Understanding smart contracts as a new option in transaction cost economics

Among different concepts associated with the term blockchain, smart contracts have been a prominent one, especially popularized by the Ethereum platform. In this study, we unpack this concept within the framework of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE). This institutional economics theory emphasizes the role of distinctive (private and public) contract law regimes in shaping firm boundaries. We propose that widespread adoption of the smart contract concept creates a new option in public contracting, which may give rise to a smart-contract-augmented contract law regime. We discuss tradeoffs involved in the attractiveness of the smart contract concept for firms and the resulting potential for change in firm boundaries. Based on our new conceptualization, we discuss potential roles the three branches of government – judicial, executive, and legislative – in enabling and using this new contract law regime. We conclude the paper by pointing out limitations of the TCE perspective and suggesting future research directions

Collaborative Practices in Information Systems Development: A Collective Reflection-in-Action Framework

With the growth of consumer-faced information systems (IS) applications, IS designers are increasingly moving from seeing their work as ìcapturing and automating requirementsî to seeing it as ìinnovation in product development.î The new metaphor engenders organizational practices targeted at fostering innovation. One such practice is the creation of professionally and organizationally diverse development teams with the goal of creatively combining individual competencies in the resultant product. This paper draws on the longitudinal field study of such a team in order to build a practice-based framework for understanding collaboration on IS development (ISD) projects. The framework depicts ISD as a collective reflection-in-action process that increasingly defines the product. The IS product is the result of participants iteratively challenging each other or following what has been already established on the project. Which action is taken is shaped by the status relations among professionally and organizationally diverse actors

Collaborating across Boundaries in a Global Economy: Do Organizational Boundaries and Country Contexts Matter?

As firms spend a growing part of their budgets on offshore activities, they experience pressure to source increasingly more complex, less codified, and more strategic IT projects abroad. Successfully completing such projects requires close collaboration among all participants. It has been argued that firms are better off keeping such projects within their organizational boundaries by setting up captive offshore development centers, especially if these firms have sufficient scale. This paper presents a qualitative case study of a large financial services organization that used both captive centers and third-party vendors in multiple global locations to deliver its IT projects. Using a grounded theory approach, it highlights the kinds of organizational practices that helped this firm accomplish global collaboration. Surprisingly, the data indicates that achieving effective collaboration did not depend on whether the project was kept within the firm’s boundaries, nor did it depend on choosing a specific offshore location. Instead, effective collaboration was facilitated by specific middle managers who engaged in boundary-spanning practices across countries and firms

Speaking as one, but not speaking up : dealing with new moral taint in an occupational online community

This paper builds a process theory of how participants in an online community deal with a new identity threat. Based upon the in-depth, interpretive case study of an online community of retail bankers, it develops a grounded theory that reveals that participants in an online community deal with new taint by protecting their occupation's identity but not by attempting to repair its external image. In the investigated community, reactions progressed from rejecting the taint to distancing from it and, finally, resigning to it. Overall, the dynamics of an occupational online community reveal that the objective of protecting the existing identity of its members supersede that of taking a more proactive stance to address the identity threat and attempt to influence new regulations affecting the occupation

Social Dynamics in Online Cultural Fields

In spite of a long literature on online communities and electronic networks, little theoretical work has been done on understanding a recent online phenomenon: user-generated content (UGC) platforms. This paper proposes an analytical lens for the study of social dynamics on UGC platforms. Drawing on Bourdieu\u27s concepts of field and capital, we introduce the notion of online cultural field and investigate which characteristics of agents and their contribution behavior produce status distinctions in these fields. These characteristics are then placed in a framework which attempts to address how capital is produced, reproduced and transformed in online cultural fields and how these processes help us understand the evolution of these fields. We briefly review how we will follow this theoretical model with an empirical investigation

Software-as-a Service Model: Elaborating Client-Side Adoption Factors

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is emerging as a viable outsourcing option for clients interested in paying for the right to access through the network a standardized set of business software functions. SaaS model largely replaced the Application Service Providers (ASPs)-based model, by creating an architecture that that provides no mechanisms for customizing the software on the vendor side; all customization is done on the client side through standardized interfaces. The fact that vendors are not making any client-specific investments makes this outsourcing model quite intriguing. In this paper we investigate client’s side determinants of adopting the SaaS model. We draw on economic, strategic management, and IS theories to develop a theoretical framework. In it, we develop a more elaborate view of uncertainty as some types uncertainty increase the propensity to adopt SaaS, while other types do the opposite. Finally, we integrate the role of the internal enterprise IT architecture into our model

Collaborating on Multi-party Information Systems Development Projects: A Collective Reflection-in-Action View

Growth of business-to-consumer (B2C) applications such as electronic storefronts, catalogues, and customer support websites has drawn a great number of diverse stakeholders into the IS Development (ISD) practice. Marketing, strategy, and graphic design specialists have joined a variety of technical professionals and business stakeholders in developing B2C applications. Oftentimes, these professionals work for different organizations with different histories, cultures, and reward structures. A longitudinal qualitative field study of a B2C application development project was undertaken in order to build an in-depth understanding of the collaborative practices of diverse professionals in ISD projects. The paper proposes that the multi-party collaborative practice can be understood as a âcollective reflection-in-actionâ cycle through which an IS design emerges as a result of agents producing, sharing, and reflecting upon material objects. Agents from diverse backgrounds exert different influences over emergent designs depending on their organization, profession, and project involvement-based power relations. These power relations shape whether collaborators âadd toâ âignore,â or âchallengeâ the work produced by others. In turn, agentsâ actions either reinforce or transform existing power relations depending on who gets to claim credit for and ownership of the emergent design. Implications for the study of boundary objects, team diversity, organizational learning, and contemporary ISD are drawn.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Understanding Smart Contracts as a New Option in Transaction Cost Economics

Among different concepts associated with the term blockchain, smart contracts have been a prominent one, especially popularized by the Ethereum platform. In this study, we unpack this concept within the framework of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE). This institutional economics theory emphasizes the role of distinctive (private and public) contract law regimes in shaping firm boundaries. We propose that widespread adoption of the smart contract concept creates a new option in public contracting, which may give rise to a smart-contract-augmented contract law regime. We discuss tradeoffs involved in the attractiveness of the smart contract concept for firms and the resulting potential for change in firm boundaries. Based on our new conceptualization, we discuss potential roles the three branches of government – judicial, executive, and legislative – in enabling and using this new contract law regime. We conclude the paper by pointing out limitations of the TCE perspective and suggesting future research directions

Collaborating on Multi-party Information Systems Development Projects: A Collective Reflection-in-Action View

Growth of business-to-consumer (B2C) applications such as electronic storefronts, catalogues, and customer support websites has drawn a great number of diverse stakeholders into the IS Development (ISD) practice. Marketing, strategy, and graphic design specialists have joined a variety of technical professionals and business stakeholders in developing B2C applications. Oftentimes, these professionals work for different organizations with different histories, cultures, and reward structures. A longitudinal qualitative field study of a B2C application development project was undertaken in order to build an in-depth understanding of the collaborative practices of diverse professionals in ISD projects. The paper proposes that the multi-party collaborative practice can be understood as a âcollective reflection-in-actionâ cycle through which an IS design emerges as a result of agents producing, sharing, and reflecting upon material objects. Agents from diverse backgrounds exert different influences over emergent designs depending on their organization, profession, and project involvement-based power relations. These power relations shape whether collaborators âadd toâ âignore,â or âchallengeâ the work produced by others. In turn, agentsâ actions either reinforce or transform existing power relations depending on who gets to claim credit for and ownership of the emergent design. Implications for the study of boundary objects, team diversity, organizational learning, and contemporary ISD are drawn.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Collaborating on Multi-party Information Systems Development Projects: A Collective Reflection-in-Action View

Growth of business-to-consumer (B2C) applications such as electronic storefronts, catalogues, and customer support websites has drawn a great number of diverse stakeholders into the IS Development (ISD) practice. Marketing, strategy, and graphic design specialists have joined a variety of technical professionals and business stakeholders in developing B2C applications. Oftentimes, these professionals work for different organizations with different histories, cultures, and reward structures. A longitudinal qualitative field study of a B2C application development project was undertaken in order to build an in-depth understanding of the collaborative practices of diverse professionals in ISD projects. The paper proposes that the multi-party collaborative practice can be understood as a âcollective reflection-in-actionâ cycle through which an IS design emerges as a result of agents producing, sharing, and reflecting upon material objects. Agents from diverse backgrounds exert different influences over emergent designs depending on their organization, profession, and project involvement-based power relations. These power relations shape whether collaborators âadd toâ âignore,â or âchallengeâ the work produced by others. In turn, agentsâ actions either reinforce or transform existing power relations depending on who gets to claim credit for and ownership of the emergent design. Implications for the study of boundary objects, team diversity, organizational learning, and contemporary ISD are drawn.Information Systems Working Papers Serie