How Do Disruptive Technologies Impact Collaborative Governance? A Blockchain Study

Technology such as blockchain and digital platforms add a new dimension to collaboration because they challenge central tenets of Collaborative Governance (CG).This study analyzes how blockchain impacts CG's institutional design in a collaborative initiative sparked by a public agency and pioneered by five financial institutions aimed to develop a low-cost, affordable and inclusive instant payment solution based on blockchain technology.The results show that blockchain introduces novel elements that need to be considered in the institutional design of CG, namely interoperability and attraction of new members.Such elements are crucial for obtaining the network effect for implementing a collective solution.Our results expand CG theory by revealing how blockchain technology demands institutional design to consider the technological requirements of the platform to interact with proprietary codes in order to promote network scalability.