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Infrastructural Grind: Introducing Blockchain Technology in the Shipping Domain

Published: 07 January 2018 Publication History

Abstract

In this paper, we present ethnographic data unpacking three different accounts of how Blockchain technology gets introduced into the shipping domain. The results demonstrate that the shipping industry is based upon an information infrastructure with a socio-technical kernel comprising transaction practices between shippers, freight forwarders, ports, shipping lines, and other actors in the shipping industry. These practices are based upon standards, which have evolved over time and are embedded within the installed base of the infrastructure. We find that because of the inertia of the shipping infrastructure, Blockchain technology cannot be seamlessly introduced directly into the shipping domain. Instead, we introduce Infrastructural Grind as the activity by which domains (e.g. shipping) intersect with new technological infrastructures (e.g. Blockchain). Infrastructural grind occurs as a result of various infrastructuring activities taking place at different intersections between the two infrastructures, and is constituted of the sum of these manifestations. We propose that infrastructural grind is enacted through activities expressing elements of consolidation, permeability, and velocity.

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cover image ACM Conferences
GROUP '18: Proceedings of the 2018 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work
January 2018
422 pages
ISBN:9781450355629
DOI:10.1145/3148330
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Published: 07 January 2018

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Author Tags

  1. blockchain
  2. embeddedness
  3. entrepreneurship
  4. information infrastructures
  5. shipping
  6. socio-technical
  7. supply chain

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GROUP '18
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GROUP '18: 2018 ACM Conference on Supporting Groupwork
January 7 - 10, 2018
Florida, Sanibel Island, USA

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GROUP '18 Paper Acceptance Rate 22 of 94 submissions, 23%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 125 of 405 submissions, 31%

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  • (2024)A survey on blockchain technology in the maritime industry: Challenges and future perspectivesFuture Generation Computer Systems10.1016/j.future.2024.03.046157(618-637)Online publication date: Aug-2024
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