Smart cities: a review of managerial challenges and a framework for future research

Abstract

The term 'Smart City' (SC) is often defined in relation to how well a city uses digital technology to improve the efficiency of urban services and to create sustainable, liveable communities. Building such a city where people are co-creators of SC policies is a contested endeavour. Its successful management is enormously complex due to numerous challenges such as implementation problems that may arise at the governance and administration level when roles, responsibilities and success criteria are poorly defined; in terms of budgeting and funding constraints; and/or at the level of collaborative stakeholder management to get buy-in from citizens, private sector organizations and city governments so that SC projects do not end up as impractical 'white elephants'. Besides related SC competency requirements of mayors and city council staff (which cannot always be taken for granted), we also acknowledge the risks of SC technologies such as 'city surveillance solutions in an era of 5G' that will enable faster data transmission vis-à-vis the increased reputational risk of the respective municipality deploying smart CCTV cameras due to unanticipated complexities ranging from public distrust to unexpected maintenance costs. In this article, we (i) critically discuss what makes a city 'smart' and introduce the main SC components (Smart Mobility, Smart People, Smart Living, Smart Environment, Smart Economy, and Smart Governance); (ii) examine typical SC applications and associated knowledge gaps; (iii) highlight managerial challenges arising from these issues; and (iv) outline opportunities for more theory-based, empirical research on smart cities from a purpose-driven business perspective linked to human betterment.