Untangling the Processes of Bitcoin: An Organizational Learning Perspective

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

The article "Untangling the Processes of Bitcoin: An Organizational Learning Perspective" presents a fascinating and novel angle on Bitcoin, exploring it through the prism of organizational learning. This piece seems to be the first to blend such diverse fields of study. It adopts the 4I organizational learning model as its analytical base. Although the model's simplicity might be seen as a drawback, the author counters this by suggesting it serves as a basic structure for incorporating further elements. I consider this to be a sensible strategy. Approaches that span multiple disciplines often face critique due to differing standards in each field. Nonetheless, I regard the author's method as innovative and fitting.

My previous concerns regarding incorporating more academic literature have been addressed and the author points out that the use of some non-academic resources is necessary as the literature does not always keep pace with developments within the field – a logical basis for incorporating other literature.  

The article is an interesting read and will be a valuable addition to the existing literature.

Author Response

Thank you very much for you kind comments and accepting my responses to your first review.

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

The paper is not clear. I can't understand the Research question. Is this a survey paper ? Poor in novelity and lack of contribution. Many grammatic errors and unclear paragraphs. 

Answered this above

Author Response

Thank you for your comments, I am sorry to hear that you do not see novelty or a contribution in the paper. I will make every effort to improve the readability, address typos and grammatical errors. I will also attempt to ensure paragraph structures are as logical as possible.

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Dear Authors

Congratulations. Please, ensure the following suggestions:

- Abstract section:

The abstract discusses the exploration of Bitcoin beyond its commonly associated aspects (speculation, criminal use, and environmental impact) by using high-quality secondary data sources to understand the processes within the Bitcoin network.

The abstract identifies the main goal of the study (to present a clear picture of the processes within the Bitcoin network) and introduces a novel approach by examining the network from the perspective of organizational learning.

Concerning the main results, the abstract mentions that the findings provide new insights into organizational learning theory and the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) process. It suggests that the perspective brings new insights in terms of layering improvement activities and understanding the introduction and propagation of new ideas through the network.

However, the abstract needs some improvements considering the following comments.

1.     The abstract lacks specificity about the nature of these sources or the methodology employed. A more detailed explanation of the research methods would strengthen the scientific credibility.

2.     The abstract doesn't explicitly mention the scope of the study or its limitations. A well-defined scope and acknowledgment of limitations are crucial for contextualizing the findings.

3.     While the abstract mentions new insights, it does not specify the practical implications of these insights or how they contribute to existing knowledge in the field.

4.     The abstract lacks specific results or data points. Including specific findings would make the abstract more informative and allow readers to evaluate the significance of the research.

Considering what is mentioned the abstract does not include enough information to stand alone and should be improved.

Furthermore, the abstract's first sentence should be about the problem, motivation, or question. The second sentence should be about what we already know from the literature. In the third sentence, please say what you are doing and how; the following two sentences should be about what you find, followed by the significance of your findings.

It is important to say what the question is; why this is an interesting and important question; how you go about it; why this is a persuasive modeling strategy; what you found; how this changes our view of the world (focusing on its novelty in relation to what we already know from the literature). People only spend one or two minutes reading an abstract; if they do not see the novelty within that time, they tend to ignore a paper. Our aim is to ensure that your paper gets cited after publication. Please consider highlighting the big ideas clearly and succinctly that is informative, novel, logical, and engaging.
A reader will not be interested only in what you found but why you found it and how it helps solve a problem with more focus on practical implications/economic story rather than pure technical results; if you can add why you find something or why you have done something, they can have a bigger impact than just saying what the paper is doing.

- Introduction section: The introduction should be updated with more recent references and include a brief paragraph with the main results of the study.

- Organizational Learning theory: Rename the section as Literature Review.

All the best

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

Thank you very much for your kind comments and helpful direction. I have used your comments to revise the abstract to give explicit focus to the key contributions to organisational learning and bitcoin. Following on from this, I have revised the introduction to bring in some additional, new literature that I have come across since the submission, to broaden the foundation and motivation for the study (adding a reference to Van Wirdum’s Genesis book and special issue pieces). Throughout the paper I have also aimed to tighten up discussions and improve clarity where possible. Finally, to address the previous oversight, I have now numbered citations, rather than using Harvard referencing format.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Please highlight any changes you made in Yallow, you do not need to keep older sentences which you changed ... just highlight the items which you changed. I still can see many errors in the figures but was unable to read the manuscript due to wrong editing.  So my review will remain the same. 

Same as previous 

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Untangling the Processes of Bitcoin: An Organizational Learning Perspective is an interesting article that takes a unique perspective on Bitcoin by examining it from an organizational learning lens. It appears to be the first article to undertake such a cross-disciplinary approach. The article uses the 4I model of organisational learning as the framework of analysis.  While the simplicity of the model appears a significant limitation, the author addresses this and states that it functions “as a foundation on which to add additional elements”.  I find this to be a reasonable approach. Cross-disciplinary approaches often invite criticism because each discipline has its own conventions.  However, I find the author’s approach novel and appropriate.  

My one criticism is that it seems strange that the resources identified in the methodology section are exclusively podcasts and crypto media to the exclusion of academic sources. While What Bitcoin Did and Coin Telegraph are respected sources within the crypto community, this may not be known by readers coming from an organisation learning background and it would be appropriate to review and reference the academic literature that covers these topics.

While the focus on Bitcoin is logical and doesn’t necessarily require the justification provided in section 6, at least as a framework, the research could be significant to other decentralised projects and DAOs.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article deals with an interesting topic, but focuses too much on presenting existing findings and thus does not offer the rich insights that one would expect from reading a qualitative article. Another issue is the research design, which does not seem to have been well thought out. Some main concerns:

The research gap should be explained in more detail and supported by existing literature.

The theoretical background is very brief, as already pointed out by the authors.

Concerning the methodology. If little is known about the phenomenon under study, an exploratory study should be considered.  

The findings mostly emphasise the main processes within the Bitcoin network, neglecting the organisational learning aspect. More emphasis should be placed on providing insights into how organisational learning occurs in the Bitcoin network. This should be discussed in more detail in the final section, where theoretical and practical implications should also be highlighted. In addition, limitations and future research directions should be mentioned.

Good luck with your future research.