The Transformational Impact of Blockchain Technology on Business Models and Ecosystems: A Symbiosis of Human and Technology Agents

Blockchain technology is an enabler of value transactions on decentralized, secure databases (ledgers). Despite still being in its early stages, we expect blockchain's impact on business and society to be disruptive. We provide a theory-based examination of blockchain technology's transformational impact from a business model and ecosystem perspective to accelerate the debate on its potential effects. By conceptualizing blockchain's key features through the lens of value, actor-network and contract (property rights) theories, we develop a theoretical framework for analyzing the implication of blockchain technology on value creation. We posit that blockchain serves as a resource, a capability, and an agent to its users. Blockchain technology thereby enables a range of efficiency gains, novelties, and lock-in reductions that have sustaining, enabling, and threatening implications for the emergence and attractiveness of business models and business ecosystems. These findings contribute to the discussion on how digital technologies, blockchain in particular, transform business models, and business ecosystems. Additionally, we contribute to the discussion of digital technology's agency by conceptualizing the blockchain as a symbiosis of human/organizational and technological actors that join forces and thereby achieve a new form of agency that is distinct from traditional perspectives on human or machine agency.