**7. Discussion**

#### **7.1 Changed relationships**

BT, guided by ANT, offers an approach to technology adoption that organises information and human action in a decentralised as well as offering more credibility between organisations and their stakeholders. One of the most interesting challenges of BTs is the transition of trust from institutions and social interactions to semi-automatic and semi-autonomous technological systems. ANT offers a smooth approach to transitioning through the concept of interest alignment, which includes a comprehensive discussion between the actors to figure out how to identify the motivations to adopt BT to guarantee easy adaptation.

ANT illustrates how such a network may, for example, look like in relation to the introduction of a digital land registration system using BT. The integration of the new land registration system requires the formation of new norms and other established network components that reorganise around a new actor. ANT offers deeper insights into the change processes involved in the new relationships. This can then result in recommendations on how to make the new network more stable and in so doing facilitate the effective integration of the technology into the land registration environment.

## **7.2 Transformative effects**

The ANT attempts impartiality towards all actors, whether human or non-human and makes no distinction in approach between the social, the natural and technological. Introducing such innovative approaches using BT technologies that change the current social and political system will probably be resisted initially. This resistance includes the beneficent, the owners and buyers in the case of the Sudanese land registration, the intermediaries and the critics who would reject the new. The resistance could be attributable to different reasons such as legal, social, cultural or even educational reasons. Offering some awareness upfront through the ANT lens to the actors regarding the BT implementations could reduce the expected resistance (**Figure 8**).

Some digital government practices can be accurately captured via the ANT construct of obligatory points of passage. The associated strategies of the stakeholders who attempt to reconfigure networks of artefacts in order to institutionalise digital government systems are usefully analysed via ANT translation stages. However, achieving full enrolment in the blockchain network could require more time and effort from the actors to have full interests' alignment for all the participants. The parallel implementation of the blockchain network with the current network could make the adoption smoother in the future as the existence of reassurance factor regarding the potential of incidence in the current work which boosts confidence with the new artefact with continuous progress.

*Perspective Chapter: Actor-Network Theory as an Organising Structure for Blockchain Adoption… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106751*

**Figure 8.** *An ANT view of the intended land registration network after the blockchain adoption.*

### **7.3 Flexibility for social context**

The approach presented attempts to organise the new technology's structure using ANT basis to facilitate its mapping process with the real-world actornetwork through negotiation and dialogue sessions, leading to compatibility. ANT illustrates BT's flexibility according to actor social desires through negotiated smart contracts. For example, the ability to dynamically open black boxes to take into account local and situated contexts in BT means that actors can gradually make transactions that are mutually acceptable and move towards a shared view of land tenure. This shared view is important for social and financial stability in reducing land challenges that often arise from over- or under-valuing, and as collateral for needed finances.

### **7.4 Persistent records and transparency**

ANT illustrates the importance of having a full and transparent history of records about land using BT, and the reasons for land transfers. This transparency and persistence of records further contribute to a stable social system around the land. The appeal of BT revolves around the smart networks theory which posits that value replication is conducted by the network itself where smartness is created within the

network's tasks using a sophisticated protocol that validates, confirms and controls transactions through the network [30].
