BLOCKCHAIN, LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT: BUSINESS AS USUAL OR RADICAL DISRUPTION?

Theodore C. Chartier-Rueg, Thomas D. Zweifel

Abstract


The Internet provided the world with interconnection. However, it did not provide it with trust. Trust is lacking everywhere in our society and is the reason for the existence of powerful intermediaries aggregating power. Trust is what prevents the digital world to take over. This has consequences for organisations: they are inefficient because time, energy, money and passion are wasted on verifying everything happens as decided. Managers play the role of intermediaries in such case: they connect experts with each others and instruct them of what to do. As a result, in our expert society, people’s engagement is low because no one is there to inspire and empower them. In other words, our society faces an unprecedented lack of leadership. Provided all those shortcomings, the study imagines the potential repercussions, especially in the context of management, of implementing a blockchain infrastructure in any type of organisation. Indeed, the blockchain technology seems to be able to remedy to those issues, for this distributed and immutable ledger provides security, decentralisation and transparency. In the context of a blockchain economy, the findings show that value creation will be rearranged, with experts directly collaborating with each others, and hierarchy being eliminated. This could, in turn, render managers obsolete, as a blockchain infrastructure will automate most of the tasks. As a result, only a strong, action-oriented, leadership would maintain the organisation together. This leadership-in-action would consist in igniting people to take action; coach members of the organisations so that their contribution makes sense in the greater context of life.

Keywords


leadership in-action; blockchain emergence in organisations; disruptive managerial methods; blockchain practices; organisational agility; holacracy and consensual decision practice; expert society with autonomy of actors

Full Text:

PDF

References


Google Trends (2017). Interest over time of Blockchain and Bitcoin. Available at: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=blockchain,bitcoin

Jaques, E. (1990). In Praise of Hierarchy. Harvard business review, 68 (1), 127–133.

Coase, R. H. (1937). The Nature of the Firm. Economica, 4 (16), 386–405. doi: 10.2307/2626876

Groysberg, B., Slind, M. (2012). Leadership is a conversation. Harvard business review, 90 (6), 76–84.

Roberts, D. (2016). Meet the most exciting bitcoin company. Yahoo Finance. Available at: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-21-inc-is-the-most-exciting-bitcoin-blockchain-company-balaji-srinivasan-andreessen-horowitz-200250565.html

Zweifel, T. D., Borey, E. J. (2014). Strategy-in-Action: Marrying Planning, People and Performance. New York:: iHorizon.

Tapscott, D., Tapscott, A. (2016). Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World. New York: Penguin Random House, 337.

Zweifel, T. D. (2009). Leadership in 100 Days: A Systematic Self-Coaching Workbook. New York: iHorizon, 187.

Cailliau, R. (1995). A Little History of the World Wide Web. Available at: https://www.w3.org/History.html

Souba, W. W. (2011). The being of leadership. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, 6 (1), 5.

Suberg, W. (2017). We Don’t Need Blockchain: R3 Consortium After $59 Million Research. The Cointelegraph. Available at: https://cointelegraph.com/news/we-dont-need-blockchain-r3-consortium-after-59-million-research

Buterin, V. (2015). On Public and Private Blockchains. Available at: https://blog.Ethereum.org/2015/08/07/on-public-and-private-blockchains/

De Margerie, C. (2013). Libre Propos de Christophe de Margerie: Les Entretiens de Royaumont. Available at: https://vimeo.com/96894313

Zweifel, T. D. (2003). Communicate or Die: Getting Results Through Speaking and Listening. New York: SelectBooks, 144. doi: 10.1007/978-3-322-82489-9

Brown, R. (2016). Introducing R3 Corda™: A Distributed Ledger Designed for Financial Services. Available at: http://www.r3cev.com/blog/2016/4/4/introducing-r3-corda-a-distributed-ledger-designed-for-financial-services

Puschmann, T., Alt, R. (2016). Sharing Economy. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 58 (1), 93–99. doi: 10.1007/s12599-015-0420-2

Lubin, J. (2015). Interview with Joe Lubin/Interviewer: D. Tapscott. in Blockchain revolution by Don and Alex Tapscott.

Tapscott, D. (2016). Blockchain Revolution – From the Internet of information to the Internet of value. Paper presented at the USI, Paris. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqr8_iQv8hU

Asimov, I. (2014). Isaac Asimov Asks,“How Do People Get New Ideas?”. Available at: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/531911/isaac-asimov-asks-how-do-people-get-new-ideas/

Lee, J. (Ed.) (2016). Impact of ICT on Work. Singapore: Springer Singapore, 218. doi: 10.1007/978-981-287-612-6

Araoz, M. (2015). Proof of Existence. Available at: https://proofofexistence.com/

Antonopoulos, A. (2017). Blockchain vs. Bullshit – Thoughts on the Future of Money. Paper presented at the Blockchain Africa Conference. Johannesburg. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMEOKDVXlUo

Cohen, E. (2016). The Blockchain, engine of the collaborative economy. Available at: http://www.keyrus.com/en/post/?post_pk=3591

Bacon, F. (1864). Meditationes Sacrae (1597). The Works of Francis Bacon, 14.

Dennis, R., Owen, G. (2015). Rep on the block: A next generation reputation system based on the blockchain. 2015 10th International Conference for Internet Technology and Secured Transactions (ICITST). doi: 10.1109/icitst.2015.7412073

Schlager, E., Ostrom, E. (1992). Property-Rights Regimes and Natural Resources: A Conceptual Analysis. Land Economics, 68 (3), 249–262. doi: 10.2307/3146375

Asimov, I. (2014). Visit to the World’s Fair of 2014. New York Times. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/lifetimes/asi-v-fair.html

Siegel, D. (2016). Blockchain – Uses, Domains, Challenges, Implications. London Speaker Bureau. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaYDrkAMD2k

Everledger, Welcome to the digital vault of the future (2017). Available at: www.everledger.io/

Tapscott, D., Ticoll, D. (2003). The naked corporation: How the age of transparency will revolutionize business. New York: Free Press, 348.

Hirt, M., Willmott, P. (2014). Strategic principles for competing in the digital age. McKinsey Quarterly, 2, 93–108.

Roelofsen, E., Yue, T. A. O., Van Mierlo, P., Noteboom, B. E. N. (2017). Case study: is holacracy for us? Harvard business review, 95 (2), 151–155.

Anderson, C., Brown, C. E. (2010). The functions and dysfunctions of hierarchy. Research in Organizational Behavior, 30, 55–89. doi: 10.1016/j.riob.2010.08.002

Raval, S. (2016). Decentralized Applications: Harnessing Bitcoin's Blockchain Technology. Sebastopol: O'Reilly, 118.

Masse, D., Carbone, V., Acquier, A. (2016). L’economie collaborative: fondements theoriques et agenda de recherche: PICO. Working paper, Paris, 16.

Curtis, R. E., City, E. A. (2009). Strategy in Action: How School Systems Can Support Powerful Learning and Teaching. Cambridge: Harvard Education Press, 240.

Das, R., Behera, K. (2017). Does Blockchain Have A Place In Healthcare? Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/reenitadas/2017/05/08/does-blockchain-have-a-place-in-healthcare/#66ed13041c31

Aschari, O. (2014). How to inspire leaders to grow. Zurich: TEDx Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHNIZS6-9zE

HolacracyOne. Holacracy. Available at: http://www.holacracy.org/l

Blockchain – A forward step to secure transaction (2016). ifourtechnolab.com. Available at: http://www.ifourtechnolab.com/category/blockchain

Stiglitz, J. E. (1989). Principal and Agent. Allocation, Information and Markets. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 241–253. doi: 10.1007/978-1-349-20215-7_25

Pate, J. C. (2013). The Leadership Pyramid: Today's Effort Determines Tomorrow's Success. Dog Ear Publishing, LLC, 244.

World Bank. (2013). Inclusion matters : the foundation for shared prosperity. Washington: The World Bank, 273.

Reeves, H. (2017). WalderWyss - Blockchain & Smart Contracts from a lawyer‘s perspective. StartX Nexussquared Blockchain Gathering, University Of Zürich.

ENTERPRISE Ethereum ALLIANCE. (2017). Enterprise Ethereum Alliance - VIsion. Available at: https://entethalliance.atlassian.net/wiki/download/attachments/37151/EntEthVision-v3.1-24February2017.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1488946292762&cacheVersion=1&api=v2

Nakamoto, S. (2010). BitcoinTalk Forums. Available at: https://bitcointalk.org/

Rud, O. P. (2009). Business intelligence success factors: tools for aligning your business in the global economy. Vol. 18. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 237.

GrowthPraxis (2015). Blockchain Use Cases: Comprehensive Analysis & Startups Involved. Let’s Talk Payments. Available at: https://letstalkpayments.com/blockchain-use-cases-comprehensive-analysis-startups-invoved/

co. (2017). Bitcoin API. Available at: https://21.co/learn/

Tuckermann, H., Rüegg-Stürm, J. (2013). The St. Gallen Management Model. Paper presented at the Lecture 9 – Management Organisation Environment, St. Gallen.

Tuckermann, H., Rüegg-Stürm, J. (2012). Führung im Spital: Weiterentwicklung der eigenen Führungspraxis auf dem Weg in die Zukunft. SRMDM, 2 (12), 45–52.

Jensen, M. C., Meckling, W. H. (1976). Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure. Journal of Financial Economics, 3 (4), 305–360. doi: 10.1016/0304-405x(76)90026-x

Nakamoto, S. (2008). Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system. Available at: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Whatsapp adds end-to-end encryption (2016). BBC.com. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35969739

Bird, A., Osland, J.; Lane, H. W., Maznevski, M., Mendenhall, M. E., McNett, J. (Eds.) (2004). Global Competencies: An introduction. The Blackwell handbook of global management: A guide to managing complexity. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 57–80.

Bush, M. (2015). Trust in Institutions Drops to Level of Great Recession. Available at: http://www.edelman.com/news/trust-institutions-drops-level-great-recession/

Buterin, V. (2014). A next-generation smart contract and decentralized application platform. White paper. Available at: https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper

Yermack, D. (2017). Corporate Governance and Blockchains. Review of Finance, 21 (1), 7–31. doi: 10.1093/rof/rfw074

Glouberman, S., Mintzberg, H. (2001). Managing the Care of Health and the Cure of Disease–Part I: Differentiation. Health Care Management Review, 26 (1), 56–69. doi: 10.1097/00004010-200101000-00006

Heidegger, M. (1967). Being and Time. Oxford: Blackwell, 592.

OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2015. (2015). doi: 10.1787/9789264232440-en

Tapscott, D., Tapscott, A. (2017). How Blockchain Will Change Organizations. MIT Sloan Management Review, 58 (2), 10–13.

Souba, W. W. (2002). Leadership in Action. Journal of Surgical Research, 106 (2), 225–232. doi: 10.1006/jsre.2002.6493

Swan, M. (2015). Blockchain: blueprint for a new economy. Beijing Sebastopol: O'Reilly, 152.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21303/2504-5571.2017.00370

Bookmark and Share


Copyright (c) 2017 Theodore C. Chartier-Rueg, Thomas D. Zweifel

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

ISSN 2504-5571 (Online), ISSN 2504-5563 (Print)