An overview of the expected public values arising from blockchain adoption in the European public sector

• Date: 17 December 2024
• Pages: 53-76
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-12-2023-0363
• Published date: 17 December 2024
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management
• Author: A. Paula Rodriguez Müller,Jaume Martin Bosch,Luca Tangi

An overview of the expected public

values arising from blockchain

adoption in the European public sector

A. Paula Rodriguez M€

uller

European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Seville, Spain

Jaume Martin Bosch

Engineering International Belgium S.A., Brussels, Belgium, and

Luca Tangi

European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy

Abstract

Purpose –This study aims to systematically explore the anticipated realisation of public values through

blockchain technology (BCT) within the European public sector. Its purpose is to offer a comprehensive analysis

of BCT implementations, focusing on the various expected public values and understanding how these

expectations shape the adoption of BCT in public administration across Europe.

Design/methodology/approach –This research involves a qualitative analysis of 165 BCT use cases across

European governments at the national, regional and local levels. The study employs a public values lens,

categorising the expected public values into three clusters: internal, external and relational.

Findings –The results indicate that most cases focus on external transformation, aiming to improve public

service provision and enhance citizen satisfaction and engagement by increasing public trust, efficiency,

accountability and transparency. For the internal dimension, the results emphasise security, efficiency and

cooperativeness as expected public values in adopting BCT.Finally, fewer cases highlight expectations related

to relational public values, such as citizen involvement and democratic participation.

Originality/value –This research offers new insights intoBCT in the publicsector througha publicvalues lens

within the European context. It examines the expected public values arising from BCT adoption, providing

insights for policymakers and practitioners considering BCT integration in daily operations. This study

emphasises the need for further empirical research to explore BCT’spotential in realising these expected public

values and to evaluate the trade-offs and disruptive impacts on public administrations.

Keywords Blockchain, Public values, Public sector, Europe, Digital government

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

Blockchain technology (BCT) has emerged as a transformative force in recent years owing to

its potential to revolutionise various sectors. Its impact is expected to be widespread,

encompassing multiple disciplines, including computer science and business, an expectation

that is reflected in global research patterns (Dubey, 2022). The impact of BCT is anticipated to

be particularly notable in the public sector: governments are increasingly interested in

leveraging BCT to enhance the efficiency and transparency of public services (Scholl and

Rodr

ıguez Bol

ıvar, 2019) and improve digital public services (Franciscon et al., 2019).

Recent studies suggest that BCT has the capacity to enhance public value by, for example,

streamlining administrative processes, reducing bureaucratic bottlenecks and fostering trust in

public records management (Martin-Bosch et al., 2022). These advancements, which

contribute to more efficient and transparent governance, align with observations of BCT’s role

in augmenting data transparency and trust in the e-government sector (Ahmad et al., 2021;

International

Journal of Public

Sector

Management

53

© A. Paula Rodriguez M€

uller, Jaume Martin Bosch and Luca Tangi. Published by Emerald Publishing

Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone

may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and

non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full

terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/0951-3558.htm

Received 15 December 2023

Revised 14 March 2024

13 May 2024

27 May 2024

3 July 2024

Accepted 12 July 2024

InternationalJournal of Public Sector

Management

Vol.38 No. 1, 2025

pp.53-76

EmeraldPublishing Limited

0951-3558

DOI10.1108/IJPSM-12-2023-0363

Verma and Sheel, 2022). Therefore, the adoption of BCT in the public sector brings with it

considerations of public values such as accountability, transparency and privacy (Tan and

Crompvoets, 2022). The integration of blockchain-based identity management systems, for

instance, has been shown to have the potential to advance these values, albeit with challenges

and complexities in implementation (Sung and Park, 2021).

The literature acknowledges the critical importance of identifying guiding public values

(Criado and Gil-Garcia, 2019;Maragno et al., 2021a;Tan et al., 2022), but a systematic

overview of the public values that the public sector hopes to achieve through BCT adoption is

lacking (Tan et al., 2022). Consequently,there is a pressing need to bridge this gap, to identify

the reasons for BCT adoption rather than focusing solely on the technology per se.

This study aims to bridge the existing gap by providing a comprehensive analysis of BCT

adoption within the European public sector, focusing specifically on the anticipated public

values that will be achieved as a result. By doing so, it not only plays a crucial role in mapping

current expectations but also lays the groundwork for a deeper understanding of how BCTcan

truly realise and enhance these public values.

2. Background

2.1 Blockchain technology

Blockchain technology originated in 1991 with Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta’s paper,

“How to time-stamp a digital document”, which introduced a method for time-stampingdigital

documents using hash values and linking records (Haber and Stornetta, 1991). This concept

was enhanced in 1992 with the addition of Bayer’s Merkle trees for increased security (Bayer

et al., 1993). In 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto’s revolutionised BCT by introducing the “proof of

work” incentive layer. This innovation enabled nodes in a distributed network to agree on

transactions without the need for central intermediaries, thus laying the groundwork for a fully

decentralised system (Nakamoto, 2009). This development improves transparency and digital

trust and enables a secure peer-to-peer (P2P) distributed ledger to record transactions

across many computers, ensuring data integrity, immutability and consistency (Shrimali and

Patel, 2022).

In defining BCT for our study, we reference the comprehensive definition proposed by

Allessie et al. (2019), which outlines BCT in the contextof digitalgovernment. Blockchainis a

type of distributed ledger with the following inherent characteristics.

(1) A P2P network shares the ledger among the nodes of a computer network.

(2) Value exchange transactions (encompassing digital assets such as cryptocurrencies,

tokens or information) are sequentially grouped into blocks.

(3) Network nodes validate transactions through a “consensus mechanism”.

(4) Each newly created block is attached to the general ledger, chained to the previous

block and recorded immutably across the network, adding copies to all network nodes

using cryptographic trust and assurance mechanisms.

(5) The sequence of these blocks forms a single chain known as a “blockchain”. Moreover,

depending on the specific implementation, transactions can include programmable

behaviours, commonly referred to as smart contracts.

The inherent traits of BCT– its P2P nature, sequential transaction grouping, validation through

consensus mechanisms, the immutability of block creation and the potential for programmable

transaction behaviours – lay the foundation for its broad applicability and use (Allessie

et al., 2019).

IJPSM

38,1

54