Blockchain as an external enabler of new venture ideas: digital entrepreneurs and the disintermediation of the global music industry

Our study explores the work undertaken by entrepreneurial ventures when engaging with external enabling technologies. Specifically, we examine a unique sample of early-stage ventures who are using blockchain technologies in an attempt to disintermediate the music recording industry. We carry out a preliminary analysis of 36 venture 'white papers', before constructing and inductively analyzing 11 new venture case studies. In doing so, we identify three interlinked enablers of new venture ideas in this context: blockchain, ideology, and market volatility. Furthermore, we identify a range of venture-level shaping practices and field-level work that describes the framing and legitimizing activities undertaken by entrepreneurs to unlock the potential of external enablers. This extends recent conceptual work on external enablers of entrepreneurship. In particular, we propose a novel category of actor-dependent enabler should be advanced in order to capture engagement with the uniquely editable, interactive, distributed properties of digital technologies.