An Integrated Conceptual Framework to Assess Small and Rural Municipalities’ Readiness for Smart City Implementation: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

The term smart city is commonly used to describe the use of various types of digital infrastructure and technologies to collect data in order to provide information that can be used to manage resources efficiently and provide a better standard of living for citizens. Smart city technology could be also used to solve the education challenges of continuous urbanization, thereby facilitating the international sustainable development goal of quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all communities (cf. https://sdgs.un.org/goals). Many cities have used information and communication technologies (ICTs) to enable smart city concepts. Most small and rural municipalities struggle to manage their resources, which results in service delivery problems. A smart city intervention may help small and rural municipalities to curb these problems, but there is slow implementation of this concept in these municipalities due to the lack of an integrated framework focusing on the assessment of small and rural municipalities’ readiness for smart city implementation. The aim of this research is to address this gap in information systems (IS) knowledge. A systematic literature review is employed to provide an in-depth and critical summary of existing research relevant to the research question. Various concepts are synthesized into a holistic, integrated conceptual framework to assess small and rural municipalities’ readiness towards smart city implementation. The framework can be used to assess small and rural municipalities to gauge their readiness level towards smart city implementation of a smart city initiative. In addition, municipal authorities can use this framework to identify the required components and key stakeholders for any smart city initiatives. This paper provides the foundation from which future empirical research can progress.