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Pre-course Assignment

In preparation for the seminar, please provide one page that describes your academic background and research interests. Please describe your guiding research questions, data sources, and research methodologies to the best of your ability, and add contact information and web address if available.
Please upload your profile page in the student forum in Learn no later than one week prior to the first class.

This introductory course highlights central topics of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies. It is designed to familiarize students with the main bodies of knowledge that lay the foundation to blockchain technology and its key application areas. In addition to reviewing a rich subset of blockchain related topics, the course seeks to prepare the foundations that will assist the participants in developing and writing their thesis.

Blockchain, mostly known as the backbone technology behind Bitcoin, is one of the hottest and most intriguing technologies currently in the market. Similar to the rising of the internet, blockchain has the potential to truly disrupt multiple industries by making transactions and processes more democratic, secure, transparent, and efficient. Entrepreneurs, startup companies, investors, global organizations, and governments have all identified blockchain as a revolutionary technology. Building on this nascent vision, we will explore the affordances and the underlying mechanism of blockchain in order to figure out how blockchain technology can drive a paradigm shift and change the fundamentals of core business at industries of interest.

The course is focused on the application of blockchain technology to the final phases of business innovation and new business development. Overall, the course provides the tools for generating new business models and turning them into thriving business ventures. The course provides not only a framework for understanding blockchain technology in the context of the digital age and organizational settings but also a language to communicate its dynamic characteristics and interdependencies. 

The course emphasizes breadth and is geared toward the socio-technical aspects of blockchain technologies in organizational context. The course is designed as a sequence of 10 two-hour meetings, each covering a central topic that relates to blockchain technology and its core application areas. The meetings are designed in a research seminar format that includes guided discussions, mini workshops, and teacher and student class presentations. The seminar emphasizes constructive discussion aiming toward helping students to design state of the art research that builds on and extends the related current body of knowledge.  

• Get acquainted with fundamental concepts and tools in the area of blockchain
• Discuss the main challenges and opportunities in blockchain research
• Examine critically the underlying key disciplinary controversies and debates
• Demonstrate how blockchain technology can be applied to own thesis project

A Pass/Fail grade will be based on participation and timely submission of individual take-home written exam.

Written Exam

Exam will take the form of an individual take-home 10 pages written exam.

The exam paper should emulate a blockchain-centered research proposal of a study for investigating one's domain of interest. Accordingly, the paper should incorporate the following elements:

• Selected topic to be investigated
• Significance of the selected topic
• Prior research on the selected topic (in brief)
• Research question(s)
• Theoretical lens to guide data collection and analysis
• Research strategy being adopted to answer the research question(s)
  • Protocols for data collection
  • Possible data source(s)
  • Proposed data analytical technique(s) to be utilized
• Potential contributions to theory and practice

Please note that your registration is binding after the registration deadline.

For late registration please contact Blazenka B. Kvistbo, bbk.research@cbs.dk