Blockchain technology is argued to drastically change the way we operate within an organizational context, with decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) representing a first manifestation of this ongoing trend. DAOs are characterized by an online community that builds the organization’s backbone by providing knowledge and human resources in a transparent, virtual manner, as well as the use of blockchain technology to coordinate their endeavor. Nevertheless, current research highlights the conceptual ambiguity of this emerging phenomenon, leading to potential issues for practitioners and researchers. To provide further clarity on the phenomenon, we study DAOs through the perspective of their members with a two-staged approach by combining elements of a netnographic approach and structural topic modeling. Our findings highlight several contextual features surrounding DAOs, such as their members’ underlying beliefs and views, helping to embed DAOs in existing research streams.

人们认为区块链技术将彻底改变我们在组织环境中的运作方式，而去中心化自治组织（DAO）代表了这一持续趋势的第一个表现。DAO 的特点是在线社区，该社区通过以透明、虚拟的方式提供知识和人力资源以及使用区块链技术来协调其努力来构建组织的支柱。然而，当前的研究强调了这种新兴现象的概念模糊性，给从业者和研究人员带来了潜在的问题。为了进一步阐明这一现象，我们通过结合网络志方法和结构主题建模的元素，采用两阶段方法从其成员的角度研究 DAO。