Toward the Conception of a Multichain to Meet Users' Future Needs: A Design Science Research Approach to Digital Servitization in the Automotive Industry

Abstract

Recent literature claims that blockchain technology (BCT) has the potential to enhance interorganizational data sharing. Yet, in practice, BCTs implementation faces challenges that partly explain companies' reluctance to adopt BCT in their existing interorganizational environment. This is particularly striking in some economic sectors, such as the automotive industry transformed by the current digital servitization (DS) of the connected vehicle ecosystem; where traditional automotive businesses are being urged to collaborate with new ecosystem actors (e.g., insurance companies). With the perspective to tackle these challenges and promote the use of BCT at the interorganizational level, this article designs a BCT-based architecture based on Polkadot. Based on a design science research approach, we ensure alignment between the technological, interorganizational, and organizational dimensions of DS. Results are drawn from a dialog with the connected vehicle ecosystem's actors as well as a literature review at the intersection of BCT design, DS, and data sharing. Overall, results contribute to the existing literature on BCT design, as they emphasize the potential of multichain BCT to structure interorganizational settings. Additionally, the study provides design principles for integrating BCT into data-sharing contexts like the one observed in the connected vehicle ecosystem. More specifically, this research emphasizes the suitability of multichain architecture in allowing a balance between the decentralization of public blockchains and the control of private blockchains.