Task management in decentralized autonomous organization

Abstract

In the emerging platform economy, blockchain technologies are reshaping the digital economy. Moreover, disintermediation and decentralization have broken new ground for platform organizations and management mechanisms and instigated the concept of a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization).Recent literature on operations management has called for further research on governance issues related to DAOs. In response to this call, we explore the relationship between DAO management efforts and platform performance in this study. Specifically, we propose and theoretically articulate decentralized voting tasks in DAOs as a new form of organizing. Harnessing both online and on-chain data from seven sources, we empirically examine how voting task division, task allocation, reward distribution, and information provision affect platform performance in the context of MakerDAO (an Ethereum-based stablecoin issuance platform). Our findings reveal that strategic decisions arrived at through voting have a positive impact on platform operational performance under certain conditions, whereas operational decisions resulting from voting have a negative impact. Moreover, we elucidate the moderating effects of voting task execution characteristics on the relationship between completed decision tasks and operational performance. These findings have important implications from both theoretical and practical perspectives. We also share all the raw data we use to promote the development of blockchainrelated empirical research.

Introduction to the special issue on “Technology management in a global context: From enterprise systems to technology disrupting operations and supply chains”

“…In our opinion, this situation plays to the strength of JOM's research philosophy, which typically prioritizes fine-grained empirical impacts of technologies at the process level, group level, or facility level, but that does not require the evaluation of financial impacts. For example, Zhao et al (2022) The special issue papers use not only modern empirical methods, but also often employ qualitative research approaches. Due to the newness of the technologies and applications investigated, researchers study technology "use cases" via case studies to demonstrate the business value of drones in manufacturing, warehousing, and inventory management (Maghazei et al, 2022) and the value of artificial intelligence in professional service settings (Spring et al, 2022).…”

“…The special issue papers tackle not only how recent enterprise technology innovations drive new enterprise operations manager dilemmas (Gaimon et al, 2017), but also how emerging technology is generating very different, sometimes diametrical, impacts for various stakeholder groups such as consumers and independent business operators. Several articles in this special issue investigate emerging technologies, such as Blockchain (Zhao et al, 2022), artificial intelligence (Spring et al, 2022), and drones (Maghazei et al, 2022). In recent years, such technology has gained a lot of hype, yet their real operational effects, especially those related to financial or economic outcomes, are difficult to evaluate at this early stage of industrial application.…”

“…In our opinion, this situation plays to the strength of JOM's research philosophy, which typically prioritizes fine‐grained empirical impacts of technologies at the process level, group level, or facility level, but that does not require the evaluation of financial impacts. For example, Zhao et al (2022) takes a unique angle to examine Blockchain, examining how token‐enabled voting tasks in a Blockchain platform‐based decentralized autonomous organization affects platform performance. Recent studies in OM mainly document how Blockchain enables track and trace, data integrity, or information sharing.…”

“…In “Task management in decentralized autonomous organization,” Zhao et al (2022) examine an emerging technology with a huge amount of buzz: Blockchain. Instead of directly evaluating the operational impacts of Blockchain on process or organizational outcomes, the study investigates governance of decentralized autonomous organizations, a self‐organizing and scalable community that coordinates via Blockchain based technology.…”

Managing a blockchain-based platform ecosystem for industry-wide adoption: The case of TradeLens

“…A blockchain platform architecture, by design, puts in place on-chain technology governance features (Lumineau et al, 2021;Wareham et al, 2014). However, the underlying blockchain features are often insufficient to establish the level of trust that would convince prospective global supply chain actors to join the platform (De Filippi et al, 2020;Zhao et al, 2022). Consequently, a platform sponsor needs to design various off-chain governance mechanisms that would address the inter-organizational concerns of prospective actors (Kostić and Sedej, 2022;Schmeiss et al, 2019;Uzunca et al, 2022).…”