Thesis study on DAO participation :)

Hey All,

My peer and I are conducting research for our master’s thesis on why people do (or don’t) participate in DAO governance, and we would love to hear from token holders! Whether you actively vote or just hold tokens without engaging, your insights are valuable. The format is a structured interview of 10-15 minutes only.
The interview can be fully anonymous and there are no names, addresses or other contact information required. We can also do it in written format through a form you can fill out if that is more convenient, questions can be send in advance – no surprises here and no journalistic or external use.

Let me know if there are any questions or things you want elaborated! I will gladly share anything :slight_smile:

If interested, just let me know, and I will connect with you!

2 Likes

Hi @xTheJosh, thanks for sharing this high-level idea. Happy to have this shared on the forum but I’d ask that you share more info about yourself, the thesis, and the kind of info you’ll be capturing?

Also, would be interesting to know where else you’re sharing this.

Thanks!

1 Like

Hi @eugene,

thanks for the feedback - I would love to share some more!

I am Joshua Hansen, and I am currently writing my Master Thesis at the IT University of Copenhagen - I have lived in Denmark the last 6 years, and I study Digital Innovation & Management and had a specialisation in service, and blockchain economics with Roman Beck, a great mentor and research leader in the field!

After reading lots of literature, we have finalised our research topic to analyze motivation for DAO Governance participation. We are only master students, so the end-scope is determined based on our time, data and resources.

We are basing the analysis of two systematic literature reviews about research in participation and motivation in Online Communities, and DAO Governance voting and behavior. We will try and use Social Exchange Theory ideas to go through our data, and both the theory, and our literature was the bases of our structured interview, which covers different Social Exchange Theory topics.

Now, we just need data, and lots of them! That is why we want to talk to any token-holder, whether you are a (un)informed lurker, delegate, core member or any other role that participates in governance processes. We will conduct structured interviews that cover around 20 questions. We know that the space likes both anonymity and efficiency, thats why we also are okay with sharing a survey-based form where we one can share their answers in a text form.

We have shared this in different discords, forums and reddits, as our focus is less what the purpose of the DAO is, but more a general overview of any DAO participants.

I hope this clears some more up! You can find my profile on LinkedIN to see I am real, and always link up with insights and ideas!

The data is collected and processed anononym, and we will not use names, direct statements or any other contact information and will be deleted after submission of the thesis in june. We are not at all interested in any journalistic efforts.

If someone is interested, you can choose to book a video call through a booking link - or I will send the forms.

1 Like

Thanks for sharing. Feel free to a) join one of our future governance calls (maybe the one in 2 weeks at 7:30a EST/UTC-4) to bring up the idea and b) reach out to me over email (eugene at scroll.io) as I’d be happy to partake.

Of course! It is all to get more knowledge about DAOs and the space :slight_smile:

That sounds great - I would love to join a call, let me put that down in my calendar!

I will reach out to you tomorrow morning - that would be so great if you would be down to participate! Thank you Eugene for the time :slight_smile:

Joshua

hey! it’s awesome that you are focusing your thesis on DAO participation. I’m open to chat, just dm me

1 Like

Welcome, @xTheJosh. Very interesting topic, while there’s a couple studies around voting participation, I do actually think there’s a lack of qualitative research around DAO contributors. Happy to do an interview or help with structuring.

1 Like

Hey @pedro and @bitblondy,

thank you so much really! I would really appreciate the help - the study lives and falls by the insights I can get from the people involved! I will send you both a message, and you are free to either book a time here in my calendar, where we can host a little interview, where I will go through my questions and we can talk about the study after! I hope sharing the link is alright, and anyone can simply book a time, and I will connect with you :slight_smile:
The good thing about this space is the people who really try and make a difference, and I believe its only when we share the things we know :slight_smile: I will share the questions and a hey with you in the messages!

https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/DAOParticipationInterviews@itu.dk/bookings/s/hz_tBtvIbkCv3dWaJ2PnFw2

  • Joshua

Hey Marlene,

you can also send me a mail over josha@itu.dk - or if you are more comfortable with that, I can just share a forms with you that resemble the structured interview with the exact same questions I would ask in a meeting (Microsoft Forms) :slight_smile: It would just be nice if the answers then would cover a good sentence or two and please forward this to others who would be interested in sharing their experience about DAO participation and their motivation! Danke für die Hilfe und gerne tausche ich mich mehr in dem Thema aus - gib mir bescheid wenn ich dich anders besser erreiche - Joshua

Thanks, I booked a slot for next week. Let me know if you prefer the written version.
Bis dann!

1 Like

Hey Pedro, I am not quite sure how to send a DM here in the Forum, I did write to you on twitter though :slight_smile: