scholarly journals Automating Trust with the Blockchain? A Critical Investigation of “Blockchain 2.0” Cultures

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Semenzin ◽  
Alessandro Gandini

This article discusses the cultural conceptions of trust underpinning the experimentation of blockchain startup applications beyond the financial sector. Based on qualitative research undertaken in the context of the so-called “Blockchain 2.0” scene, we show how a peculiar conception of trust, which blends the libertarian views of blockchain inventors with the neoliberal culture of competition and meritocracy that is typical of the startup world, underpins these implementations. As a result, we argue that “Blockchain 2.0” entrepreneurs ultimately fail to recognize the eminently social nature of the trust-building process. They emerge from our observation as unable to comprehend the extent to which the implementation of blockchain in a societal (i.e., not purely financial) context cannot do away with considerations about what kind of “social” the technology intervenes within, and find difficult to effectively conceive of how this technology embeds in existing social relations and power structures.

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Scheibelhofer

This paper focuses on gendered mobilities of highly skilled researchers working abroad. It is based on an empirical qualitative study that explored the mobility aspirations of Austrian scientists who were working in the United States at the time they were interviewed. Supported by a case study, the paper demonstrates how a qualitative research strategy including graphic drawings sketched by the interviewed persons can help us gain a better understanding of the gendered importance of social relations for the future mobility aspirations of scientists working abroad.


2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (5) ◽  
pp. 627-643 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danny T. Wang ◽  
Flora F. Gu ◽  
Maggie Chuoyan Dong

In a distribution network, a punishment event not only affects the disciplined distributor but also changes the attitudes and behaviors of others in the network (i.e., observers). By moving beyond a dyadic view of punishment, this article considers the effects of punishment on observers and integrates insights from social learning, fairness heuristic, and social network theories. The resulting framework of the observer effects of punishment in a distribution network, empirically tested with a survey in China, reveals two mechanisms through which punishment leads to reduced observer opportunism: (1) a direct deterrence effect and (2) a trust-building process. Moreover, two information-related constructs moderate the observer effects differently. The disciplined distributor's relational embeddedness, which motivates greater information flow to observers, aggravates the problem of information asymmetry against the manufacturer, making punishment less deterrent for observers. In contrast, the manufacturer's monitoring capability, which reduces information asymmetry, strengthens observer effects. The authors discuss both theoretical and managerial implications of using punishment to achieve collaboration from a wide network of channel members.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 383-418
Author(s):  
Robert C. Bird ◽  
Vivek Soundararajan

Global supply chains power 80% of world trade, but also host widespread environmental, labor, and human rights abuses in developing countries. Most scholarship focuses on some form of sanction to motivate supply chain members, but we propose that the fundamental problem is not insufficient punishment, but a lack of trust. Fickle tastes, incessant demands for lower prices, and spot market indifference force suppliers into a constant struggle for economic survival. No trust can grow in such an environment, and few sustainability practices can take meaningful root. Responding to multiple calls for scholarship in the supply chain literature, we propose a trust-building process by which supply chains can evolve from indifference and hostility to a relational partnership that produces joint investments in sustainable practices. The result is a supply chain that is more efficient, more humane, and embeds sustainability in the supply chain for the long-term.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 1099-1118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mian Ajmal ◽  
Petri Helo ◽  
Rassel Kassem

Purpose The growing international landscape of business has underlined the significance of multiculturalism and the novel challenges it brings to business implementation. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention of the readers toward how trust can be conceptualized and how trust-building process is affected in global business environments where more and more projects and businesses come into operation. Design/methodology/approach This research employs intensive literature review to conceptualize trust and develop a model of culture effects for trust building in global business environment. However, this study is presently explanatory in nature because no empirical evidence is provided. Findings Culture is a significant factor in building trust among global project stakeholders for the reason that trust is vital for developing a well-functioning long-term business relationship. The study highlighted that cultural differences among project teams can cause conflict, misunderstanding, and poor project performance. Research limitations/implications Future empirical research should investigate various scenarios, types of projects, cultures, and countries. Cultural issues are pretty sensitive, which have immediate association with trust-building process among international project stakeholders. Diminutive systematic research has been done on the cultural effects for trust building in international business context. The probe of how culture affects trust building efforts in global business environments remains unrequited. Originality/value This study adds value by creating awareness in the research community for undertaking a detailed and comprehensive research on this topic, and because of its originality, it serves as a foundation for future studies.


Author(s):  
Katharina Pistor

Legal systems and economic development stand in a complex, interdependent relation to one another. Attempts to identify a causal relation from law to economic outcomes have mostly failed, because they don’t take into account the effect of legal and economic change on power structures, and more broadly, on social relations. In part this can be attributed to the conceptual blindness of certain disciplines that focus on micro-constellations and largely ignore systemic effects; in part, it is the result of wishful thinking in policymaking institutions that have time and again tried to use law as an instrument for engineering economic change.


2020 ◽  
pp. 174997552094942
Author(s):  
Andrew Smith ◽  
Bridget Byrne ◽  
Lindsey Garratt ◽  
Bethan Harries

In this essay we reflect on the relationship between aesthetic practices and racialised conceptions of belonging. In particular, we explore attributions of beauty and ugliness, order and disorder, as these are made in relation to local space, and we consider how these attributions can be linked to proprietorial claims about who is welcome in those spaces. Our focus is thus on the everyday aesthetics of location: the ways in which aesthetic judgements are tied to the inhabitation of space and, in this case, the exclusionary potential of ‘ways of looking’ at such spaces and at the social relations which exist within them. Drawing on data from qualitative research in two adjoining neighbourhoods in Glasgow’s Southside, we make three analytical contributions. First, we consider the racialising potential of everyday aesthetic responses to local space. Second, we explore the ways in which local social relations themselves can be aesthetically interpreted. Third, we reflect on forms of everyday aesthetic resistance.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4809 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viktorija Skvarciany ◽  
Daiva Jurevičienė

The investigation of trust in commercial banks needs to focus specifically on internet banking, as it is the fastest growing banking service. The article explores factors influencing trust in internet banking and estimates this impact in the Baltics states. The factors are as follows: Provided information, e-banking system, the website of a bank, and a bank’s characteristics. Overall, 1013 respondents and 21 experts took part in the current study. The results of the respondents’ survey showed that the factor that is necessary for trust building in all the examined countries differs: In Lithuania, information and the bank, in Latvia, the website, and in Estonia, the bank. According to the experts, the most powerful factor in the trust-building process in Lithuania and Latvia is the e-banking system while in Estonia, the website. The research has the following limitations: The online survey of individual customers (however, internet banking relates to internet users, so this limitation is not essential); the analysis of only the positively affecting criteria of the trust-building process; only experts assessed the subfactors.


Author(s):  
Zeila Demartini

This article analyzes the relationship between oral history and education in Brazil. First, it addresses changes in theoretical and methodological approaches in some disciplinary fields, a move that increasingly questions production based mainly on quantitative research and favors a renewal of qualitative research. In this context, qualitative research incorporated discussions of life histories and the subjects’ narratives as methods of collecting data. At the same time that shifts in sociology and history drew both disciplines together in research that used the biographical approach and oral reports, qualitative research on educational issues was becoming stronger in the field of education. Questioning routine forms of research in these various fields ended up addressing common themes of interest to all of them. Such an approach allowed for the introduction and development of oral history in Brazil as an interdisciplinary field in which questions flowed from one discipline to another, in which sociologists, anthropologists, historians, and educators took part. Oral history is understood as a methodological approach to research in which the researcher commits to the object of study, approaching it based on the oral reports of the subjects involved along with other written, iconographic, and material sources in order to understand the different representations of the subjects. Oral history brought fundamental changes in education: subjects were incorporated into the production of knowledge about the history of education, social relations in the educational field, the way of looking at the formative processes of educators, discussions regarding curricula aimed at diverse social groups, group cultures, among other aspects; the educational field was no longer analyzed mainly from an educational, pedagogical-methodological approach, but one based on the centrality of the subjects and their demands. This change in perspective, no longer only on the part of the State or supporting institutions, provided a link between school and non-school education, as well as in the processes of participation of social groups. It also encouraged the incorporation of diverse data sources and their preservation. New research topics were also taken up, which has had a strong influence on the process of training historians and educators. Educational issues have been at the fore from the first incursions of oral history in Brazil and, precisely because of the exchange being built, new research paths are now being developed.


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