To read this content please select one of the options below:

Governing the entrepreneurial discovery of blockchain applications

Darcy W.E. Allen (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia)

Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy

ISSN: 2045-2101

Article publication date: 14 October 2019

Issue publication date: 19 June 2020

338

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the institutional context of the entrepreneurial discovery of blockchain applications.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper draws on institutional and entrepreneurial theory to introduce the economic problem entrepreneurship in the early stages of new technologies, examines the diversity of self-governed hybrid solutions to coordinating entrepreneurial information and draws policy implications.

Findings

To perceive a valuable and actionable market opportunity, entrepreneurs must coordinate distributed non-price information under uncertainty with others. One potential class of transaction cost economising solution to this problem is private self-governance of information coordination within hybrids. This paper explores a diverse range of entrepreneurial hybrids coalescing around blockchain technology, with implications for innovation policy.

Originality/value

This paper points to the problem of how the defining of the innovation problem as either choice-theoretic or contract-theoretic changes the remit of innovation policy. Innovation policy and blockchain policy should extend beyond correcting sub-optimal investments or removing barriers to action, to incorporate how polices impact entrepreneurial choices over governance structures to coordinate information.

Keywords

Citation

Allen, D.W.E. (2020), "Governing the entrepreneurial discovery of blockchain applications", Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 194-212. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEPP-03-2019-0017

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

Related articles