Smart city intellectual capital: an emerging view of territorial systems innovation management

Abstract

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to explore whether and how the intellectual capital (IC) approach and concepts could be fruitfully adapted to study the smart city phenomenon from a managerial point of view.Design/methodology/approach– This study is based on a long-term, in-depth ethnographic exploration of the vast global community, which is created around the smart city movement.Findings– The analysis suggests that, in order to effectively analyse a smart city context through the IC lens, the traditional IC framework needs to be extended for: expected outcomes, which should also include sustainability, resilience and quality of life; categories of key resources, which should also include institutional capital and environmental capital; units of analysis, which should also include territorial systems, such as transportation or waste; and key managerial challenges implied. As a final result, a smart city intellectual capital (SC-IC) framework is proposed.Research limitations/implications– Most of the cases analysed in this study are European; further studies are advisable to better investigate non-European smart city contexts.Practical implications– The paper suggests that the knowledge management, project portfolio management and network management approaches are crucial to better support managerial practices in smart city organizations.Originality/value– The SC-IC framework allows for a clear definition of the smart city organization, as a new knowledge-based, project-oriented, network-shaped type of organization. Therefore, the SC-IC framework provides smart city research with a consistent rooting in management studies. Further, this paper contributes to the fourth stage of IC research.