Triggering participation in smart cities: Political efficacy, public administration satisfaction and sense of belonging as drivers of citizens’ intention

Abstract

Despite citizen participation in smart city projects being a critical topic, we lack quantitative studies exploring such topic. In addition, we know very little about how the human and social attachment of citizens to their smart city drives their involvement in smart cities. This study contributes to this stream of research by exploring the determinants of citizen participation in smart city projects. We develop and quantitatively test a model that identifies three key antecedents on a set of survey data collected from French citizens (N = 604). Our results confirm the importance of political efficacy, the conative dimension of sense of belonging, and the central role public administration satisfaction when it comes to evaluating the intention of citizens to participate in smart city projects. Those three dimensions cover essential elements of the human bond between citizens and their smart city. This study not only informs practically the way we can involve individuals into the design and the construction of smart cities that fulfil their need, but also the bottom-up organizing of broader and larger project.