Blockchain governance: a bibliometric study and content analysis

ABSTRACT

Blockchain has led to innovation and transformation of governance structures and processes, contributing to a new governance mechanism. However, only a fragmentary understanding is known of blockchain governance. Therefore, to further our knowledge about blockchain governance, this study conducted descriptive analysis, bibliometric analysis, and content analysis of 604 articles obtained from the Scopus database. We identify the current publication trends and intellectual structure of the academic field. We further develop an integrative framework that clusters four types of governance mechanisms (legitimacy, ethics, incentive, and control) into an analysis from two theoretical perspectives (organisational perspective and strategic perspective). Based on our framework, we elucidate specific directions for future research and address the existing gaps in knowledge.

KEYWORDS:

• Blockchain governance
• governance mechanism
• bibliometric analysis
• literature review

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The cluster labels were extracted from titles.

2 ‘Modularity Q’ (Q-value) is 0.6626 (greater than 0.5), which indicates that the network is reasonably divided into multiple loosely coupled specialties. ‘Weighted Mean Silhouette S’ (S-value) is 0.7458 and is used to describe the average homogeneity of these clusters. A value greater than 0.7 indicates that each cluster is highly homogeneous.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 71850012].

Notes on contributors

Jinglan Yang

Jinglan Yang is a PhD candidate in Business Administration at Business School, Hunan University, China. She received a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and a master’s degree in Management Science and Engineering. She is also a visiting PhD student at the Department of Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on digital transformation and innovation (such as internet finance and blockchain) in large firms and the strategic management of technological entrepreneurship.

Chaoqun Ma

Chaoqun Ma is a professor in Management Science and Engineering at Business School, Hunan University, China. He is now the director of Hunan Key Laboratory of Data Science & Blockchain. He is a researcher in the field of corporate finance, strategic management, and innovation with a focus on FinTech, blockchain, and systematic design. He has published in numerous journals including Omega, Energy Economics, International Review of Economics & Finance, and Finance Research Letters, among others. His books are published by Wiley and SIAM. He is also served on the editorial review boards of multiple journals including the Chinese Journal of Management Science and the System Engineering Theory and Practice.

Shisong Hsiao

Shisong Hsiao is a postdoctoral researcher in Management Science and Engineering at Business School, Hunan University, China. He holds a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, and a doctoral degree from Hunan University. His current main research interests are blockchain and asset pricing. His publications have appeared in journals, such as Research in International Business and Finance and Applied Economics.

Jianghuai Liu

Jianghuai Liu is a PhD candidate at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States. He holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His current main research interests include blockchain, numerical simulation, and systematic design.