ABSTRACT
How can we assess a new information technology at an early stage that might or might not have serious economic implications? How do we recognize groundbreaking technological shifts and adapt our work processes and academic understanding accordingly? In this chapter, I will look closer at a new technology that may address issues of trust and governance in inter-organizational systems in an unprecedented way, blockchain. Blockchain may be the key to unlock the decentralized service economy area, characterized by operational and legal independence of the connected service systems and their management to create services on demand in a (globally) distributed system of service systems. Blockchain may become the operation system of the service economy, providing the governance structure, enforceability of business logics, and accountability of the connected service systems, thereby minimizing the need for inter-organizational trust.
