The Transformation and Evolution of Governance in the Era of Blockchain Tech

The recent evolution and advancements in technology are rapidly helping individuals, companies, and organizations elevate their working culture. With the pandemic, a strong need for public governance has arisen, along with technology that can back it up. Governance refers to different things, but all of them sum up to one point — monitoring and maintaining particular or several aspects together.

It is basically structured and decentralized into an entity’s decision-making, accountability, and control. Governance is not a single task but a constant process to keep track of everything going in the right direction, safely and intact. This creates a demand for a strict, decentralized model of governance — blockchain technology.

Blockchain is spreading everywhere, from healthcare to agriculture, and the financial sector individually reports 30 percent of the market value of blockchain worldwide as of 2020. This tech will be a 19 billion US Dollar Industry by 2024, so it’s time the government sector starts adapting its way of functioning, too.

What Makes Public Governance Different from Corporate?

Although public and corporate governance is quite similar, they still possess different traits. Both have a questioning body to make the decisions and have formal powers provided to them. What differentiates the public sector is the decisions being taken for the way the public acts in their day-to-day life, whereas, with corporate governance, a protocol is laid out for how the organization works.

Public governance ensures status, influence, power, and a decentralized structure to maintain every section of the society. In the case of Corporate Governance, the governing body works in synchronization with the market structure. Quite often, you’ll witness public government bodies working per the micro-meso-macro structures and the corporate governing bodies working per the microstructure.

Public governance is distributed, hierarchical, and decentralized, just how blockchain functions, and is always open to more changes. The corporate bodies have limited decentralization and are not looking forward to including new high-level job posts. In shorter terms, public governance witnesses a leader, whereas corporate governance has a boss or head looking after everything.

How Many Public Governance Models are Present?

With several models present, four models mainly assist the governing bodies in making decisions:

Policy Governance Model

This model, also known as the Carver Model, mainly grants the governing bodies the obligation or accountability for their respective offices/organizations. The model lets the head office and board of directors take decisions, control the managerial tasks, and evaluate the organization’s functioning, all-in-all leading the organization.

Traditional Model

Here, the board of directors opts for decentralized committees and departments (finance, foreign, marketing, etc.), directing and guiding them. These teams are divided into an extensive workforce so that they can each have a reporting authority. The managers of these departments further respond to the executive authority.

Collective Model

Under this model’s functioning, the staff and the board of directors come together for the governance and working format of the organization. The board is free to participate in both operational and managerial activities to escalate the overall organizational functioning.

Advisory Board Model

The board of directors cumulatively selects an advisory board that features experts of the niche and industry who further take steps to help the organization thrive across the desired sector. This team guides making decisions, but the board of directors mainly takes the decisions.

Evolution of Governance: Which Models are Still Working?

Many changes have been made over time due to tech evolution in the past years. Technological aspects have played a significant role in reshaping them since it has totally transformed the way life is led. Along with it, the changing relations between the East and West are also one of the causes behind the change in governance models. With constant competition between countries, the primary question is — which model works toward achieving harmony and smoother functioning across the globe?

Different organizations require all the stated models based on their type of work. From the governing parties to NPOs and NGOs, they hold a lot of accountability in front of the society and hence focus on functioning the public governance models without much expense and more remarkable skill. Currently, the Traditional Model is the most followed and appreciated globally for a greater level of harmony.

This model helps the governing bodies and organizations have a decentralized functioning format, with authorities assigned every step to report the status of activities done. It also helps in having multiple thoughts that help the organization flourish from time to time.

The Collective Model establishes a friendly staff relation that promotes well-being and smoother organizational functioning. Staff under the board are equal members of actions and decisions; hence everyone roots out for this model, making it one of the most successful ways of working today.

On the other hand, the governing bodies, apart from NGOs and NPOs, are also capable of hiring an advisory board for their comfort. In some ways, it is also a practically existing model. A model that witnesses lesser usage these days is the Carvers Model since mostly the corporate sector has it in functioning.

Working with a stricter board for the Public Sector brings down a positive and friendly environment. With lesser opportunities to raise a voice, the purpose of the public sector falls.

Has Technology Impacted the Public Governance Models?

The way public governance functions now is heavily reliant on technology, especially with the impact of COVID-19; everything that these governing bodies require for appropriate functioning has shifted online. Working on remote premises is now the essence, and information technology empowers public governance toward a thriving democratic environment.

In India, the Prime Minister alone held 21 online meetings during the Second Wave of COVID-19 in April 2021. Also, in March 2020, as the nation went under lockdown, he engaged in 14 e-meetings.

Technology helps the organizations intake quick decisions & immediate actions whenever required and host meetings/sessions, including stakeholders, investors, and sponsors not able to attend meetings offline across the globe. This way, technology helps correctly distribute responsibilities, responsible authorities, and transparency in front of the public.

Blockchain technology makes a ton of difference for the governing sector. It helps reduce verification and networking costs with optimized decentralization, so you don’t need a specific staff or team. It mainly helps lessen the risk of data sharing every time an organization or individual makes a transaction, exchanges currency, contracts, digital assets, and other crucial things.

It also assists in maintaining proof of work with ledger and records dating back years and decades. It is safe and secure with the decentralized security format prevalent across all levels. This protocol helps the governing bodies shift from reliance on the workforce to supporting digital aspects.

Public Governance & Technology: What Can be Achieved with Early Adoption?

Technology and governance are two absolutely different sectors, and it isn’t easy to combine them. Let alone early adoption, bringing technology in at the right time is also crucial and takes a lot of effort to accomplish.

It augments human decision-making abilities and fulfills a nominal body/department’s presence at fewer costs than hiring personnel. Besides, it efficiently prevents cybersecurity vulnerabilities such as data leaks, website hacks, theft, fraudulent activities, social media hacking, disruption of cloud storage, etc., with decentralized chain formatting for every piece of data.

The sector can also rely on tech to introduce robots such as the frontline worker Grace, which relieves the burden of hospital staff in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic. These robots can elevate the agricultural and farming sectors, which are suffering the most due to decreased efficiency as there is a limit to doing manual work.

For this to happen, there is a definite need for technologists and public governing bodies to come together; basically, there’s a need to witness “public-interest-technologists.” This isn’t an uncommon term, these people are masters in both data science and policy framework, and they are present everywhere, even during Obama’s era in the Whitehouse.

What Future Does Public Governance Hold in this Era?

One obvious thing — there is no going back. Without any doubt, sooner or later, the Public Governing Bodies will have to rely on technology for smoother and hassle-free governance. There will be a need for social media activation to transform messages or intentions to the public and, most importantly, blockchain for their public administration.

According to a survey by PWC, several people are involved in making blockchain possible for the public governance sector. 84 percent of 600 people from 15 countries are already engaged in blockchain-related technologies. Of these 84 percent people, 32 percent are involved in the development, and 20 percent are involved in research.

With several such types of research underway, technology is deliberately being included in improving the public governance sector. That doesn’t mean all these fancy things will be around us very quickly; it will take time, but it is the future — and will soon be around us as if it’s here for ages!