The Impact of Blockchain Technology on Financial Transactions

Blockchain technology could emerge as a disruptive innovation that streamlines financial transactions and attenuates their cost. Therefore, the financial industry must assess the opportunities and challenges presented by the technology. As a grand breakthrough, it could transform financial transactions and introduce new possibilities for established financial institutions as well as for new entrants. At the same time, incumbents and startups need to overcome technological, regulatory, and adoption challenges before blockchain technology can become a mainstream reality. Despite its potential, the literature on its impact on financial transactions is still fragmented, with weak empirical insights and limited theoretical explanations. Therefore, financial industry managers lack guidance on how to plan and prepare for the impact of blockchain technology on the operation of financial transactions. Against that backdrop, this dissertation explores the asserted and potential impacts on financial transactions with emphasis on asset verification, record keeping, data privacy, and transaction costs. The dissertation adopts a pluralist approach to examine the subject matter based on three approaches: analysis of the extant literature about blockchain technology concerning financial transactions; perception analysis based on interviews with financial executives, subject matter experts, and researchers; and a theoretical interpretation using transaction cost theory. Therefore, the dissertation synthesizes insights from the three approaches to offer managers of financial institutions guidance concerning the opportunities and challenges of blockchain technology

Business education and the development of feedback skills: The impact of student peer review assignments.

Business education not only strives to bridge the gap between related theories and applications but also seeks to develop student’s employability skills. Employability skills are generic skill sets of employees and potential employees that employers across industries value. Leadership, communications, and relationship building are examples of skills that employers have reported as valuable employability skills. Feedback receiving and giving are communications skills important for employment and professional development. The purpose of this paper is to explore the pedagogical device of peer reviews in business classes to develop students’ feedback receiving and feedback giving skills. Using the theoretical learning theory, connectivisim, we propose that course-related peer-review assignments due to their collaborative nature improve feedback skills. From the literature, we developed a conceptual model related to collaborative coursework such as peer review assignments in business courses. We also present some best practices for leveraging course-specific peer-review assignments to enhance students’ feedback skills