The effects of autonomous contracting on inter-organisational relationships: A process model of trust, social capital and value co-creation

Engaging in relationships with other organisations through the deployment of autonomous technologies offers a substantial improvement for the efficiency by ensuring that the inter-organisational business processes are better scheduled, coordinated, executed, and monitored. One manifestation of this trend is autonomous contracting, also known as blockchain-based smart contracting, which enables an autonomous execution of pre-defined digital agreements. However, little is known about how such technologies influence firms’ relational resources such as trust and social capital that aid the conduct of social affairs, and subsequently affect performance. This study therefore investigated the social processes and the outcomes of inter-organisational relationships in the autonomous contracting settings through semi-structured interviews (N = 25) with executives of firms that either use the technology or facilitate its implementation. The findings revealed the conducive effect of autonomous contracting for value-co-creation by the firms. The findings also revealed that autonomous contracting facilitates co-creation of value through enabling system trust and enhancing social capital. The study contributes to the inter-organisational relationship literature and our understanding of how interfirm relationships can evolve in the autonomous contracting settings.