Dr. Michael Lustenberger

Work at ZHAW

Position

Senior Lecturer & Researcher

Focus

• Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)
• Blockchain Technologies for Business Application
• Industrie 4.0 & Digitale Transformation
• Supply Chain Management
• Lean Management

Teaching

• Operations and Process Management
• Supply Chain Management

Experience

• Supply Chain Manager
  AGROSID Bolivia (Santa Cruz, Bolivia)
  07 / 2012 - 05 / 2015
• External Consultant
  Kimberly-Clark Bolivia (Santa Cruz, Bolivia)
  11 / 2013 - 05 / 2014
• Operations Manager
  AAS Freight AG (Zürich, Switzerland)
  02 / 2009 - 05 / 2012
• Product & Project Manager
  CVA Management & Consulting AG (Zürich, Schweiz)
  09 / 2000 - 05 / 2012

Education and Continuing education

Education

• Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) / Business Administration
  Middlesex University London
  05 / 2015 - 03 / 2023
• Master of Science (MSc) / Operations and Supply Chain Management
  University of Liverpool (UK)
  05 / 2012 - 07 / 2014
• Master of Arts (MA) / History, Political Science & International Law
  University of Zürich
  09 / 2000 - 06 / 2005

Continuing Education

Certificate of Advanced Studies in Higher & Professional Education
ZHAW School of Management & Law
07 / 2017

Network

ORCID digital identifier

ORCID ID: 0000-0003-1503-6826

Projects

• Exploring Decentralized Governance for NPOs / Co-project leader / ongoing
• Decentralised Decision-Making in DAOs: Learnings for Digital Democracy / Co-project leader / ongoing
• Data Center at Home / Project leader / completed
• Collaborative networks: The evolution of project work in a digital world with DAOs / Co-project leader / completed
• Inno Booster Blockchain Breezing / Deputy project leader / completed
• Self-organization as a driver of e-participation: DAOs and their potential for social participation / Project leader / completed
• Tokenomics framework for the governance of decentralised autonomous organisations / Deputy project leader / completed
• Inno Booster Blockchain FTWinnerdApp / Deputy project leader / completed
• Inno Booster Blockchain DMRV Biogas / Project leader / completed
• Agroforestry Carbon Token System / Project leader / completed
• DAO Radar Switzerland / Deputy project leader / completed
• DAOify - Decentralized Autonomous Organizations / Project leader / completed
• MetaRoom / Deputy project leader / completed
• RightFootForward – Innovative business model with the possibility to donate based on blockchain technology / Co-project leader / completed
• Build-Your-Own DAO – Designing and Implementing a Decentralized Autonomous Organization / Co-project leader / completed
• no1s1 – A house owned by no one but itself / Team member / completed
• Blockchain Technology in Interorganizational Collaboration / Co-project leader / completed
• A Governance Framework for the Swiss Blockchain Ecosystem / Co-project leader / completed
• Supernodes in the dHealth Network / Team member / completed
• Decentralized Registration and Trading Platform for Emission Certificates / Co-project leader / completed
• Expert Group of the Swiss Alliance for Data-intensive (NTN-Network) / Project leader / completed

Publications

Articles in scientific journal, peer-reviewed

• Wollenschläger, S. and Lustenberger, M. (2026) 'Self-organization and digital participation : evaluating DAOs and alternative governance models', Information Polity. doi: 10.1177/15701255261421040.
• Bassi, E., Lustenberger, M. and Letina, S. (2025) 'Blockchain-based voluntary carbon market : strategic insights into network structure', Frontiers in Blockchain, 8(1603695). doi: 10.3389/fbloc.2025.1603695.
• Lustenberger, M., Wollenschläger, S. and Küng, L. (2025) 'DAO as digital governance tool for collaborative housing', Frontiers in Blockchain, 8(1523951). doi: 10.3389/fbloc.2025.1523951.
• Lustenberger, M. et al. (2025) 'DAO research trends : reflections and learnings from the first European DAO workshop (DAWO)', Applied Sciences, 15(7), p. 3491. doi: 10.3390/app15073491.
• Lustenberger, M., Küng, L. and Spychiger, F. (2025) 'Designing community governance : learnings from DAOs', The journal of the British Blockchain Association, 8(1). doi: 10.31585/jbba-8-1-(4)2025.
• Lustenberger, M. et al. (2025) 'DAOs as property owners : a conceptual exploration from the perspective of organizational system theory', Journal of Organization Design, 14(2), pp. 127–143. doi: 10.1007/s41469-025-00186-4.
• Lustenberger, M. and Spychiger, F. (2025) 'Blockchain in supply chains : an unfulfilled promise', Supply Chain Management, 30(2), pp. 178–194. doi: 10.1108/SCM-03-2024-0192.
• Spychiger, F. et al. (2023) 'Organizing projects with blockchain through a decentralized autonomous organization', Project Leadership and Society, 4(100102). doi: 10.1016/j.plas.2023.100102.
• Schädler, L., Lustenberger, M. and Spychiger, F. (2023) 'Analyzing decision-making in blockchain governance', Frontiers in Blockchain, 23(6). doi: 10.3389/fbloc.2023.1256651.
• Lustenberger, M., Malešević , S. and Spychiger, F. (2021) 'Ecosystem readiness : blockchain adoption is driven externally', Frontiers in Blockchain, 4(720454). doi: 10.3389/fbloc.2021.720454.
• Malešević, S., Lustenberger, M. and Spychiger, F. (2020) 'Applying distributed ledger concepts to a Swiss regional label ecosystem', Logistics, 4(32). doi: 10.3390/logistics4040032.

Book chapters, peer-reviewed

• Spychiger, F., Lustenberger, M. and Küng, L. (2025) 'Decision-making in decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs)', in Themistocleous, M. (ed.) Handbook of blockchain technology. Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 142–163. doi: 10.4337/9781803922805.00020.
• Lustenberger, M., Spychiger, F. and Taylor, M. (2019) 'Optimierung des Supply Chain Informationsaustauschs mit Blockchain-Startups', in Digitalisierung in der Praxis : so schaffen KMU den Weg in die Zukunft. Wiesbaden: Springer, pp. 209–221. doi: 10.1007/978-3-658-26137-5_14.

Written conference contributions, peer-reviewed

• Lustenberger, M., Spychiger, F. and Küng, L. (eds) (2025) Decentralized autonomous organizations – governance, technology, and legal perspectives : proceedings of the 2nd European DAO Workshop (DAWO), Zürich, Switzerland, 2025, 2nd European DAO Workshop (DAWO), Zurich, Switzerland, 23-24 June 2025. Cham: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-3-032-03273-7.
• Küng, L., Lustenberger, M. and Spychiger, F. (2024) 'Decision-making in a more-than-human world', in Blockchain Kaigi, Zurich, Switzerland, 12-13 September 2024.
• Lustenberger, M., Spychiger, F. and Küng, L. (2024) 'Designing a decentralized autonomous organization', in ECIS 2024 Proceedings. Association for Information Systems. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2024/track16_fintech/track16_fintech/6/.
• Martignoni, J. et al. (2023) 'Decentralizing project management by a DAO : a first attempt', in 23rd EURAM Annual Conference, Dublin, Ireland, 14-16 June 2023.
• Spychiger, F. and Lustenberger, M. (2022) 'Decision-making in blockchains', in 22nd EURAM Annual Conference, Winterthur, Switzerland, 15-17 June 2022. ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-25564.
• Lustenberger, M., Spychiger, F. and Malešević, S. (2020) 'Towards a better understanding of the value of blockchains in supply chain management', in Information Systems : 16th European, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern Conference, Proceedings. Cham: Springer, pp. 101–112. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-44322-1_8.

Other publications

• Lustenberger, M. et al. (2024) Mastering DAOs : a practical guidebook for building and managing decentralized autonomous organizations. 2nd revised edition. Winterthur: ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-2543.
• Lustenberger, M. et al. (2024) DAO research trends : reflections and learnings from the first European DAO Workshop (DAWO). SSRN. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.4944742.
• Lustenberger, M. and Spychiger, F. (2019) 'Blockchain als Grundlage des Informationsaustausches', Fokus Swiss. Available at: https://fokus.swiss/2019/07/03/blockchain-als-grundlage-des-informationsaustausches/.
• Heim, E., Miszak, F. and Lustenberger, M. (2017) 'Zero Inventory – ein überholtes Konzept? : sind tiefe Lagerbestände wirklich ertragssteigernd?', Zeitschrift für wirtschaftlichen Fabrikbetrieb, 112(10), pp. 666–669. doi: 10.3139/104.111805.
• Ehrat, M. and Lustenberger, M. (2016) 'Risiko von 'Industrie 4.0″', Competence, 2010(7), pp. 34–36. Available at: https://www.zhaw.ch/storage/sml/ueber-uns/sml-magazin-competence-nr7.pdf.

Oral conference contributions and abstracts

• Lustenberger, M. (2018) 'Blockchain-Technologie im Supply Chain Management', in F&E-Konferenz zu Industrie 4.0, Brugg-Windisch, 15. Januar 2018.
• Lustenberger, M. (2017) 'Blockchain-Technologie in Supply Chain Management', in Zweite F&E Konferenz zur Industrie 4.0, Winterthur, 11. Januar 2017.

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