Redesigning Corporate Governance through Blockchain Technology: Opportunities and Challenges for Enhancing Transparency and Accountability

The rapid evolution of blockchain technology presents both unprecedented opportunities and novel challenges for corporate governance, particularly in enhancing organizational transparency and accountability. Despite growing interest, empirical evidence on the real impact of blockchain-based governance frameworks remains limited, and the mechanisms through which blockchain reshapes decision rights, stakeholder engagement, and oversight are not yet fully understood. This study addresses this gap by investigating how blockchain-enabled governance models can be systematically designed to maximize transparency and accountability while mitigating emerging risks such as decentralization-induced ambiguity and technological vulnerabilities. Employing a mixed-methods approach, we combine a comparative case study analysis of multinational corporations piloting blockchain governance with a quasi-experimental design (difference-in-differences and propensity score matching) to assess changes in transparency metrics—such as Information Asymmetry Reduction Index (IARI) and audit trail completeness—before and after implementation. Our findings reveal that blockchain integration significantly enhances process auditability and stakeholder trust but introduces new complexities in decision-making authority and legal compliance. The study concludes that while blockchain holds strong potential to transform corporate governance, its benefits are contingent upon context-sensitive design and robust risk management. The main innovation lies in proposing an empirically validated framework that guides organizations in leveraging blockchain for governance transformation, offering actionable insights for both scholars and practitioners.