Administrative Reforms in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: The Case of Blockchain Use
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I believe that the article treat blockchains without a reference to the growing body of literature in social sciences concerning the nature, types, applications of blockchains. Especially the paper had to incorporate a sociological definition of blockchain and cite the growing literature.
The research sample iOS also too low. less than 30 answers may be ok for a closed analysis for these actors, but too limiting in terms of a statistical analysis.
I believe that authors would benefit a lot by looking at a recent paper on the Socio-Techniocal Taxonomy of Blockchains:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372015
In terms of the literature I was surprised to see no conversation with the following:
Bjerg, O. (2016). How is Bitcoin Money? Theory Culture & Society, 33(1), 53-72. Retrieved from <Go to ISI>://WOS:000367251700003.
Brunton, F. (2019). Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists who Built Cryptocurrency. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Dallyn, S. (2017). Cryptocurrencies as market singularities: the strange case of Bitcoin. Journal of Cultural Economy, 10(5), 462-473. Retrieved from <Go to ISI>://WOS:000418497300004.
Dodd, N. (2018). The Social Life of Bitcoin. Theory, Culture & Society, 35(3), 35-56. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0263276417746464. doi:10.1177/0263276417746464
Hayes, A. (2019). The Socio-Technological Lives of Bitcoin. Theory, Culture & Society, 0(0), 1-24. doi:10.1177/0263276419826218
Islam, A. K. M., Mäntymäki, M., & Turunen, M. (2019). Understanding the Role of Actor Heterogeneity in Blockchain Splits: An Actor-Network Perspective to Bitcoin Forks. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawai.
Jang, H., & Lee, J. (2018). An Empirical Study on Modeling and Prediction of Bitcoin Prices With Bayesian Neural Networks Based on Blockchain Information. Ieee Access, 6, 5427-5437. Retrieved from <Go to ISI>://WOS:000426617000001.
Jones, K. (2018). Toward a Political Sociology of Blockchain.
Karlstrøm, H. (2014). Do libertarians dream of electric coins? The material embeddedness of Bitcoin. Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, 15(1), 23-36. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2013.870083. doi:10.1080/1600910X.2013.870083
MacKenzie, D. (2019). Pick a nonce and try a hash. London Review of Books, 48(8), 35-38. Retrieved from https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n08/donald-mackenzie/pick-a-nonce-and-try-a-hash.
Maurer, B. (2017). Blockchains are a Diamond’s Best Friend: Zelizer for the Bitcoin Moment. In N. e. a. Bandelj (Ed.), In Money Talks: Explaining How Money Really Works (pp. 215-229). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Maurer, B., Nelms, T. C., & Swartz, L. J. S. s. (2013). “When perhaps the real problem is money itself!”: the practical materiality of Bitcoin. 23(2), 261-277.
Narayanan, A., & Clark, J. (2017). Bitcoin's Academic Pedigree. Communications of the ACM, 60(12), 36-45.
Nelms, T. C., Maurer, B., Swartz, L., & Mainwaring, S. (2018). Social Payments: Innovation, Trust, Bitcoin, and the Sharing Economy. 35(3), 13-33. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0263276417746466. doi:10.1177/0263276417746466
Shaw, L. (2016). The Meanings of New Money: Social Constructions of Value in the Rise of Digital Currencies. (Ph.D), University of Washington, Seattle.
Swartz, L. (2017). Blockchain Dreams: Imagining Techno-economic Alternatives after Bitcoin. In M. Castells (Ed.), In Another Economy Is Possible: Culture and Economy in a Time of Crisis (pp. 82-105). Cambridge: Polity.
Tinu, N. S. (2018). A Survey of Blockchain Technology: Taxonomy, Consensus Algorithms and Applications. International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering, 6(5), 691-696.
Zook, M. A., & Blankenship, J. (2018). New spaces of disruption? The failures of Bitcoin and the rhetorical power of algorithmic governance. Geoforum, 96, 248-255. Retrieved from <Go to ISI>://WOS:000449130800026.
Author Response
I believe that the article treat blockchains without a reference to the growing body of literature in social sciences concerning the nature, types, applications of blockchains. Especially the paper had to incorporate a sociological definition of blockchain and cite the growing literature. | Line 91, 101 |
The research sample iOS also too low. less than 30 answers may be ok for a closed analysis for these actors, but too limiting in terms of a statistical analysis. | AHP is a methodology designed by Satty to improve the inefficiency of decisions, not statistical analysis. AHP does not require many samples to select importance. Thank you for your good feedback. |
I believe that authors would benefit a lot by looking at a recent paper on the Socio-Technical Taxonomy of Blockchains: |
[57] Bjerg, O. How is Bitcoin Money? Theory Culture & Society, 2016, 33(1), 53-72. Retrieved from <Go to ISI>://WOS:000367251700003.
[58] Hayes, A. The Socio-Technological Lives of Bitcoin. Theory, Culture & Society, 2019. 0(0), 1-24. doi:10.1177/0263276419826218
|
Reviewer 2 Report
The topic is interesting and complex as it involves many different issues.
First of all it is necessary emphasize better how the paper fits into in the 2030 agenda for sustainability.
Moreover, it lacks a methodology paragraph on the AHP and data from survey (par. 3) are not used very much in the second part of the paper. For example par. 4 introduce to many new themes on policy decision making, administrative transparency and so on without discussing the survey evidence.
Overall the sections 4 and 5 should be modified in order to better explain which are the characteristics of the blockchain for PA and which are the innovative elements and criticalities.
More examples of blockchain use should be introduced, for example very much has been done in health sector and voting system and blockchain should be treated more in depth in a specific paragraph.
I have also the following specific comments and suggestions:
-line 78-79 WiKipedia is used as figure source, it is necessary to use a more scientific source
- line 345 par. 3.3.2 presents example not fully coherent with the title of the paragraph
- par. 5 could be probably part of issues and discussion, it introduce to many new themes not always essential for the purpose of the paper (es. emotional intelligence)
- table 5 should be better explained in the paper
- conclusion point at the use of blockchain for e-voting but in my opinion the subject should be treated in depth in the previous part of the paper
Author Response
First of all it is necessary emphasize better how the paper fits into in the 2030 agenda for sustainability. | Par 2.1, 2.2 and 4 Modified and added as recommended. |
Moreover, it lacks a methodology paragraph on the AHP and data from survey (par. 3) are not used very much in the second part of the paper. For example par. 4 introduce to many new themes on policy decision making, administrative transparency and so on without discussing the survey evidence. | Par 4. |
Overall the sections 4 and 5 should be modified in order to better explain which are the characteristics of the blockchain for PA and which are the innovative elements and criticalities. | Par 4.4.1 Modified and added as recommended. |
More examples of blockchain use should be introduced, for example very much has been done in health sector and voting system and blockchain should be treated more in depth in a specific paragraph. | We have introduced many examples of the world in Table 1. It is widely used by various factors of block chain in various fields. We analyzed key factors through AHP analysis and discuss possibility of sustainable future administration based on this analysis. Thank you for your advice |
-line 78-79 WiKipedia is used as figure source, it is necessary to use a more scientific source | Line 107 Modified and added as recommended. |
- line 345 par. 3.3.2 presents example not fully coherent with the title of the paragraph | Line 421-444 |
- par. 5 could be probably part of issues and discussion, it introduces to many new themes not always essential for the purpose of the paper (es. emotional intelligence) | 4.4.1. Modified and added as recommended. |
- table 5 should be better explained in the paper | Line 713-717 Modified and added as recommended. |
- conclusion point at the use of blockchain for e-voting but in my opinion the subject should be treated in depth in the previous part of the paper | Line 718~733 Modified and added as recommended. |
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I believe the authors improved the draft but can fix one problem. It is good to draw on Hayes in describing blockchains as socio-technical assemblages. However, such a description, if the authors agree, require them to analyze blockchains as a STA. But they don't, and I don't think that they should. I believe that an undertheorized framework of Caliskan, 2018 seems to work better for them. They can refer to Caliskan and treat blockchains as accounting systems and them move in showing their uses. This was, they can locate the Socio-Technical universe of blockchains better. This paper will help them a lot. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372015
Author Response
I believe the authors improved the draft but can fix one problem. It is good to draw on Hayes in describing blockchains as socio-technical assemblages. However, such a description, if the authors agree, require them to analyze blockchains as a STA. But they don't, and I don't think that they should. I believe that an undertheorized framework of Caliskan, 2018 seems to work better for them. They can refer to Caliskan and treat blockchains as accounting systems and them move in showing their uses. This was, they can locate the Socio-Technical universe of blockchains better. This paper will help them a lot. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372015 | Put citation as below: (Line 101-109) Blockchains are also actor-network platforms that digitally and securely enhance the imaging and transfer of economic value. In practice, attaching nondigital values to the digital representations of owning the right to move data, various types of blockchain including a socio-technical architecture are supported by formalized digital exchanges such as transactions and accountants. Blockchains' dynamic evolution poses a challenge for researchers of social sciences because of their potential to redesign and define many of their conventional knowledges for institutional formations of economization relations [63]. |
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The figure 8 (line 640) on the case study should be better explained underlining why this application is of interest for public administration.
Author Response
I really appreciate for your comments and information for improving the manuscript.
