=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2218/paper40
|storemode=property
|title=Can the Blockchain Technology Solve Trust Issues in Industrial Networks?
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2218/paper40.pdf
|volume=Vol-2218
|authors=Vincent Fremont,Gideon Mekonnen Jonathan
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/bir/FremontJ18
}}
==Can the Blockchain Technology Solve Trust Issues in Industrial Networks?==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2218/paper40.pdf
Can Blockchain Technology Solve Trust Issues in Indus-
trial Networks?
Vincent Fremont1, 2[0000-0001-5517-6394] and Gideon Mekonnen Jonathan3[0000-0001-6360-
7641]
1
Gävle University, Faculty of Education and Business Studies, SE-80176 Gävle,
Sweden
2
Uppsala University, Department of Engineering Sciences, SE-75121 Uppsala,
Sweden
3
Stockholm University, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, 164 07
Kista, Sweden
1, 2
Vincent.fremont@hig.se 2gideon@dsv.su.se
Abstract. Since its inception about a decade ago, practitioners and researchers
alike have been drawn to the blockchain technology vibe. Advocates of block-
chain argue that the technology is taking us to truly ‘trust-free’ transactions. A
long list of applications of blockchain has also been proposed in a relatively short
period of time. However, a closer look into the literature reveals two shortcom-
ings. To start with, the substantial proportion of the research on blockchain has
focused on addressing the technical aspects of blockchain—design and fea-
tures— as well as legal issues. However, there is a lack of knowledge on how
blockchain technology can be used to solve practical problems faced by organi-
zations in different sectors and industries—measurement and value, trust, man-
agement and organization. The state-of-the-art also shows that there is a domi-
nance of conceptual and design-oriented research paradigms. To address this gap
and respond to the calls for further research, this paper presents a research plan
for a longitudinal case study to investigate whether blockchain technology can
affect the way organizations conduct their business relationships.
Keywords: Blockchain, Digitalization, Industrial Marketing, Manufacturing In-
dustry, Trust.
1 Introduction
The blockchain technology is already 10 years old, and it is still a widely misunderstood
technology [1, 2]. A blockchain functions as a transaction ledger recording peer to peer
value exchanges made via a mathematical and cryptographic protocol [3, 4]. This ledger
is decentralized and distributed over a network of nodes, a network of computers, where
each node contains a copy of the entire ledger. The network is supposed to keep an
unalterable record of all transactions taking place via its network. The transactions are
validated by miners, computers running a complicated cryptographic algorithm,
proving by their calculation work the validity of the data contained on the ledger [3].
At a pre-determined frequency, the miners validate a certain amount (or block) of trans-
actions, which is added to the previous record (blocks) of transactions, therefore creat-
ing a chain of transaction records (a blockchain) [3]. The first proposed application of
this technology was the Bitcoin protocol, a digital currency. The purpose of this digital
currency is to allow digital financial transactions to be made without the need of con-
trolling and validating institutional third parties, such as credit card companies or banks
[3, 5, 6]. Because of its characteristics, the Bitcoin’s blockchain technology is said to
allow its users to make trust-free financial transactions. Transactions of digital tokens
or coins are transparent and traceable. Because the Bitcoin’s blockchain works as a
distributed and open ledger, anyone with the appropriate knowledge and basic techno-
logical resources can trace the ownership of a specific token all the way back to its first
emission. On the other hand, such absence of liable and controlling third parties might
entail some new risks for currency users and society as a whole [7]. In order to maintain
existing or to create new business relationships, organizations need trust and commit-
ment [8, 9]. The blockchain has been developed in many applications around the pos-
tulate that it was a trust-free or trust less technology. It has been presented as such
mostly because it is expected to remove the need for intermediaries, by creating infor-
mation transparency and virtually eliminating the risks for transaction frauds for all
parties involved in a given business relationship or transaction[10–12]. However trust
is constructed by different parties of a given relationship, and is dependent on these
parties’ perception of the other’s attributes such as competences, credibility, confidence
and loyalty [13]. Therefor it appears evident that in order to investigate how the block-
chain affects trust in inter-organizational relationships, one should conduct a socio-ma-
terialistic research that encompasses both the material structures and the actors’ per-
ceptions of the technology [14]. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the imple-
mentation of a blockchain technology in an organizational setting and its potential
causal relationship with trust.
The research questions that the authors aim to address are the following:
1. How does the blockchain technology affect trust in inter-organizational rela-
tionships?
2. What are the mechanisms causing the blockchain to affect trust?
2 Theoretical Background
2.1 Blockchain
Since the introduction of the bitcoin protocol, the blockchain technology has been de-
veloped into more applications than just cryptocurrencies [5, 6, 15–19]. The technology
has gained the attention of most large organizations. Potential blockchain applications
for companies are plenty [20], and they could affect very diverse organizational aspects
[4]. For instance, blockchain should allow sales and marketing managers to better ad-
dress their customers, on an individual basis, by creating new applications that better
record and make ubiquitous customer information [4]. As another example, in legal
400
affairs, companies will be able to develop smart contracts, not legal per se, but block-
chain-based applications that emulate contracts logic, and which can automatically ex-
ecute transactions according to different pre-defined conditions [4, 17]. Researchers
have studied a great number of blockchain applications in different industry contexts,
such as trust free transaction in the secondary car market, financial fraud prevention in
public sector services, and smart contracts use for e-commerce platforms [1, 15–17,
20]. But as research also points out [6], there is also a lack of understanding of where
and how this technology is actually applicable. The blockchain technology is still con-
sidered in its infancy and struggling to overcome a number of technical challenges, and
while there is an obvious enthusiasm surrounding this technology and its possibilities,
little is still known about how effective it really is in practice, and especially in the
organizational context [10, 15, 19, 21–23].
2.2 Trust
The most cited fundamental feature of the blockchain technology is the fact that it
makes the need for trust during transaction unnecessary [10, 24, 25]. Outside the aca-
demic setting, blockchain is also referred to as “the trust machine” which substitutes
the trust dimension between individuals or organizations [12]. In a similar vein, Sun
[26] argue that the blockchain technology can make it possible to build an economic
system that could run without people, which could be considered “trust-free”. Even
though the technology is credited for lowering operational costs as well as improving
the efficiency of transactions by eliminating intermediaries, the basic advantage of the
technology is the provision of an alternative to the hurdle of forging relationships that
are antecedent for trust. Contrary to what we know from management literature, the
technology and design behind the blockchain are what makes trust-free business ser-
vices possible. According to Sun [26], the transparency, as well as the privacy in the
service, results in a relationship between human and technology. Since the model of
trust is changed due to the blockchain technology, the relationship between individuals
as well as between organizations is not based on the previously forged relationships. In
other words, trust is diffused across entire population rather than being placed in an
individual or an organization entity. On the other hand, we know from the literature, in
a business or industry network, developing a business relationship always requires the
development of commitment and trust between firms [8], which comes with a consid-
erable cost in terms of time and money. For two business actors to be committed to a
business relationship, trust needs to be forged and maintained. However, it is worth
mentioning that developing trust takes time [8]. Therefore, it would be of interest to
look at how the blockchain technology, a trust-less transaction technology, should af-
fect current and future business relationships in industrial networks. Findings of previ-
ous studies provide theoretical conceptualisation with little evidence supported by em-
pirical studies. Where available, studies looking into trust issues have focused on the
technical aspect of the blockchain such as transparency, integrity of data as well as
immutability of design [24]. It is no surprise that a review of the extant literature has
revealed that the blockchain studies are primarily dominated by disciplines in the com-
puter and information systems while research in business-related areas is scarce [2].
401
This justifies empirical studies conducted on industry networks, to investigate whether
business relationships established via a blockchain application are really trust-less, if
trust is still a need for the different actors, and if this type of relationship is more effi-
cient presenting less friction, or not.
3 Methodology
Analysis of previous studies on the blockchain technology indicates that the most pre-
ferred research designs applied are conceptual in nature. According to Risius and Spoh-
rer [2] there is a large proportion of studies that are based on design science methods
and analytical investigations and that needs to be corroborated by empirical studies [2].
Hawlitschek [6] propose a variety of empirical studies that could be carried out using
different qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Particularly, trust could be studied
using case studies, surveys, experiments, as well as econometric analyses. Risius [2]
also encourage researchers to undertake qualitative or quantitative data using primary
data. Several case studies have been conducted to further our understanding of block-
chain in different sectors, in for instance the financial industry [10], start-ups [27], and
platform providers [28].
This study will take a sociomaterialistic ontological stance to investigate how the block-
chain affects trust[14]. Furthermore, the study will also use a critical realist methodol-
ogy to investigate the causal relationship between the blockchain technology and trust
[14, 29]. Critical realism has a stratified ontology, composed of the real, the actual and
the empirical[14, 30]. The real is real world, its objects and structures, which certain
mechanisms express themselves or cause events in the actual, which the observer tries
to observe and interpret in the empirical [14, 29, 30]. By retroduction research process,
critical realism aims at establishing the causality between the real and the actual, by
identifying the mechanisms by which certain objects causes certain events. For this
study, a critical realist case study research strategy with interviews as a data collection
method is chosen as the research problem—trust—involves a multilayered and com-
plex research topic [6, 31, 32]. A critical realist case studies are found to be appropriate
for studies that investigate complex issues involving multiple actors, processes and
goals in depth while maintaining the overall characteristics of real-life events [32–34].
4 Contributions of the proposed study
As previous literature reviews and empirical studies have shown, the full potential of
blockchain is not understood yet. Some of the questions that are yet to be answered
include: How can the technology be applied in different sectors and across industries?
and how should it be managed and be incorporated with other systems already in place?
Can the technology exclude ‘trust’ issues between organizations and their customers,
suppliers and other stakeholders? We have also shown that the majority of the studies
on blockchain technology have focused on conceptual analysis and design of artefacts
while little attention was given to empirical investigations that reflect the real
402
organizational issues in relation to blockchain. The findings of our study will contribute
to practice and research by attempting to empirically test whether blockchain can play
a role in the way organizations conduct their business relationships.
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