Writer: Charles Adjovu

DGov Score Framework Update

Moving on to Formalization Version 0.4 and testing our Framework

Ledgerback Digital Commons Research Cooperative

Published in

Cryptolinks

5 min readApr 30, 2020

Official Graphic from the Thinklusive Journal.

Foreword

The Distributed Governance Score (“DGov Score,” “Framework”) was initially formulated to be a point-based analytic framework for evaluating and comparing DGov organizations (e.g., DAO v. DAO), but we have decided to redesign the framework.

From further research into the organization design literature, we have gained a greater understanding of organizations, and the need for adding multi-dimensionality to our framework so that we can analyze the objective, subjective, and subjective-objective aspects of organizations.

The Framework will still lead to the creation of a score for organizations in the DGov space, but how we calculate this score is still under development.

Since our first post, we have made three updates (referred to here as formalizations) to the DGov Score Framework.

This article will cover the fourth formalization and our next steps in testing and validating the framework.

The fourth formalization incorporates four models:

Organization Determination
Organization Dimensions and Classification
Organization Effectiveness
Meta-score

This formalization places a greater emphasis on whether DGov organizations fall under the Community Organization IdealType (i.e., is this organization behaving more or less similarly to the generic community organization).

For background information, please refer to our first post on the DGov Score Framework, which may be found by clicking on the link below:

DGov Score Framework

An Analytical Framework for comparing DGov Organizations

medium.com

Fourth Formalization

The fourth formalization is described below. In this formalization, we are explicitly considering DGov organizations as Community-like organizations.

DGov Organization Determination V0.4

Determine whether the organization is actually an organization (though, not required to see how it is solving the fundamental problems of organizing).

For making this determination, we are relying on the four factor test below.

“(1) a multi agent system with (2) identifiable boundaries and (3) system-level goals (purpose) toward which (4) the constituent agent’s efforts are expected to make a contribution” [7].

DGov Organization Dimensions and Classification Model V0.4

Determine where the organization falls under the Organization Dimensions and IdealType (Dimensions determination is not required if we assume that DGov Organizations exist)

The Ideal Types we can utilize for collaborative organizations are community and community-hybrids:

Community-Hierarchy
Community-Market
Community

For organizations based on management style, we can use:

Bureaucracy
Adhocracy
Self-management

or a combination of them.

DGov Organization Effectiveness Model V0.4

Dimensions of Effectiveness:

Member Satisfaction
Voting Power Index
Collaborative Governance
3.1. Formal structure
3.2. Joint decision-making at all stages
3.3. What is the decision-making protocol?
3.4. Public involvement?
3.5. Discourse & Negotiation
3.6. Value Creation
3.7. Value Distribution
Goal Attainment (i.e., is the organization making progress towards its operational objectives)
Systems Resources
5.1. Resources: Based on community capitals framework: (1) natural capital, (2) cultural capital, (3) human capital, (4) social capital, (5) political capital, (6) financial capital, and (7) built capital.
Organization Technology (OrgTech)
6.1. Use of OrgTech
6.2. and other Web3 tech
System openness and community interaction
Internal Smoothness (i.e., do members of the Org think it is working well internally)
Member personal development
Member career development
Presence of Formalized Enabling Documents
Member professional development
Resource Management
Knowledge-sharing and Transparency
Self-management
Principles, Values and Mission
Participatory Decision-making
Non-binary voting systems
Reputational
19.1. Public Recognition
19.2. Social Trust
Bridging Activity
Leadership Development
Member Engagement
Adaptive Management
Token Economics
24.1. Mostly focusing on organization-related tokens such as membership and governance (if not the same)
Principle-agency Dilemma

Effectiveness fields for DGov:

Option 1

Good collaborative governance
Formalized Enabling Documents
External adaptation to environment
Development of Organization
Goal Attainment
Organization Capacity
Promotion of cultural capital and system openness
Stakeholder view
Bridging Activity (Can define as an organization that bridges Web 3.0 technologies, industry/domain players, and Web 3.0 community together (i.e., nexus))
Member Personal Satisfaction
Usage of OrgTech and Democratizing Technology

Option 2

Promotion of cultural capital and system openness
Bridging Activity
Good collaborative governance
Member Personal Satisfaction
Usage of OrgTech and Democratizing Technology
How is the Org solving the principle-agency problem?

DGov Score Meta-score

Multi-constituency effectiveness analysis

Comparing internal stakeholder evaluation of organization and external stakeholder evaluation of organization.

Testing and Validating

We plan to test the fourth formalization by creating a questionnaire. We may also add more instruments depending on whether we see them as necessary.

Additionally, we plan to prune the number of dimensions for the Organization effectiveness to ~8–9 dimensions.

Once tested, then we can validate our constructs for the fourth formalization

Conceptualization Development

Below is a short summary of Charles Adjovu and Jack Smye’s thoughts on separating DGov from OrgTech [6].

Distributed Governance (DGov)

DGov should refer to the governance system of transparency, participatory decision-making, non-hierarchical structures (principles and values, structure), with a high level of asynchronous communication, modular tasks, and mostly online (rarely face-to-face) interaction (practices) among organization members. Primarily, the goal of DGov is to increase member participation and commitment to the organization by giving members more say (or equal say) and buy-in in the decision-making processes, and increasing transparency so that members are more informed about the organization’s affairs (i.e., increasing knowledge-sharing and -access among members). At the end of the day, it is about giving people more say and information about the organizations they are involved in and to build a more harmonious social environment (a la Sociocracy).

In other words, DGov is the human-centric principles, values, and practices geared towards the blockchain space [6].

Organization Technology (OrgTech)

OrgTech should refer to technologies and protocols built for organizational management, primarily on blockchains, to help reduce instances of principal-agency failure, increase organizational management efficiency and achieve associated cost-savings, and increase compliance with internal rules, policies and procedures.

In other words, OrgTech is the tech-centric rules and regulations geared towards the blockchain space [6].

Need for Separation

I believe that DGov and OrgTech should be separated into two concepts because of their different purposes and objectives. Furthermore, there may be instances when OrgTech is used to increase organizational management efficiency, but without DGov practices such as in the case of a very centralized, hierarchical organization that utilizes OrgTech (e.g., Aragon for a DAO ) which provides greater transparency, but not greater member participation in decision-making [6].