Autonomous Organizations Research Articles

NFT-enabled organization design: prospects, promises and hurdles

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are digital assets based on blockchain technology that are increasingly being used for various applications in organizations. Given NFTs’ unique technological features, we posit that traditional, centralized organizations can adopt them to introduce novel solutions to the fundamental problems of organizing, namely, division of labor and integration of efforts. We examine the prospects and promises of NFT-enabled organization design and suggest how organizations can navigate its potential hurdles. We discuss critical boundary conditions for the deployment of NFTs in organization design and conclude by articulating how our Point of View article contributes to scholarship on blockchain technology and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).

Public–private partnerships in fostering outer space innovations

As public and private institutions recognize the role of space exploration as a catalyst for economic growth, various areas of innovation are expected to emerge as drivers of the space economy. These include space transportation, in-space manufacturing, bioproduction, in-space agriculture, nuclear launch, and propulsion systems, as well as satellite services and their maintenance. However, the current nature of space as an open-access resource and global commons presents a systemic risk for exuberant competition for space goods and services, which may result in a “tragedy of the commons” dilemma. In the race among countries to capture the value of space exploration, NASA, American research universities, and private companies can avoid any coordination failures by collaborating in a public–private research and development partnership (PPRDP) structure. We present such a structure founded upon the principles of polycentric autonomous governance, which incorporate a decentralized autonomous organization framework and specialized research clusters. By advancing an alignment of incentives among the specified participatory members, PPRDPs can play a pivotal role in stimulating open-source research by creating positive knowledge spillover effects and agglomeration externalities as well as embracing the nonlinear decomposition paradigm that may blur the distinction between basic and applied research.

ОПЫТ ВЫЯВЛЕНИЯ НЕСАНКЦИОНИРОВАННЫХ СВАЛОК ПОСРЕДСТВОМ АНАЛИЗА СПУТНИКОВЫХ СНИМКОВ В РЕСПУБЛИКЕ КАЗАХСТАН

The autonomous non-profit organization «Center for Research and Solutions of Environmental Problems Ecopathology» conducted research of the territories of the city of Kostanay to identify unauthorized landfills of solid municipal, construction and other waste using the «Visual satellite search for illegal landfills» method in 2023. According to the methodology adapted for use in the Republic of Kazakhstan, 40 unauthorized landfills with a total area of more than 19 thousand m2 were identified in Kostanay and nearby territories. The paper presents an adapted algorithm for «Visual satellite search of illegal landfills», analysis of the results of the research and effective pollution prevention measures

The Evolution and Future of DAOs: Embracing AI and New Technologies

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) represent a paradigm shift in the realm of organizational structures, leveraging blockchain technology to operate autonomously through smart contracts and collective decision-making. This article delves into the evolution and potential future of DAOs, emphasizing the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies. Drawing from seminal literature, the article underscores the transformative potential of DAOs in reshaping organizational governance, contract formulation, and decentralized operations. The integration of AI promises enhanced efficiency, predictive insights, and a personalized member experience. As DAOs evolve, they are poised to redefine the fabric of organizational design and operation in the digital age.

New Cryptocurrency Regulation in Lithuania and the European Union

The paper examines the major threats and related legal challenges posed by activities based on blockchain technology, such as cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs), the Decentralised Finance System (DeFi), and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). In the light of practical findings, the provisions of the Lithuanian Law on prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing and MiCA regulation are being analysed. The paper arrives at the conclusion that the new national law should effectively contribute to the prevention of cybercrimes, money laundering, terrorist financing, and violation of international sanctions. Nevertheless, a number of other issues typical for cryptocurrencies and other forms of utilisation of the blockchain technology remain unaddressed. Certain loopholes will be partly filled in by MiCA regulation. However, it will not create the required scope of legal certainty for other than cryptocurrencies forms of technology utilisation. On the basis of these findings, the paper puts forward proposals for the further development of the regulation of activities based on the blockchain technology.

Disruptive Technologies for e-Diasporas: Blockchain, DAOs, Data Cooperatives, Metaverse, and ChatGPT

E-diasporas are networks driven by human agency, connecting digital citizens to their home countries and diasporic fellows through digital tools. In contrast, Hyperconnected Diasporas (HD) are data-driven networks engaged in extractive activities, often employed for government (para)diplomacy, heavily relying on social media extractivist data-opolies or Big Tech platforms. This article examines the impact of disruptive technologies on e-diasporas in the context of data extractivism, particularly stemming from HD. The article pursues a dual objective: (i) reviewing existing literature and comparing five disruptive technologies—Blockchain, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), Data Cooperatives, Metaverse, and ChatGPT—in sustaining e-diasporas as networks driven by human agency, and (ii) scrutinizing associated opportunities and risks, including challenges to institutional trust and data privacy arising from HD. The study seeks to elucidate how these technologies may either hinder or exacerbate the impacts of HD on e-diasporas, characterized by their human-driven nature. The article begins with an introduction to HD, followed by a literature review on e-diasporas. Methodologically, it presents a comparative analysis of the five disruptive technologies concerning the research question and discusses their implications for e-diasporic communities, concluding with final remarks.

Governance impacts of blockchain-based decentralized autonomous organizations: an empirical analysis

The rapid rise in blockchain-based Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) offers policy-makers and decision-makers new opportunities to automatically execute decisions and processes that help enhance transparency, accountability, participation and trust. Yet, many DAOs have a limited lifespan. There is little empirical evidence of the effect of governance elements on the viability of DAOs. Using 220 on-chain governed DAOs, this paper analyses how governance elements (accountability, decision/voting, and incentives) influence the viability of DAOs in the long-term. The findings show that DAOs without weighted decision-making and without incentive structures are more viable than those with weighted decision power and incentive mechanisms. This suggests that financial and share-like DAO governance elements do not or may even negatively contribute to the long-term viability of DAOs. Also, voting power distribution is found to have a statistically significant influence on DAOs’ viability. We further propose a preliminary theory that relates governance elements to the long-term viability of DAOs. These insights will help policy-makers in designing more viable DAOs. Future research should investigate how DAO objectives, the chosen deployment infrastructure and the type of users can impact the long-term viability of DAOs.

The Shape of International Art Purchasing—The Shape of Things to Come

This article is about the role of cryptocurrencies, for example, decentralized autonomous organisations (DAOs) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), in the international art market. These are cryptocurrencies which can be used to work with local governments to deliver non-state-funded consultancy in, for example, funding bid writing or community risk assessment. Self-polycentric and cause-based DAOs typically focus on actively listening to their token owners, utilizing the group’s skills under a transparent incentive structure fostering trust. This article delivers a critical evaluation of DAOs as an organisational management structure and business operations vehicle. This evaluation considers DAOs’ utility in supplying goods and services, through the critical lens of facilitating the international art market. The objective of this article is to raise wider awareness and understanding of DAOs as a legal entity. This paper acts to introduce the uninitiated to the business, societal value and legal uncertainties of DAOs and NFTs. DAOs are internet-based organisations built upon a set of instructions presented in and controlled by a computer programme, i.e., a smart contract. Effectively, DAOs are an artificial, electronic, online, digital technology entity, with no physical form.

Blockchain and Freedom to Conduct a Business: Between Myth and Reality

Recent advances in technology have demonstrated the enormous flexibility of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), whose potential goes well beyond the cryptocurrency trading. This article explores the potential impact that the utilization of a permissioned blockchain could have on listed companies and how this could be an appropriate instrument for a more effective implementation of the provisions of the Shareholder Rights Directive II. This technological infrastructure could attest the correct formation of will within the shareholders’ meeting and contribute to the creation of a truly democratic space for the meeting and discussion among shareholders, thus allowing achievement of freedom to conduct a business. However, the most advanced use of blockchain technology has a disruptive effect and exposes us to the great danger of an “algocratic” drift. Therefore, this article analyses the main critical issues from both a technical and legal viewpoint of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs).

ElectAnon: A Blockchain-based, Anonymous, Robust, and Scalable Ranked-choice Voting Protocol

Remote voting has become more critical in recent years, especially since the COVID-19 outbreak. Blockchain technology and its benefits such as decentralization, security, and transparency have given rise to proposals for blockchain-based voting systems. However, the traceability of blockchain transactions violates voter anonymity in existing proposals. Besides, transaction costs also need to be considered. Solutions that may cause repeated elections should be avoided for a low-cost scalable voting system. In this work, we propose ElectAnon, a blockchain-based, self-tallying, and ranked-choice voting protocol focusing on anonymity, robustness, and scalability. ElectAnon achieves anonymity by enabling voters to register with identity commitments and cast their votes via zero-knowledge proofs. Robustness is realized by removing the direct control of the authorities in the voting process by using timed-state machines. Each voter encodes the ballot into a single integer and blinds the vote off-chain while making the verification on-chain. This makes the protocol infinitely scalable in the number of voters. ElectAnon is also a solution for governance in Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO): It includes a candidate proposal module and an algorithm-agnostic mechanism to plug-in different tallying methods easily. The Merkle forest extension is proposed for conducting even more trustless elections. ElectAnon is implemented with smart contracts based on Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and a zero-knowledge gadget, Semaphore. The implementation also includes two different sophisticated tallying methods, Borda Count and Tideman. Experimental results show that a 40-voter and 10-candidate election can be implemented with the gas consumption reduced up to 89% compared to previous works. While other studies could not exceed a 25,000-voter setup, ElectAnon has been observed to run safely for 1,000,000 voters. The implementation can be found at https://github.com/ceyonur/electanon .

Exploring the Landscape of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations: A Comprehensive Review of Blockchain Initiatives

The present study aims to investigate the DAO initiative and scrutinize the diverse methodologies researchers employ for data collection in this area, highlighting any unresolved problems or limitations and suggesting approaches to enhance blockchain technology for future investigations. A remarkable blockchain initiative is the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), a decentralized blockchain technology system that lets people self-govern through self-executing rules. The methodology is a qualitative analysis that uses contractual and business aspects to create a legally binding smart contract for DAO collaborations; thus, SPESC and Symboleo are smart-contract languages (SCL) that can involve IT and non-IT individuals in contract development. Blockchain technology has created Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) that perform autonomously through smart contracts within their ecosystem without the necessity for centralized control or third-party intervention.

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs): Catalysts for enhanced market efficiency

The crypto-asset market has shown variations in efficiency across assets and time, but limited research has explored the driving factors beyond liquidity. Exploiting a dataset of 122 crypto-assets, with imbalanced data, this study investigates the impact of market conditions and inherent asset characteristics on return predictability. Our findings reveal that both factors significantly influence the efficiency of crypto-assets. Notably, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) exhibit higher efficiency compared to non-DAO projects. This suggests that transparent decentralized decision-making models can reduce information asymmetry, leading to a more efficient market pricing. Furthermore, we show a positive relationship between market efficiency and increased liquidity and age. These insights shed light on the role of DAOs as catalysts for enhancing market efficiency and have important implications for investors and market participants in the crypto-asset market.

Towards DAOs of Difference

With this article, I explore the connections between blockchain technology, coloniality, and decolonial practices. Drawing on Sylvia Wynter’s thought on the interdependent systems of colonialism, capitalism, and knowledge, as well as more recent work on the coloniality of digital technologies, I argue that blockchain-based systems reproduce certain dynamics at work in historical colonialism. Additionally, Wynter’s decolonial propositions provide a generative framework to understand countercultural practices with. Inspired by Wynter, Patricia de Vries explores the notion of “plot work as artistic praxis” to ask how artistic work, implicated as it is in capitalist logics, can create space for relating differently in the context of the exploitations of those dominant logics. I apply this notion to examine how Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) in the countercultural blockchain space might contribute to this praxis.

A New Architecture and Mechanism for Decentralized Science MetaMarkets

The new generation of digital intelligence technology enables knowledge creation, dissemination, and application to undergoing parallel changes. Scientific systems face an increasingly uncertain, diverse, and complex environment, making adopting multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches to research issues inevitable. Existing scientific systems follow linear value streams, leading to problems, such as inefficiency, unfairness, and knowledge monopoly. Decentralized science (DeSci) is a new scientific development paradigm based on Web3, Metaverses, and decentralized autonomous organizations and operations (DAOs) technologies, that can solve organizational and management problems in scientific systems through organizing, coordinating, and executing techniques. However, new economic theories and methods are still needed to effectively solve the problem of linear value flow in scientific systems. Metaeconomics based on the parallel intelligence theory, also known as decentralized economics (DeEco), provides a new approach and idea for redesigning the economic system of scientific markets. Thus, this article proposes a research framework and core mechanisms of DeSci MetaMarkets based on parallel economic theory to provide effective and practical methodologies for scientific system governance.

11세기 후반기 보갑법의 시행과 향촌 질서

The Bao-jia System was implemented in 1070. It was Zhao Zi-ji's proposal that was a decisive opportunity for the introduction of the Bao-jia System as part of the New Policy. Zhao Zi-ji's suggestion was adopted as it is. The Bao-jia System consisted of several upper and lower organizations. The heads of each unit were appointed by the influential people of the village. The Bao-jia System soon expanded across the country. The spread of the Bao-jia system had significant regional variations. The general direction of spread was North China first, followed by other regions. The Bao-jia System was first introduced as an autonomous police organization and soon transformed into a military organization. The Bao-jia System caused a lot of burdens on farmers' lives. The Bao-jia system never had an aspect of reducing the burden on farmers or protecting farmers.

Media DAO: A blockchain-based model for the transformation and innovation of the publishing and media industry

The publishing media industry faces many challenges such as outdated innovation mechanisms, strict information control, low quality of content creation, unfair distribution of content, and poor management of content rights, etc. Media decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), a blockchain-based media organization, offers innovative solutions to these problems through its decentralized nature, new organizational form, and governance. This paper compares the differences between the traditional publishing media industry and media DAOs, discusses the changes that media DAOs have brought to the publishing media industry, and explores future trends and challenges in the publishing media industry. The goal is to guide the publishing media industry to break away from stereotypical thinking and further explore the room for development.

Trends in the performance of arms‐length agencies in the Government of Canada

AbstractCanada mirrors developments in most countries with the growth of government agencies created to deliver public goods—whether it is service delivery, adjudication of disputes, regulatory oversight, enforcement activities—purported to benefit from an arms‐length relationship to cabinet. There is a robust comparative literature documenting the “agencification” of the state, yet Canadian studies remain mostly absent. This article draws on the Government of Canada's Public Service Employee Survey (PSES) microdata from 2017, 2011, 2005, and 1999 to test key hypotheses advanced by proponents of agencification, specifically that agencies are more innovative, autonomous, and efficient public organizations. We find that those working in enforcement agencies exhibit few of the purported advantages of agencification. We also observe that in recent years regulatory, adjudicative, and parliamentary agencies consistently surpass conventional department organizations on these metrics. Future research avenues are proposed to explore how governance and oversight reforms may explain this shift.

Determinants of municipal tax rates: empirical evidence in the portuguese context

The municipality is the circumscription of the territory in which citizens, associated by common relations (locality, work and traditions) live under an autonomous organisation, for economic, administrative and cultural purposes. The powers to define the tax burden in each municipality raise the question of municipal competitiveness. This study aims to analyse the determinants of municipalities' tax policy options, at the level of municipal tax attractiveness. Presently, the attribution of tax powers has extended to the sphere of local power, where municipalities can decide, in relation to their taxes, to grant tax benefits and reduce the municipal tax burden, that is, tax policy has become a general policy instrument of local authorities. In this context, supported by an international dogma favourable to the increasing attribution of administrative and financial autonomy, the fiscal competence of Portuguese municipalities has been extended. In this exploratory study, we analysed the impact of the municipal competence of annual differentiation of the tax burden as a way to observe the ability of local actors to increase municipal competitiveness and local development.

Development of regional information consulting services and competence centers in the agricultural sector

Introduction. In ensuring the food security of the Russian Federation, an increase in the competitiveness of the agro-industrial complex, which is largely dependent on the quality of information and consulting services, is of great importance. Purpose setting. In the formation and development of the system of information and consultation support of the agro-industrial complex and competence services in the regions of Russia, the processes of accounting, planning, control and management at all levels (enterprises, district, regional and federal) have great influence. Methodology and methods of the study. During the research, information materials of the websites of the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia, Russian educational organizations, which presented information about the practical implementation of scientific and technological achievements, were used. Studies were carried out using analytical, comparative and logical information methods for analyzing the initial information. Results. The methods of formation and prospects for the development of information and consultation support in the regions of Russia are considered. The possibilities of evaluating the innovative potential of the region based on the introduction of modern information technologies are described. Conclusion. The role and forms of activity of information and consulting services and regional centers of competencies are shown, the main tasks are determined. The analysis (based on the generalization and systematization) of information on the best practices of competencies and the prospects for the development of information and consultation support in the regions of Russia, the examples of organizations such as the Center for competencies in the field of agricultural cooperation and the support of farmers of the autonomous non-profit organization «Regional Agricultural Fund», scientific and educational cluster of the agro-industrial complex of the Ulyanovsk region, the budgetary institution of the Republic of Kalmykia «Information and Consultation Service of the AIC», state official institution «Stavropol Agricultural Information and Consultation Center», competence center for digitalization of agriculture at the Altai State Agricultural University.

Organization of leisure activities for elderly citizens in the Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization Veteran Public Social Service Center, Sterlitamak

The article describes the features of organizing the leisure of elderly citizens in the conditions of a social service center. It has been determined that a properly organized pastime is necessary to maintain the social, motor, and life activity of the elderly.