Management Accounting Section Midyear Meeting

Blockchain as a Control Mechanism of Inter-Organizational Relationships: Managing Ecosystems in a Business Context

• In Event: Interfirm Issues

Abstract

Blockchain technology (BT) has been regarded as the biggest invention since the emergence of Internet. However, despite the growing relevance in the use of BT in regulating transactions between entities, most prior research has examined mainly the technical aspects and the performance of BT and its role in managing finance transactions, only marginally addressing business applications. Through a multiple case study analysis, this work explores the implementation of BT in different inter-organizational contexts and describes its role as a control mechanism. It finds that while BT is a key tool in managing the relationships between organizations, there is significant variation in its implementations. Leveraging on ecosystems theory, this study points to some of the factors that are related to this variation, and thus provides an initial theoretical model for understanding the potentialities and organizational control implications that BT has in business applications, well beyond some of the technical functionalities that are normally ascribed to it.

Authors

• Andrea Dello Sbarba, University of Pisa - Department of Economics and Management

• Angelo Ditillo, Università Bocconi