Explaining decentralisation in enterprise blockchain governance: The imprint of platform openness and participant inclusiveness

While blockchain technologies are widely portrayed as a decentralising force, enterprise blockchains tend to reproduce centralised governance structures. To explain this paradox, we conducted a deductive, explanatory, multi-case study of four enterprise blockchains during their formative stage: Walmart DL Freight, Contour, Chronicled MediLedger, and Cardossier. We examine how variations in platform openness (the breadth of access to governance arenas) and participant inclusiveness (the depth of stakeholder influence on governance decisions) shape decentralisation trajectories as imprinting mechanisms: formative conditions that embed power asymmetries into sociotechnical infrastructures, constraining subsequent governance evolution. Empirically, we find that high openness and high inclusiveness supported decentralisation, low levels of both reinforced centralisation, and asymmetric configurations resulted in hybrid, semi-decentralised arrangements. Theoretically, we contribute a variance model that explains how early governance configurations shape decentralisation trajectories in enterprise blockchains. These contributions have practical implications for organisations designing blockchain governance: formative decisions around openness and inclusiveness can cast long institutional shadows, making early strategic alignment critical for realising blockchain’s decentralisation potential.