The rise of blockchain and related technologies alters the traditional structures of capitalist economies. At a macroeconomic level, blockchain enables new competition in the realm of money, a sector where the state has typically enjoyed a sovereign monopoly. At an organizational level, blockchain allows decentralized forms of organizing, manifest in the rise to prominence of large global organizations that command billion-dollar market valuations, yet operate without managers or even employees (e.g., Bitcoin and other DAOs). Since we can now “manage” without “managers”, we need to rethink some basic assumptions that underpin the business world and design new frameworks for navigating 21st century capitalism.

Selected Publications

Durand R & Vergne JP. (2013). The Pirate Organization: Lessons from the Fringes of Capitalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Review Publishing

Vergne JP. (2014). The Year Capitalism was Turned Upside Down. The New Criticals.

Vergne JP & Swain G. (2017). Categorical Anarchy in the U.K.? The British Media’s Classification of Bitcoin and the Limits of Categorization, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 51: 185-222. doi:10.1108/S0733-558X20170000051005

Wang S & Vergne JP. (2017). Buzz Factor or Innovation Potential: What Explains Cryptocurrencies’ Returns?. PLoS ONE, 12(1). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0169556

Hsieh YY, Vergne JP & Wang S. (2017). The internal and external governance of blockchain-based organizations: Evidence from crypto-currencies. In M. Campbell-Verduyn (Ed.), Bitcoin and Beyond: Blockchains and Global Governance: 48-68. Routledge.

Hsieh YY, Vergne JP, Anderson P, Lakhani K, & Reitzig M. (2018). Bitcoin and the rise of decentralized autonomous organizations. Journal of Organization Design, 7(14). doi:10.1186/s41469-018-0038-1

Vergne JP. (2018). Disrupting the IPO. Ivey Business Journal.

Vergne JP. (2020). Decentralized vs. Distributed Organization: Blockchain, Machine Learning and the Future of the Digital Platform. Organization Theory, 1(4): 263178772097705. doi:10.1177/2631787720977052

Hsieh YY & Vergne JP. (2023). The Future of the Web? The Coordination and Early‐Stage Growth of Decentralized Platforms. Strategic Management Journal, 44(3): 829-857. doi:10.1002/smj.3455

Vergne JP. (2024). Web3 as Decentralization Theater? A Framework for Envisioning Decentralization Strategically. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 89 (Defining Web3): 115-127. doi:10.1108/S0733-558X20240000089010