Abstract
Smart City initiatives across the globe have spurred increasing demand for high-skilled workers. The digital transformation, one of the main building blocks of the Smart City movement, is calling for a workforce prepared to develop novel business processes. Problem-solving, critical and analytical thinking are now the essential skills being looked at by employees. The development of the so-called STEM curriculum, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics is being given a lot of attention by educational boards in response to preparing young generations for the Smart City work market. Based on the IMD Smart City Index, PISA, and World Bank reports, we develop a model for assessing the impact of the IT secondary school capacities on Smart-City business developments. The model reveals the relationship between the technological capacity of the secondary-school, and the business activity of a Smart City. Moreover, the study shows the existence of a positive relationship between the IT capacity of secondary schools and the resulting entrepreneurial activity of the city. Our results are of interest to decision-makers and stakeholders responsible for designing educational policies and agents involved in the digital transformation and development of Smart Cities initiatives.
Highlights
The Smart City concept (Giffinger et al, 2007; Hollands, 2008, p. 306; Kondepudi et al, 2014; Albino et al, 2015; Ben-Letaifa, 2015, p. 141; Richter et al, 2015, p. 214) has been attracting the attention of city authorities for more than a decade
It is important to clarify that the worldwide adoption of STEM curriculum still in its infancy stages. Bearing this fact on mind and the fact that the implementation of STEM curriculum will highly rely on the information technologies (IT) capacities of the school, the main aim of this study is to develop a model revealing the relationship between the IT capacity of the secondary-school, and the business activity of a Smart City
Efforts to provide secondary schools with adequate IT capabilities by public-private institutions contribute to the adults of the future assuming more successfully and satisfactorily their responsibilities as workers and citizens of environments in which digital transformation and IT integration is an unstoppable fact, ratifying the first two hypotheses
Summary
The Smart City concept (Giffinger et al, 2007; Hollands, 2008, p. 306; Kondepudi et al, 2014; Albino et al, 2015; Ben-Letaifa, 2015, p. 141; Richter et al, 2015, p. 214) has been attracting the attention of city authorities for more than a decade. “Smart cities initiatives try to improve urban performance by using data, information and information technologies (IT) to provide more efficient services to citizens, to monitor and optimize existing infrastructure, to increase collaboration among different economic actors, and to encourage innovative business models in both the private and public sectors” (Marsal-Llacuna et al, 2015). Within this process, the role of education in the growth of economic activity as an accelerator of the process of technological diffusion and training of human capital is widely recognized (Nelson and Phelps, 1965; Akhvlediani and Cieslik, 2020). The role of education in the growth of economic activity as an accelerator of the process of technological diffusion and training of human capital is widely recognized (Nelson and Phelps, 1965; Akhvlediani and Cieslik, 2020). Acs et al (2005) state that “. . . part of public sector expenditure devoted to education, and education has been shown to be positively associated with entrepreneurship” or “both expenditures on education and economic growth are positively related to entrepreneurship.” It is evident that education, being one of the key pillars of our society, plays a major role on the success of Smart City initiatives
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