A Use Case of Blockchain to Enhance Social Responsibility Performance

Abstract

This article explores how blockchain helps organisations improve their capabilities to respond to stake-holders in order to enhance performance in the process of fulfilling social responsibility. Blockchain can ensure the “right to donation” of stakeholders, allowing them to independently and timely verify the authenticity of organisations’ social responsibility activities. It can also reinforce an organisation’s capability toward a positive ethical awareness, which in turn drives the development of more transparent and appropriate social responsibility activities. However, there is a lack of research on this topic. Therefore, the author adopted Litz’s adaptive behaviour model and single-case research design while selecting a non-profit organisation’s charity project for analysis.

As a result of the analyses, the author proposes three research propositions: first, that blockchain can reinforce an organisation’s capability to perceive important stakeholders; second, that blockchain can reinforce organisations’ capability to deliberate major ethical issues; and third, that blockchain’s “good” can reinforce organisations’ capabilities to develop issue management. Finally, the author concludes that blockchain can fill the trust gap in corporate social responsibility endeavours. Blockchain can ensure the “right to donation” of stakeholders, allowing them to independently and timely verify the authenticity of social responsibility. Blockchain can also reinforce organisations’ ability toward positive ethical awareness, driving organisations to deliberate social responsibility actions more transparently and more appropriately. Its added values of ‘decentralisation’ and ‘asset transfer’ also enhance the organisation’s capability to manage issues in response to its social responsibility performance.