Trust between client and consultant is perhaps the most important asset in consulting, as this is a highly intangible, knowledge-intensive business that concerns issues of outstanding strategic and operational importance for the customers. Clients who have not worked with a particular consultancy face considerable risk when they place an order while lacking reliable information about the service quality they can expect. There is a strong link between trust and reputation, as the positive reputation of a consultancy can act as a substitute for a new client’s missing individual experience with the provider, fostering trust in the service quality. Thus, creating, maintaining, and demonstrating a good reputation is of significant importance for consultancies in a very competitive industry. To facilitate trustworthy signals, we design and implement a novel reputation mechanism that carries a monetary weight stored on a blockchain network as an immutable, decentralized, and transparent ledger. Based on an implementation in the Ethereum network and subsequent evaluation, we conclude that the reputation mechanism can contribute to leveling information asymmetry and reducing risk while increasing reputation and trust. The mechanism lends itself to being used in other business-to-business scenarios that suffer from similar information asymmetries.

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A Blockchain-Based Reputation System for Consulting

  • Simon Hemmrich,
  • Volker Nissen

摘要

Trust between client and consultant is perhaps the most important asset in consulting, as this is a highly intangible, knowledge-intensive business that concerns issues of outstanding strategic and operational importance for the customers. Clients who have not worked with a particular consultancy face considerable risk when they place an order while lacking reliable information about the service quality they can expect. There is a strong link between trust and reputation, as the positive reputation of a consultancy can act as a substitute for a new client’s missing individual experience with the provider, fostering trust in the service quality. Thus, creating, maintaining, and demonstrating a good reputation is of significant importance for consultancies in a very competitive industry. To facilitate trustworthy signals, we design and implement a novel reputation mechanism that carries a monetary weight stored on a blockchain network as an immutable, decentralized, and transparent ledger. Based on an implementation in the Ethereum network and subsequent evaluation, we conclude that the reputation mechanism can contribute to leveling information asymmetry and reducing risk while increasing reputation and trust. The mechanism lends itself to being used in other business-to-business scenarios that suffer from similar information asymmetries.