Blockchain-based cryptocurrencies have generated substantially divergent views, opinions, and interpretations about their fundamental nature, sense, and purpose compared to other IT. This study examines what these varying interpretations are and how they influence business decision-makers’ perceptions and acceptance of Bitcoin, the most prominent cryptocurrency, specifically. Drawing on Bijker’s socio-constructivist concepts of “frames”, and using a case study of Bitcoin acceptance, we make two key contributions. First, we identify seven distinct frames used in the cryptocurrency context: currency, asset, novelty, ideological, socio-cultural, business, and IT tool frames of reference. We theorise how these frames emerge from prior frames, drawing on different reference points, foreground or background facets of Bitcoin, and hence lead to constructions of “Bitcoin-as-X” and acceptance or rejection in both conceptual and practical terms. Second, the paper provides an exemplar of how any digital phenomena with ambivalent or conflicting assessments can be studied in general. We conclude by discussing implications for theory and practice.

This paper reviews the emerging literature on blockchain, structuring key insights in a conceptual framework and setting out a research agenda from a socio-technical and information systems (IS) perspective. The review covers 234 blockchain-focused papers across IS, management, computer science and related fields. It categorises blockchain use into three main types and reframes blockchain use within the socio-technical phenomena of which it is a part. This broader framework enables us to aggregate, integrate and synthesise knowledge about blockchain, its values, drivers and barriers, social and technical subsystem(s), as well as potential consequences, both intended and unintended. Using this framework as a basis for analysis, we identify gaps in the existing blockchain literature and outline a research agenda for advancing blockchain studies within the IS field.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a need for rapid, population-wide digital contact tracing. One solution, Bluetooth-enabled digital proximity tracing using smartphones, promises to preserve individual privacy while helping to contain society-wide viral outbreaks. However, this digital solution works effectively only if adopted by the majority of the population. This poses a collective action problem: everyone would benefit from wide-spread proximity tracing, but the benefits for the individual are indirect and limited. To facilitate such collective action at the societal level, this paper conceptualises the option space of IT governance actions for proximity tracing adoption along two dimensions: decision-making entities (who will govern the roll-out) and accountability enforcement (how strictly will adoption and use be enforced). Examining coherent governance approaches that arise from the framework, we show that there are no globally ideal approaches but only locally contextualised ones that depend on immediate health risk, prior experience with pandemics, societal values and national culture, role of government, trust in government and trust in technology in each society. The paper contributes specific propositions for governing digital contact tracing in the COVID-19 pandemic and general theoretical implications for IT governance for collective action at the societal level.

Abstract The “sharing economy” has recently emerged as a major global phenomenon in practice and is consequently an important research topic. What, precisely, is meant by this term, “sharing economy”? The literature to date offers many, often incomplete and conflicting definitions. This makes it difficult for researchers to lead a coherent discourse, to compare findings and to select appropriate cases. Alternative terms (e.g., “collaborative consumption,” “gig economy,” and “access economy”) are a further complication. To resolve this issue, our article develops a consolidated (based on all prior work) and systemic (relating to the phenomenon in its entire scope) definition of the sharing economy. The definition is based on the detailed analysis of definitions and explanations in 152 sources identified in a systematic literature review. We identify 36 original understandings of the term “sharing economy.” Using semantic integration strategies, we consolidate 84 semantic facets in these definitions into 18 characteristics of the sharing economy. Resolving conflicts in the meaning and scope of these characteristics, we arrive at a consolidated, systemic definition. We evaluate the definition's appropriateness and applicability by applying it to cases claimed by the media to be examples of the sharing economy. This article's definition is useful for future research and discourse on the sharing economy.