Blockchain and the Firm
Investigating Blockchain and the Evolution of the Business Organisation
From Bitcoin to Blockchain
Ever wondered what blockchain is? My short new introduction explains its significance for business
Blockchain is usually explained through Bitcoin, speculation, and the history of money. But that's just a small part of the blockchain story. Blockchain is one of the most important emerging technologies with the potential to reshape organisations, including the firm and even governments.
My research has long examined the history of business organisation, law, and corporate responsibility and ethics. The blockchain project extends that work into the present as part of a larger research program on the emergence of new forms of business from the nineteenth century onwards. I am interested in blockchain less as a speculative asset class than as a historical experiment in how people build trust, coordinate markets, govern shared infrastructure, and imagine fairer forms of economic life.