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The Affordances of Blockchain Platforms: Why Service Providers Use Blockchains

In: Digitalization Across Organizational Levels

Author

Listed:
  • Kai Spohrer

    (Frankfurt School of Finance & Management)

  • Marten Risius

    (The University of Queensland)

Abstract

Contemporary blockchain platforms differ in their technological features and are under active development as open-source projects. Nonetheless, they have the potential to fuel substantial socio-economic changes. The scale of such changes, however, requires not only blockchain platforms but also organizations that develop and provide services on top of these platforms. Yet, little is known as to why service providers use specific blockchain platforms to offer their services or how they deal with the developmental state of blockchain platforms. This study, therefore, strives to identify the general affordances of blockchain platforms for service providers and aims to understand how service providers respond to different affordances on distinct platforms. Based on Affordance Theory and grounded in the analysis of 19 cases of blockchain service providers on the three most prominent blockchain platforms, we identify five types of salient affordances (i.e., validity affordances, analytical affordances, automation affordances, decentralization affordances, generative affordances). We explain how they result from specific features of blockchain platforms and from properties of the provided service. We lastly show that service providers’ use of a blockchain platform depends not only on the salient affordances of the platform but also on the values that are enacted by the open-source community behind it.

Suggested Citation

  • Kai Spohrer & Marten Risius, 2022. "The Affordances of Blockchain Platforms: Why Service Providers Use Blockchains," Progress in IS, in: Jens Dibbern & Jens Förderer & Thomas Kude & Franz Rothlauf & Kai Spohrer (ed.), Digitalization Across Organizational Levels, pages 181-208, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:prochp:978-3-031-06543-9_8
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-06543-9_8
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