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This study aims to make a distinction between actualized and claimed affordances of blockchain by examining how a specified user group interprets and translates the actualized affordances from a known use context into their existing practices. This allows us to develop and advance the concept of affordances-in-practice as an enactment of action possibilities through practices in a specified use context.

We focus on the field of sustainable investment (SI) and its relation to emerging blockchain technologies in the pursuit of sustainable development goals (SDGs). We used a field study involving 29 interviews with SI practitioners and blockchain entrepreneurs in South Africa, supplemented with an analysis of 91 practitioner and industry documents.

Our findings show that when there is a lack of actual use cases in the field of SI, the claimed affordances of blockchain are subject to a sensemaking process, which considers how action possibilities can be enacted and transformed through practices and how institutional constraints and socio-cognitive barriers can determine the available action possibilities.

A notable limitation relates to the relative novelty and emerging status of blockchain. As affordances are based on available information and experience, this leaves room for claimed affordances. We discuss the implications of the interplay of the actualized and claimed affordances in blockchain applications in the field of SI.

We discuss the practical implications of addressing claimed affordances and field opacity in the SI field.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine blockchain affordances for good in the context of achieving SDGs through SI. Our affordances-in-practice framework holds theoretical promise to pinpoint and explain how practices can shape action possibilities despite having difficulties in evaluating the underlying technological potentialities.

This study aims to explore what and how digital innovation, as a knowledge-based and multi-dimensional process, can be used to increase the accountability of public and private sector organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Taking an interpretivist approach, qualitative research is designed around Strong Structuration Theory (SST). A content analysis of relevant documents and semi-structured interviews focusing on the relationships between digital innovation and accountability in extraordinary times is conducted.

The results show the existence of digital innovation barriers and facilitators that can have an impact on accountability during extraordinary times. The research highlights how managers of public organizations focus largely on the social dimension of knowledge (i.e., competencies shaped by collective culture), while managers of private organizations focus mainly on the human dimension of knowledge (i.e., skills gained through learning by doing).

The paper enriches the accountability literature by historicizing SST for extraordinary times and by utilizing a multiple-dimensional approach to digital innovation. Also, the work underlines specific strategies organizations could usefully adopt to improve accountability through digital innovation in the public and private sectors during extraordinary times.

This article emphasizes the crucial integration of technological components with knowledge. In particular, the digital innovation is considered as a strong synergy of human and social dimensions that compels organizations toward enhanced accountability, particularly in the face of extraordinary challenges.

This paper examines to what extent blockchain creates legitimacy and trust in different modes of public governance. It posits that while blockchain aims for political legitimacy through decentralising, immutable and consensus-based mechanisms, the execution of these mechanisms is limited in legitimating governance, which has knock-on effects on trust. It provides an original contribution by recontextualising and reframing blockchain as a governance mechanism that should, and must, perform a legitimating function in order to engender trust.

The research adopts a comprehensive framework for understanding the legitimacy of blockchain governance, positioning it in terms of co-governance, self-governance and hierarchical governance modes. It systematically analyses blockchain whitepapers, legislation, government documents and other sources in three paradigmatic case studies where blockchain governance failed. These cases are then used to assess blockchain according to three key characteristics of decentralisation, immutability and consensus.

The research finds that blockchain’s use in governance settings still relies on legitimacy conferred from other sources – namely state – in order to generate trust. Significant limitations in its de facto political decentralisation, immutability and consensus protocols can create failures in co-governance, self-governance and hierarchical-governance applications, thus limiting the legitimation function of blockchain in facilitating political trust.

These findings are significant in highlighting blockchain’s limitations as a decentralised, immutable and consensus-driven legitimating tool, which has knock-on effects on trust in technology and governance more broadly. It also has broader implications in more clearly highlighting the interconnectedness of political trust and legitimacy in governance processes.