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The aim of this paper is to analyze how the governance of an enterprise blockchain ecosystem changes as it matures and increases in size. A review of the literature serves to identify five behavioral drivers of governance, which appear to affect the long-term viability of a blockchain ecosystem: access rights, decision rights, incentives, accountability, and conflict resolution. We subsequently report the findings from a comparative case study of how three large blockchain ecosystems implemented various governance mechanisms to exploit and modify the five behavioral drivers over time. Based on twenty-six interviews and approximately 200 h of participant observations, we propose an analytical framework that consists of three distinctive stages in the life cycle of a blockchain ecosystem. Each stage is characterized by an intricate relationship between off-chain and on-chain governance mechanisms. Based on these findings, various recommendations are provided to increase the long-term viability of blockchain ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the looming land scarcity suited for agricultural expansion, farmland abandonment is widespread globally. The recultivation of some abandoned farmlands could unlock the untapped agricultural potential. Yet, little is known about the determinants of recultivation. To better understand the behavioral intentions of farmers regarding the recultivation of abandoned lands, we concentrated on the Buryat Republic in Russia, where agricultural land abandonment is widespread and farmers with different ethnicities carry out diverse agricultural practices. We conducted 149 face-to-face interviews with the farmers in the Buryat Republic in 2018 and filled a structured questionnaire on farm’s and farmers’ socioeconomic characteristics, perceived corruption, and farmers’ behavioral intentions regarding expected land use. We modeled the intention of recultivation with the Bayesian networks. The Bayesian networks analysis showed that perceived corruption was considered to be a barrier to recultivation. Our study also showed that non-Buryat ethnic and young farmers are more likely to recultivate abandoned land. Abandoned farmlands without or with a low degree of afforestation were preferred for recultivation. In sum, our study showed how behavioral aspects of political trust, the farm’s and farmer’s characteristics, in combination with regional and locational characteristics, may shape farmers’ decisions on land use. The results provide an important ground to assess regional land-use policies, which should foster the recultivation of abandoned lands while preserving ecosystem services in the global hotspots of farmland abandonment, such as Russia

The aim of this paper is to analyze how the governance of an enterprise blockchain ecosystem changes as it matures and increases in size. A review of the literature serves to identify five behavioral drivers of governance, which appear to affect the long-term viability of a blockchain ecosystem: access rights, decision rights, incentives, accountability, and conflict resolution. We subsequently report the findings from a comparative case study of how three large blockchain ecosystems implemented various governance mechanisms to exploit and modify the five behavioral drivers over time. Based on twenty-six interviews and approximately 200 h of participant observations, we propose an analytical framework that consists of three distinctive stages in the life cycle of a blockchain ecosystem. Each stage is characterized by an intricate relationship between off-chain and on-chain governance mechanisms. Based on these findings, various recommendations are provided to increase the long-term viability of blockchain ecosystems.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the exploration of environmental modeling methods based on the elicitation of stakeholders’ mental models. This aim is motivated by the necessity to understand the dilemmas and behavioral rationales of individuals for supporting the management of environmental problems. The methodology developed for this paper integrates qualitative and quantitative methods by deploying focus groups for the elicitation of the behavioral rationales of the target population, and grounded theory to code the information gained in the focus groups and to guide the development of a dynamic simulation model. The approach is applied to a case of urban air pollution caused by residential heating with wood in central Chile. The results show how the households’ behavior interrelates with the governmental management strategies and provide valuable and novel insights into potential challenges to the implementation of policies to manage the local air pollution problem. The experience further shows that the developed participatory modeling approach allows to overcome some of the issues currently encountered in the elicitation of individuals’ behavioral rationales and in the quantification of qualitative information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land consolidation is a well-proven land management instrument traditionally used for farm restructuring. A land consolidation project's success depends to a large extent on the interest and willingness of landowners and communities to participate in the project. Here, local governments and responsible agencies can contribute to the higher motivation of landowners if the factors influencing the landowners' readiness to participate are known and appropriately addressed. Building on qualitative and quantitative data collected from landowners' interviews in 10 municipalities in North Macedonia during 2019, this article provides insights into the individual factors influencing landowners' readiness to participate in land consolidation and behavioural factors at both individual and social level determining negative attitude towards land consolidation. The article further identifies possible incentives, techniques, and nudges to increase landowners' participation in land consolidation.Low economic interest, adversarial and non-cooperative attitude, lack of trust in institutions, fear of manipulation, and the belief that the process will be unjust, are the top subjective reasons landowners are not interested in participating in land consolidation. The regression analysis results revealed that the age of a landowner, plans to pass land to children, the sufficiency of information and the number of parcels forming a holding have a statistically significant relationship with the readiness to participate in land consolidation. • lack of economic interest undermines support to land consolidation. • lack of trust in institutions, fear of manipulation and injustice reduce the interest. • plans to pass land to children and sufficient information increase the interest. • operational techniques and nudges may persuade landowners to participate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the looming land scarcity suited for agricultural expansion, farmland abandonment is widespread globally. The recultivation of some abandoned farmlands could unlock the untapped agricultural potential. Yet, little is known about the determinants of recultivation. To better understand the behavioral intentions of farmers regarding the recultivation of abandoned lands, we concentrated on the Buryat Republic in Russia, where agricultural land abandonment is widespread and farmers with different ethnicities carry out diverse agricultural practices. We conducted 149 face-to-face interviews with the farmers in the Buryat Republic in 2018 and filled a structured questionnaire on farm's and farmers' socioeconomic characteristics, perceived corruption, and farmers' behavioral intentions regarding expected land use. We modeled the intention of recultivation with the Bayesian networks. The Bayesian networks analysis showed that perceived corruption was considered to be a barrier to recultivation. Our study also showed that non-Buryat ethnic and young farmers are more likely to recultivate abandoned land. Abandoned farmlands without or with a low degree of afforestation were preferred for recultivation. In sum, our study showed how behavioral aspects of political trust, the farm's and farmer's characteristics, in combination with regional and locational characteristics, may shape farmers' decisions on land use. The results provide an important ground to assess regional land-use policies, which should foster the recultivation of abandoned lands while preserving ecosystem services in the global hotspots of farmland abandonment, such as Russia. [Display omitted] • Perceived corruption was a strong barrier to recultivate abandoned farmland. • The intention to recultivate abandoned farmland was tightly linked with grain production. • Younger farmers were more prone to recultivate abandoned farmland. • non-Buryat ethnic farmers had higher willingness to recultivate abandoned farmland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how long information and communications technology (ICT) products are used, when they are disposed of, and underlying drivers for consumer behavior, play a defining role in the potential success of current and future policy strategies on circularity in the electronics sector. In this study, we explored the service life and storage stages of four types of ICT products in Denmark, namely mobile phones, laptops, tablets, and desktop personal computers (PCs), using dynamic material flow analysis (MFA) with sales-stock-lifetime reconciliation capability. Further, we characterized the stock of products in Denmark and its dynamics from 1990 to 2018, and extract evidence on how obsolescence and technological shifts affect product service life. Results showed that the active use stock of analyzed ICT products has either stabilized (mobile phones, laptops, tablets) or is decreasing (feature phones, desktop PCs). The dead storage stock of smartphones, laptops and tablets continues to expand and in 2018 accounted for 30% of their combined total stock. Results highlight that the technological shift from feature phones to smartphones was likely accompanied by a drop in mobile phone service lifetime from 3 years to around 2 years between 2008 and 2012. Furthermore, our results suggest that product physical obsolescence was not the main driver for the length of service life, while intangible product qualities may play a significant role. Image, graphical abstract [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A pressing goal in global development and other sectors is often to understand what drives people's behaviors, and how to influence them. Yet designing behavior change interventions is often an unsystematic process, hobbled by insufficient understanding of contextual and perceptual behavioral drivers and a narrow focus on limited research methods to assess them. We propose a toolkit (CUBES) of two solutions to help programs arrive at more effective interventions. First, we introduce a novel framework of behavior, which is a practical tool for programs to structure potential drivers and match corresponding interventions. This evidence-based framework was developed through extensive cross-sectoral literature research and refined through application in large-scale global development programs. Second, we propose a set of descriptive, experimental, and simulation approaches that can enhance and expand the methods commonly used in global development. Since not all methods are equally suited to capture the different types of drivers of behavior, we present a decision aid for method selection. We recommend that existing commonly used methods, such as observations and surveys, use CUBES as a scaffold and incorporate validated measures of specific types of drivers in order to comprehensively test all the potential components of a target behavior. We also recommend under-used methods from sectors such as market research, experimental psychology, and decision science, which programs can use to extend their toolkit and test the importance and impact of key enablers and barriers. The CUBES toolkit enables programs across sectors to streamline the process of conceptualizing, designing, and optimizing interventions, and ultimately to change behaviors and achieve targeted outcomes., Competing Interests: No competing interests were disclosed.