Strategizing blockchain adoption in public cultural services: a comprehensive scoping review

• Date: 06 November 2024
• Pages: 77-97
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-12-2023-0383
• Published date: 06 November 2024
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management
• Author: Federica Rubino,Deborah Agostino,Davide Spallazzo

Strategizing blockchain adoption

in public cultural services:

a comprehensive scoping review

Federica Rubino

Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

Deborah Agostino

School of Management, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy, and

Davide Spallazzo

Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

Abstract

Purpose –This paper explores the application of blockchain technology in the public cultural sector, where

adoption remains limited despite its potential. The study identifies major use case scenarios and empirical

examples of blockchain adoption in public sector cultural services through a scoping literature review.

Design/methodology/approach –A scoping literature review was conducted to map research and

conceptual approaches to blockchain technology in the public cultural sector, focusing on key use cases

emerging and empirical examples.

Findings –The review reveals that while blockchain has the potential to enhance public cultural services, its

adoption is still in its early stages. Identified use cases include tokenization of cultural assets, digital rights

management and decentralized funding models. Empirical examples in the public cultural sector are sparse,

and the impact of the technology remains largely theoretical.

Research limitations/implications –The study is limited by the scarcity of empirical data on blockchain

adoption in public cultural services. Future research should focus on in-depth case studies and empirical

analyses to understand the practical implications of blockchain in this sector.

Practical implications –Public sector organizations offering cultural services may use these insights to

guide blockchain adoption and implementation decisions.

Social implications –Blockchain adoption in public cultural services has the potential to democratize

access, enhance transparency and foster community engagement, contributing to a more inclusive and

participatory cultural ecosystem.

Originality/value –This paper contributes to the emerging discourse on blockchain in the public sector,

focusing on the often-overlooked cultural services. It highlights the benefits and challenges of blockchain

adoption in this sector, providing insights for future research and policy decisions.

Keywords Blockchain adoption, Public cultural services, Scoping literature review, Use case scenarios,

Blockchain use cases, Cultural sector innovation, Blockchain in public sector,

Decentralized technology in culture

Paper type Literature review

Introduction

Scholars are increasingly studying the phenomenon of blockchain and diffusion of

distributed ledgers technologies in the public sector (Ølnes et al., 2017;Catalini, 2018;Cagigas

et al., 2021,2023;Tan et al., 2022;Lee et al., 2023). Understanding how this disruptive

technology is spreading in the public sector allows scholars to assess its potential impact on

International

Journal of Public

Sector

Management

77

© Federica Rubino, Deborah Agostino and Davide Spallazzo. Published by Emerald Publishing

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

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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 29 December 2023

Revised 15 March 2024

1 July 2024

21 September 2024

Accepted24 September 2024

International Journal of Public

Sector Management

Vol. 38 No. 1, 2025

pp. 77-97

Emerald Publishing Limited

0951-3558

DOI 10.1108/IJPSM-12-2023-0383

government services, public administration and overall innovation in the public sphere

landscape to bring evidence of its potential positive change (Bosch et al., 2022). A blockchain

is a particular implementation of a distributed ledger, which consists of a database shared

among different nodes of a network: these share the same copy of the database, and any

change made on a single node is replicated to all the other nodes in a short time (Duca et al.,

2020). Blockchain technology is defined in Collins dictionary (2024) as “a system for storing

records of transactions using digital currencies, that can be accessed by linked computers.”

Emerging blockchain technology thus represents a decentralized system of identical,

distributed ledgers stored across multiple nodes (Patrickson, 2021). In the blockchain system,

there is not a central ledger but rather numerous linked and identical ledgers that record

every transactional detail. Blockchain-based systems have been defined as socio-

technological “assemblages” (De Filippi et al., 2020) made up of different actors, from

miners, validators, programmers, token holders, to end-users, and, even if still to a lesser

extent, regulators. This technology enables the trust of each actor towards the whole

aggregation of network actors contributing to operating and maintaining the system.

Currently, a consistent body of scholarship on blockchain in the public sector has

emerged, where it is claimed that this technology will profoundly transform public service

production and delivery (Ølnes et al., 2017;Cagigas et al., 2021). Scholars are exploring how,

in the context of public governance, blockchain has the potential to shape the exchange

between public institutions, citizens and social and economic agents (Tan, 2023), as well as

enquiring about the costs and risks for governments in this context of public sector

innovation (Cagigas et al., 2021). It is thus critical for academics to get a proper analysis and

understanding of the process of introduction of this technology in the public sector.

The present study wants to take part in the academic conversation about blockchain

adoption in the public sector, with a specific focus on arts and cultural services offered by

public sector organizations. The choice of the cultural sector as a representative of the public

field is supported by the evidence of the high potentialities of this technology for the cultural

realm as it is emerging from policy documents in the field (Grech et al., 2022). Blockchain

technology is identified as one of the five emerging trends in its annual forecast and

attempted to explore how this new technology might affect cultural institutions’ work. This

interest was certainly pushed by leading museums, such as the Austrian Museum of Applied

Arts (2015), the State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia (2017) and the

Zentrum f€

ur Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM Center for Art Media) in Karlsruhe (2018).

The International Council of Museums (ICOM) (2022) assessed from the Patron-of-Art.com

survey at ICOM Conference in ICOM Prague, 2022) that museum professionals believe that

50% of museums will use non-fungible token (NFT) technology in the future and organized a

webinar to address the common questions and misconceptions of museum professionals to

show several use cases for museums that demonstrate how NFTs can foster museums’

impact towards public education (Mucchi et al., 2022;Hu et al., 2023). Most of the presented

examples show the interest of cultural institutions in crypto-art and blockchain as an art

medium, rather than as a technology that can affect their organization internally in a broader

digital transformation strategic effort, underestimating its potential. Cultural institutions

rightly recognize blockchain technology to be a precious resource for artists and creators,

significantly reducing the barriers to entry to the market and enabling them to monetize their

work effectively (De Filippi, 2015;Whitaker and Kr€

aussl, 2020). Nevertheless, to fully grasp

the potential of blockchain and distributed ledgers technologies in this sector, through this

review, we would like to expand this focus and highlight from recent literature how

blockchain technology can enable the innovation of services in the public cultural realm.

Indeed, public sector literature already provided evidence for the potential of blockchain

technology for its properties to enhance operational efficiency, transparency and security.

For example, recent explorations have cultivated the possibility of engaging with

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