Governance innovations, digital transformation and the generation of public value in Smart City initiatives

Abstract

To respond to new challenges of urban growth, including development and sustainability issues, governments are attempting to take advantage of new digital technologies to deliver better services and improve their policies and managerial practices. The literature in Smart Cities is still scarce in the basic understanding of the organizational transformations associated with city governance and generation of public value. This ongoing research constitutes a first step towards a better understanding of the intertwined dynamics of information technologies and forms of governance in the transformation of cities through a public value management perspective. In order to create public value, public managers need to build operational capabilities and at the same time, create the authorizing environment to operate. Therefore we suggest that smart city technologies are a form of operational capability, and city governance is a key component of an authorizing environment. The main question guiding our research is: How governance innovations (capabilities and arrangements) and digital transformation generate public value in smart cities? Based on the literature review on IT innovation and transformation, city governance, and public value management, we propose a strategic framework for understanding the role and effects of new governance arrangements in smart cities. We argue that the proposed framework could be seen as an important step in better understanding how government capacity and governance arrangements affect the generation of public value either directly or through digital transformation efforts in smart city initiatives.