintexts remains completely hidden. However, in many applications, the privacy-utility tradeoff requires answering some specific queries about this association, without revealing any information beyond the query result. We consider queries of the following types: a) given a ciphertext in the mixnet input list, whether it encrypts one of a given subset of plaintexts in the output list, and b) given a plaintext in the mixnet output list, whether it is a decryption of one of a given subset of ciphertexts in the input list. Traceable mixnets allow the mix-servers to jointly prove answers to the above queries to a querier such that neither the querier nor a threshold number of mix-servers learn any information beyond the query result. Further, if the querier is not corrupted, the corrupted mix-servers do not even learn the query result. We first comprehensively formalise these security properties of traceable mixnets and then propose a construction of traceable mixnets using novel distributed zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) of set membership and of a statement we call reverse set membership. Although set membership has been studied in the single-prover setting, the main challenge in our distributed setting lies in making sure that none of the mix-servers learn the association between ciphertexts and plaintexts during the proof. We implement our distributed ZKPs and show that they are faster than state-of-the-art by at least one order of magnitude.
Recent regulatory changes have enabled NCAA student-athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL), departing from previous policies requiring those athletes to maintain their amateur status. However, despite the changes, it is unlikely that all the approximately 500,000 NCAA student-athletes will profit from NIL contracts. Within this context, we study how to design a fair and inclusive solution that may help all student-athletes secure NIL financial resources. Following a design science approach, we define design requirements after interviewing student-athletes. Subsequently, we derive three design principles: inclusiveness, fairness, and transparency. Thereafter, we suggest a blockchain-based artifact that satisfies all design principles. Our idea lies in designing collectibles as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that pay different royalties whenever a transaction (purchase or exchange) happens in different markets (primary or secondary). Finally, we evaluate our solution by discussing its features with current student-athletes.
Jeremiah Stoddard, Michael Cutshaw, Tyler Williams, Allan Friedman · 5 authors
As Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) adoption efforts mature, SBOM sharing continues to occur, but no single solution or set of solutions have become ubiquitous. The purpose of this report is to enumerate and describe the different parties and phases of the SBOM sharing lifecycle and assist readers in choosing suitable SBOM sharing solutions based on the amount of time, resources, subject-matter expertise, effort, and access to tooling that is available to the reader to implement a phase of the SBOM sharing lifecycle. The SBOM sharing lifecycle consists of the Discovery, Access, and Transport of an SBOM and this report details these individual phases and how an SBOM goes from author to the consumer. This report also details how potential enrichment activities may be performed on an SBOM to create a new product before or after it has been shared. The concept of a sophistication classification for SBOM sharing solutions is concurrently introduced with a focus on the inclusion or lack of certain features and effort associated with their implementation. Examples of low, medium, and high-sophistication solutions are provided; however, these examples and associated categorizations should not be seen as a qualitative judgment meant to push the reader towards a particular adoption strategy since sharing solutions are chosen based on the unique needs of the user. This report does recommend the SBOM community consider how to make current and future sharing solutions interoperable with each other as well as more automated methods to facilitate sharing and broader SBOM adoption. This report also highlights an SBOM sharing survey results obtained from interviews with stakeholders to understand the current SBOM sharing landscape. The categorized results of the survey suggest that SBOMs are currently transported directly to the receiver through email or similar informal communication mechanisms or alternatively the SBOM resides on a repository available to consumers. In addition to these transport methods, this report captures industry efforts to create private sharing solutions and services that can store and transport enrichment data and may use higher sophistication features that are cloud-based or using distributed ledger technologies.
Social impact accounting is a significant issue for social economy organizations (SEOs), such as associations, foundations, social enterprises, social cooperatives, and other nonprofit organizations that aim to be transparent and accountable. The academic accounting literature addresses theoretical and empirical contributions on the methods and tools of measurement, assessment, and reporting of social impact. However, there are few contributions on the emerging topic of the digitalization of the social impact accounting process. Preliminary research analyses consider digital tools such as distributed ledgers including blockchain, big data, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things as innovations that allow SEOs to be more accountable and transparent with their social impacts and value created. The increased attention to these technologies opens the way for new and multidisciplinary research questions on this topic.
Crowdsourcing task success depends on the contributions of developers. How to identify capable developers and motivate them to actively contribute to a task is a challenging issue. This study investigates how the use of cryptocurrency rewards, i.e., the choices of stablecoins and unstablecoins affects the crowdsourcing task success, and how the relationship depends on task difficulty. Based on 3858 crowdsourcing tasks, we find that the use of unstablecoins reduces the number of participating contributors and extends the time period of having the first contributor, but has no significant effect on the likelihood of task success. In addition, task difficulty alleviates the negative effect of the unstablecoins on the number of participants. Our study potentially provides important implications for the use of cryptocurrency tokens as task rewards.