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All content in this area was uploaded by Reinout Kleinhans on May 31, 2018
Content may be subject to copyright.
This is the authors' post-print version (final draft post-refereeing as accepted for publication by the
journal Information Polity. The definitive, peer-reviewed and edited version of this article is published
as: Pereira, G. V., Parycek, P., Falco, E., & Kleinhans, R. (2018). Smart governance in the context of
smart cities: A literature review. Information Polity, forthcoming.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3233/IP-170067
Smart Governance in the Context of Smart Cities:
A Literature Review
Gabriela Viale Pereira 1,a, Peter Parycek 1,2,b, Enzo Falco3,c, Reinout Kleinhans3,d
1Danube University Krems, Department for E-Governance and Administration, Dr.-Karl-Dorrek-
Straße 30, 3500, Krems a. d. Donau, Austria
2 Competence Centre Public IT at Fraunhofer Fokus Berlin, Kaiserin-Augusta-Allee 31, 10589 Berlin,
Germany
3Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Department
OTB - Research for the Built Environment, Julianalaan 134, 2628 BL Delft, The Netherlands
a gabriela.viale-pereira@donau-uni.ac.at (corresponding author)
b Peter.Parycek@donau-uni.ac.at
c E.Falco@tudelft.nl
d R.J.Kleinhans@tudelft.nl
Abstract
This literature review has focused on smart governance as an emerging domain of study that attracts
significant scientific and policy attention. More specifically, this paper aims to provide more insight
in the definitions of and relationships between smart governance and concepts such as smart and
electronic government, in the context of smart cities. The literature review shows that smart
government can be considered as a basis for developing smart governance, through the application of
emergent information and communication technologies (ICT) for governing. Smart governance as the
intelligent use of ICT to improve decision-making through better collaboration among different
stakeholders, including government and citizens, can be strongly related to government approaches. In
this case ICT-based tools, such as social media, and openness can be factors that increase citizen
engagement and support the development of new governance models for smart government. Smart
governance may also have an important role in smart city initiatives, which require complex
interactions between governments, citizens and other stakeholders. Based on the literature review, this
paper coins a definition of ‘smart city governance’ and contributes to developing a framework for
building new, smart governance models addressing the challenges of the digital society, collaborative
governance, information sharing, citizen engagement, transparency and openness.
Keywords: Smart Governance; E-government; Smart City Governance; E-governance; Smart
Government; Collaborative governance.
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Key Points:
Smart government can be considered as a basis for developing smart governance.
Smart governance is the intelligent use of ICT to improve decision-making.
Smart city governance fundamentally deals with government decisions for improving quality of life.
Smart city governance emphasizes the citizens’ role in collaborative decision-making.
1. Introduction
The digital transformation is altering governance models in a disruptive way. Governance is
the enabling environment that requires adequate legal frameworks and efficient processes to
enable the responsiveness of government to the needs of citizens (UN Habitat, 2008).
Governance can also be defined as interaction and collaboration of different stakeholders in
decision-making processes (Alonso & Lippez-De Castro, 2016; Albino, Berardi & Dangelico,
2015). The concept is commonly used to describe the action or manner of governing a state,
an organisation, or other constellation of actors. This shows that government and governance
are related, but different concepts. Smart Governance is defined as “the capacity of
employing intelligent and adaptive acts and activities of looking after and making decisions
about something” (Scholl & Alawadhi, 2016, p.22). According to Scholl and Scholl (2014)
smart governance can be seen as basis to smart, open and participatory government. These
concepts play a key role in the growing discourse on smart cities, so we may expect that
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play a key role in smart government as
part of wider models of smart governance. From this, it follows that the adjective ‘smart’
refers to context- and site-embedded combinations of ICT, technology, and innovation, as
well some sort of democratic aspect (Gil-Garcia, Helbig & Ojo, 2014; H.J. Scholl & M.C.
Scholl, 2014). Estevez and Janowski (2013) have shown that the related concepts of
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electronic government and electronic governance (commonly abbreviated as e-government
and e-governance) also emphasize the importance of ICTs in urban governance.
Smart cities are related to ICT-based urban innovation, i.e. intelligent use of ICTs to
deliver better urban services, dealing with growing urban problems due to increasing
urbanization, without the proper establishment of policies focused on well-being. One of the
main objectives of smart cities is increasing the quality of life in the city. Testoni and Boeri
(2015) suggest that to manage the dynamics of smart cities, a new model of governance is
needed along with strong coordination by the local government to support in managing
complex co-operation processes with a variety of stakeholders, in particular citizens. This
scenario requires reshaping the role of governments, citizens, and other social actors, as well
as exploring the new and emergent information technologies to frame a new governance
model, including new relationships, new processes, and new government structures (Gil-
Garcia, 2012).
The question is then: what should smart governance look like in the context of smart
cities? More than the lack of clear definitions of concepts related to smart governance, we
observe that some concepts overlap in many aspects, emphasizing the need for more
conceptual clarity and definitions that support governments and other actors in their quest of
smart governance and its associated elements. This paper reports a thorough literature review
that will assist this quest for more clarity.
The objective of this paper is twofold: 1) to provide more insight in the definitions of
and relationships between smart governance and the concepts of smart and electronic
government, and 2) to define the key elements of smart governance in the context of smart
cities.
Considering this objective, smart governance is defined here as the ability of
governments to make better decisions through the combination of ICT-based tools and
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collaborative governance. In this sense, we understand that smart governance is the use of
evidence (data, people, and other resources) to improve decision making and deliver results
that meet the needs of the citizens. This is particularly important for smart cities initiatives
which are usually technology-grounded. Among the main success factors in smart-city
initiatives are “reshaping administrative structures and processes across multiple local
government agencies and departments” as well as “stakeholder involvement in governance”
(Alawadhi & Scholl, 2016, p.2953). Creating smart governance frames for urban policies is a
way to improve the decision-making processes and increase the quality of public services
delivery (Elisei, D’Orazio & Prezioso, 2014). The importance of transforming the relation
between government and the public, and the collaborative governance as a key aspect of
smart governance leads us to the concept of participatory government, which is strongly
related to the new governance model (as a method) in promoting communication, interaction,
collaboration, participation in decision-making and direct democracy.
The paper is structured as follows. The next section shortly outlines our
methodological approach towards the literature review. Section 3 presents the results of the
literature review, subsequently dealing with smart and electronic government (3.1), smart and
electronic governance (3.2), and the smart city domain (3.3), focussing particularly on smart
city governance. Section 4 provides a discussion of the findings, structured along the two
research questions. Finally, section 5 delivers our conclusions and suggestions for further
research.
2. Literature Review Design
The literature review consisted of analysing a broad set of papers on the smart governance
topic. Basically, the design of the review entailed a three-step approach (Webster & Watson,
2002). First of all, we have searched for the keywords “smart governance” and “smart
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government” in Scopus, which resulted in 50 entries. Complementary to this approach, we
identified leading journals in the field which have widely recognised and major contributions
to the literature. Among the most influential academic journals (Estevez & Janowski, 2013),
we have selected the first four: Government Information Quarterly, International Journal of
Electronic Government Research, Information Polity and Transforming Government: People,
Process, Policy. Keywords such as “smart governance”, “smart government”, and “smart
city”, were used to identify relevant literature by searching articles full-text. Additionally, the
keywords “electronic government” and “electronic governance” were searched. The search
queries led us to obtain a total of 123 papers about smart governance and smart cities. The
second step of the literature review consisted of selecting appropriate papers based on their
abstracts and introduction, considering their relevance for the debate on smart governance
and smart cities. The main criterion was the existence of definitions or explanation, including
frameworks or indicators of the concepts. In addition, we checked and discarded double
counted articles. This process resulted in a sample of 77 papers that were included in the final
analysis to address the research question. The third and final step consisted of a snowball
approach in order to review references from the 77 identified articles to determine further
relevant material. This allowed us to include papers for a diverse range of journals,
conferences and grey literature.
Finally, Government Information Quarterly and Information Polity had the majority
of the papers related to the search domain with 48 and 8 papers respectively, followed by
Transforming Government (4), Social Science Computer Review (2), International Journal of
Electronic Government Research (1) among other journal papers with one occurrence. The
final sample consisted also of 11 book chapter/series, 6 conference papers, and reports such
as Un-Habitat and OECD.
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3. Results of the Literature Review
We will now turn to the analysis of concepts that are outlined in the objective of the paper,
based on the literature review. Firstly, Section 3.1 deals with the definitions, main dimensions
and features of the concepts of electronic government (3.1.1) and smart government (3.1.2).
This is followed in Section 3.2 by a review of the core components that constitute the
concepts of electronic and smart governance. Section 3.3 moves on to discuss the smart city
domain and its dimensions, and provides an in-depth discussion of smart governance
particularly in the context for smart cities, i.e. smart city governance.
3.1. Electronic Government and Smart Government
This section aims at understanding and discussing initiatives undertaken by the government
to integrate ICT in their operations, functions, processes and relationships with other
stakeholders. The terms electronic government (e-government) and smart government are still
under development and have received great attention from researchers in diverse research and
application fields in the last decade (Khan & Park, 2013; Layne & Lee, 2001; Moon, 2002;
Meneklis & Douligeris, 2010). There are many different perspectives on smartness and smart
governments that mainly represent the essence of governing in a broad way or on the use of
emergent ICTs (Gil-Garcia et al., 2014). In the next subsections we will further explore
different perspectives on both the terms e-government and smart government.
3.1.1. E-government definitions and dimensions
According to Janssen and Estevez (2013), governments from all over the world are being
challenged to become more innovative while at the same time reducing costs, operate in a
connected environment, and engage stakeholders in solving societal problems. In this context,
the use of ICT in government has become a strategy for administrative reforms at all levels of
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government (Sandoval-Almazan & Gil-Garcia, 2012). E-government or Digital government
can thus be seen as a transformational effort through the introduction of ICT in government
organizations in order to achieve several objectives: improve the efficiency of public sector
activities and service delivery (Janssen & Estevez, 2013); transform government functions,
internal organization, and practices through a citizen-centric approach; increase transparency;
promote openness and reduce corruption (Khan & Park, 2013; Sandoval-Almazan & Gil-
Garcia, 2012; Helbig, Gil-Garcia & Ferro, 2009; Bertot, Jaeger & Grimes, 2010; Ayanso,
Chatterjee & Cho, 2011; Hu, Shi, Pan & Wang, 2012; Janowski, Pardo & Davies, 2012).
Therefore, governments around the world are adopting e-government strategies for improving
the use of ICT. These emerging strategies mainly revolve around three added value
‘generators’: administrative efficiency and interoperability, service improvement and
citizen centricity. Starting from these three major themes, the next subsections highlight the
main transformational consequences of e-government strategies on these and other closely
related aspects.
Administrative efficiency and interoperability (performance, effectiveness, productivity)
Administrative efficiency exploits the automation effects of ICT in various levels of
government, in values such as efficiency, effectiveness, productivity, performance of
administrative functions, relations and information sharing between different departments of
the public administration (Sandoval-Almazan & Gil-Garcia, 2012; Rose, Persson & Heeager,
2015). Important aspects of ICT investment for pursuing administrative efficiency relate to
cost reductions and reduced staff numbers, improved staff efficiency, performance, and
management and sharing of information. Cross-department information sharing is a key
element for achieving organizational efficiency, cost savings, policy effectiveness,
accountability and openness (Gil-Garcia, 2012; Yang & Maxwell, 2011; Viale Pereira,
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Cunha, Lampoltshammer, Parycek & Testa, 2017). Interoperability among various
governmental departments through investment in shared infrastructures and applications
(hardware and software), data management services, integration and alignment of system
architectures and work processes also plays an important role in achieving greater
administrative efficiency through ICT (Gottschalk, 2009; Klievink & Janssen, 2009; Zissis &
Lekkas, 2011). ICT Investment in improved administrative efficiency, automation and
performance is expected to have a great impact on service improvement and availability to
citizens; themes to which we will turn now.
Service improvement
This theme relates to the citizen’s increasing demand of e-service provision and experiences
with ICT-savvy governments, including better access to (public) services and information,
shorter response times, online applications and transactions, and cost savings for citizens
(Khalil, 2011). According to Awoleye, Ojuloge and Ilori (2014), e-government is
characterized by the progress in improving the delivery of public information and services
through organizational processes and technologies that allow information to be more
accessible and disseminated across all government agencies. Along with the increased quality
of public services in e-government (Lambert, 2013), there are many ways in which individual
citizens can benefit from such investments. According to Hamner and Al-Qahtani (2009),
these include: reducing costs associated with registration and submission of forms (e.g.
regarding permits); reducing errors and increasing accuracy of data, as human error is
reduced; increasing the ability to communicate directly and more quickly with institutions;
eliminating the need for time-consuming face-to-face appointments; providing (local)
government services to citizens 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week; and delivering government
services from any place and accessible from any device. In this sense, the role of mobile
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technologies and applications has become crucial in improving performance of e-government
service provision (Hung, Chang & Kuo, 2013). Mobile e-government services have already
been incorporated in order to improve user-to-government communication effectiveness and
strengthen the relationship between government and citizens (Hung et al., 2013). This brings
us to the final added value ‘generator’ of e-government: citizen-centricity.
Citizen-centricity (increased transparency and trust in government)
The increasing needs and aspirations of citizens for more democratic practices and higher
involvement in government activities, together with advances and investment in ICT and the
resulting improved government-citizen interaction and communication, have their impacts on
e-government strategies. Consequently, these strategies are placing more and more emphasis
on the citizen-centric component. This component focuses on the importance and role of
citizens, not only as ‘customers’ to create customer-driven services adopting a less techno-
centric approach (Janssen & Estevez, 2013; Helbig et al., 2009), but also as partners in the
co-production of public services.
The increased focus on citizens enables stronger citizen engagement based on
collaboration, participation, and community empowerment (Rose et al., 2015; Lambert, 2013;
Linders, 2012).
In turn, this new approach may produce greater transparency on the part of
government (Bertot et al., 2010) and increased citizen trust and satisfaction. According to
Reddick and Roy (2013), citizens are satisfied when they can accomplish their task, i.e. they
are able to get the information they desire and have a service experience that solves their
problems. A higher level of satisfaction leads to more use of e-government and increase in its
future development. The ever more important role of citizens and closer interactions with
government lead to a model of smart government where the relationship goes beyond service
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improvement and delivery and into areas of decision making, openness, wider societal issues
and wider stakeholder networks.
3.1.2. Smart Government definitions
Smart government is often used to describe activities that invest “in emerging technologies
coupled with innovative strategies to achieve more agile and resilient government structures
and governance infrastructures” (Gil-Garcia et al., 2014, p.1). Smart government is also
referred to by Mellouli, Luna-Reyes and Zhang (2014) as the extensive use of technology by
government, following two important trends: the movement to open data and the technology
ubiquity, which contribute to better understand societal problems and improve government
relationships with citizens, private organizations, NGOs and other governments. Recently,
Gil-Garcia, Zhang and Puron-Cid (2016) identified multiple dimensions of smartness that
contribute to the understanding and development of smart governments: integration,
innovation, information sharing, evidence-based, citizen-centricity, sustainability, creativity,
effectiveness, efficiency, equality, entrepreneurialism, citizen engagement, openness,
resiliency, and technology savviness. Some of these dimensions (integration, efficiency,
citizen-centricity, technology savviness) are proper of e-governments too (and have therefore
been discussed in subsection 3.1.1). Below, we will focus on three further dimensions
outlined by Gil-Garcia, Zhang and Puron-Cid (2016):
● Sustainability and Resilience: These two concepts are widely discussed in the literature and
their implications for governments and the wider society as a whole are discussed at length
elsewhere (see e.g. (Jansson, 2013). Gil-Garcia, Zhang and Puron-Cid (2016) emphasize that
smart governments should possess both dimensions being able to take into account the
ecological implications of growth and development, improving the quality of life for future
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generations, and quickly recover and respond to their citizens in cases of emergency and
disaster.
● Creativity, entrepreneurialism, and social equality: creativity and entrepreneurship
concern stimulating a diverse culture of smart citizens. Entrepreneurialism can be encouraged
through a focus on integrating knowledge-based and innovation-oriented economic
development. In terms of equality, the authors stress that the use of ICT, data, and appropriate
strategies could support reducing social exclusion and promoting social justice. However,
several other authors (Burkhardt, Zilke, Nazemi, Kohlhammer & Kuijper, 2014; Jaeger,
2011; Norris, 2001; Picazo-Vela, Gutierrez-Martinez & Luna-Reyes, 2012) have highlighted
the inherent potentially negative effects of technology and the ‘digital divide’ on the
exclusion of certain categories of the general population (e.g. elderly, lower income, people
with disabilities).
● Citizen engagement in and evidence-based decision-making processes: These two aspects
concern the engagement of citizens in decision-making processes rather than participating in
the improvement of services based on a citizen/customer approach. This increases
government openness, transparency, accountability and therefore the quality of the
relationship between citizens and governments. Governments use, and share, data,
information and knowledge to support evidence-based decision making which enables
governments to make more informed decisions and improve the effectiveness of public
policies and programs. This last dimension deserves particular attention as one of the most
important and characterising aspects of smart governments.
Evidence-based, participatory decision-making process and the rise of social media
As stated by Nam and Pardo (2014), a smart government is expected to create collaborative
environments and promote collaboration among government and other external organizations
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and citizens. As part of this expectation and of more collaborative environments, better
measurement processes, sharing of information by agencies, Higher utilization of resources,
and performance evaluation are assumed to arise, thus facilitating public participation in
decision-making and monitoring (Chun, Luna-Reyes & Sandoval-Almazan, 2012; Estevez,
Ojo & Janowski, 2010; Maheshwari & Janssen, 2014). The potential of ICT strategies to
improve and advance the interactions between citizens, businesses, and government has been
explored already for over a decade. According to Jaeger (2003), who referred to e-
government, an effective e-government has the capacity to create new forms for public
participation in government, electronically threading together citizens, businesses, and all
levels of government in a nation. The need for increased participation of citizens in public life
still applies, adding to the pressure from various stakeholders to increase government
openness and transparency (Navarro-Galera, Alcaraz-Quiles & Ortiz-Rodríguez, 2016).
The use of ICT solutions to increase public participation in government has long been
known as e-participation (Macintosh & Smith, 2002; Zissis, Lekkas & Papadopoulou, 2008).
E-participation facilitates public involvement, increasing the abilities of citizens, the level of
democracy, and the quality and acceptability of government decisions (Hu et al., 2012; Boyd,
2008). However, according to Bonsón, Royo and Ratkai (2015), the opposite is also true, in
the sense that the institutional setting has great influence on e-participation and citizen
engagement. Citizens tend to engage more when they notice their governments are truly open
to interaction and integrating their point of view in decision-making, but also when they have
access to useful, relevant, and complete set of information from the government (Bonsón,
Royo & Ratkai, 2015; Mellouli, Luna-Reyes & Zhang, 2014). ICT-based tools can mediate,
extend, and transform participation in democratic and consultative societal processes (Sæbø,
Rose & Flak, 2008). Thus, the task of e-participation is to empower people through ICT,
12
making it possible to act in decision-making processes and develop social and political
responsibility (Zissis & Lekkas, 2011).
New internet platforms are identified as an evolution of communication linkages
between political representatives and citizens, allowing citizens to effectively participate in
decision-making processes (Wijnhoven, Ehrenhard & Kuhn, 2015; Zissis & Lekkas, 2011).
Among these platforms, Web 2.0 and social media play a major role in creating a new
generation of e-participation, innovating organizational and decision-making processes, and
reshaping the relationships between governments and other actors (Sandoval-Almazan & Gil-
Garcia, 2012; Sandoval-Almazan & Gil-Garcia, 2014; Criado, Sandoval-Almazan & Gil-
Garcia, 2013; Ferro, Loukis, Charalabidis & Osella, 2013; Kleinhans, Van Ham & Evans-
Cowley, 2015; Porwol, Ojo & Breslin, 2016). The use of social media in government has
several positive effects such as improved government-citizens collaboration and
communication, citizen empowerment, government transparency, openness, and ultimately
governance (Bonsón et al., 2015; Criado et al., 2013; Stamati, Papadopoulos and
Anagnostopoulos, 2015).
Exchange of user-generated content, greater information sharing and dissemination,
and crowdsourcing are essential features of social media and Web 2.0 (Bertot et al., 2010;
Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Kavanaugh, Fox, Sheetz, Yang, Li, Shoemaker & Xie, 2012;
Khan, 2015). When discussing about the futures of participatory democracy, Meijer (2012)
regards new social media as an enabler for governments to reach and engage citizens in the
production of government policies. Stamati, Papadopoulos and Anagnostopoulos (2015) hold
that the inclusion of social media functionalities in the public sector has positive effects on
openness and accountability, as well as on new governance strategies for public consultation
and interaction in public policy making. As a result, this is transforming the role of citizen
into co-creators of policies and services. Making citizens co-creators of services and policies
13
can enhance their innovation and effectiveness and lead to new forms of government-to-
citizen and citizen-to-government collaborations (Linders, 2012). The potential of social
media and the new resulting citizen-government relationship leads Stamati, Papadopoulos
and Anagnostopoulos (2015) to recognize the urge for public policy makers to rethink the
current mode of governance into new governance models which are centred on
communication, interaction, collaboration, and participation in decision-making so
facilitating openness and transparency, and promoting direct democracy. According to Al
Athmay (2015), e-openness is the major theme of e-governance, supporting people to
participate in decision-making processes, being defined as the extent to which the public are
able to obtain government information through ICT. This leads us to discuss new forms of
governance as a result of all these processes, namely smart and electronic governance. These
are the topic of section 3.2.
3.2. Smart Governance and Electronic Governance
This section shifts the focus from government to governance, i.e. two particular forms of
governance: electronic governance and smart governance. Smart Governance is generally
defined as the capacity of applying digital technologies and intelligent activities in processing
of information and decision-making (Scholl & Alawadhi, 2016). Electronic governance is
commonly defined as the application of technology by governments in order to transform
themselves, their interactions with customers and the relationships with and citizens,
businesses, other non-state actors and other arms of government, creating impact on the
society (Estevez & Janowski, 2013; Janowski et al., 2012). Within these definitions, results
from the literature review highlight fundamental aspects which refer mainly to two sub-
themes, which will be discussed in two consecutive subsections:
1. Data and evidence-based policymaking;
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2. Collaborative, open and citizen-centric forms of governance.
3.2.1. Data and evidence-based policymaking
In order to achieve better governance and evidence-based policymaking, novel ICT solutions
could be applied for processing, integrating and exploiting the huge and ever growing amount
of data available and produced nowadays (by sensors, social media users, government,
business and other stakeholders) and improving knowledge management capacities
(Misuraca, Broster & Centeno, 2012; Ubaldi, 2013). According to Reddick, Chatfield and
Jaramillo (2015) the use of data to improve performance and decision-making is already a
reality in public sector organizations. Open government data (OGD) as a specific set of data
produced and made available for free by government organizations is constantly increasing
(Peled, 2014) and lays the foundations for data-driven decision making and crowdsourced
solutions through digital and mobile applications (Silva, 2013). In this context, the term open
governance emerged from the understanding that information belongs to the public, and,
alongside electronic democracy practices, can transform electronic government to electronic
governance (Wijnhoven et al., 2015; Klaus, 2016). Open data and open government are
fundamental prerequisites of institutional settings which foster collaborative forms of
governance where open data and information are accessible, having an impact on
transparency of and trust in government agencies (Meloulli et al., 2014; Bonsón et al., 2015).
Another set of unstructured and ever-growing data is represented by social media data
and feedback which are increasingly being used by governments to communicate with
citizens and implement forms of citizen-centric governance, see section 3.1.2 (and see
(Barnes, Skelcher, Beirens, Dalziel, Jeffares & Wilson, 2008; Bekkers, Edwards & De Kool,
2013; Mergel, 2013).
15
3.2.2. Collaborative, open and citizen-centric forms of governance
According to Linders, Liao and Wang (2015), the advent of social media, mobile
connectivity, and big and open data is pushing governments towards developing a vision of
ICT-facilitated governance which is more open, collaborative, and responsive to the needs
and aspirations of citizens. The understanding that government data and information belongs
to the general public lays the foundations for open forms of governance (Klaus, 2016). ICT
innovations change the way government works, delivers services, and solves public problems
in collaboration with citizens, but also addresses social impact and citizen empowerment
(Linders et al., 2015). In this sense and by making use of ICT in a collaborative way, smart
governance can be a way to overcome top-down coordination by defining a consensus
framework for collaboration (Linders, 2013) with an impact on effective governance through
a clear allocation of decision making rights to the main stakeholders at different stages of the
policy cycle (Ferro et al., 2013; Khan, Ludlow, Loibl & Soomro, 2014). Nevertheless, a
definition and realisation of new ICT-enabled governance models is still missing, where the
balance of power and the roles and responsibilities of governments, citizens and other societal
actors must be rethought (Misuraca et al., 2012). According to Khan et al. (2014), ICT-
enabled urban management is a consequence of increasing demands from citizens to
participate in decision-making, requiring changes in regulatory, policymaking and
governance processes. Citizen centric e-governance, therefore, is considered as a new way to
make use of ICT in order to enhance citizen’s engagement with political discourse and
decision making, influencing meaningful change in public policy and governance (Chatfield,
Reddick & Brajawidagda, 2015; Reddick et al., 2015).
16
3.3. Smart City Domain
The concept of smart city has been attracting attention from academics and practitioners due
to the fact that many cities are expanding their efforts to become smarter (J. Lee & H. Lee,
2014). Despite the many definitions and perspectives in the smart city domain, in most of
them governance has an important role, especially by connecting initiatives between
governments and citizens and keeping the decision processes transparent (Albino et al., 2015;
Castelnovo, Misuraca & Savoldelli, 2015). In order to have an overview of the domain, the
next subsections will explore the smart city dimensions and smart city governance concept.
3.3.1. Smart City Dimensions
Smart city has been recognized as an interdisciplinary domain and is characterized by the
efforts of governments to increase the quality of life in the cities. Based on many definitions
of the concept, “the smart city field has come to a uniform definition, which deals with
innovation (not necessarily but mainly ICT-based) in the urban space that aims to enhance the
six city dimensions (people, economy, government, mobility, living and environment)”
(Anthopoulos, Janssen & Weerakkody, 2016, p.12). Castelnovo, Misuraca and Savoldelli
(2015) have revealed that most of the concepts in literature acknowledge that smart cities are
multidimensional systems. Smart cities are characterized by a new way of governing with the
use of technology and the consequent increase in the public administration capacity of
improving the quality of life of citizens, provision of public services and democracy
(Anthopoulos & Reddick, 2016; Castelnovo et al., 2015). The smart city concept is often
represented by frameworks in which the technology has an important role. Since this is not
the focus of the paper but relevant for understanding the smart city concept, a non-extensive
overview of frameworks and the role of technology will be described in the following
subsections.
17
Smart City Frameworks
One of the most recognized frameworks for Smart Cities was developed based on theories of
urban growth and development by Giffinger and Pichler-Milanović (2007). In this work,
smart cities are defined as those with good performance and prospects in areas such as
economy, people, governance, mobility, environment and livelihoods. The main elements
identified by the authors in the above dimensions refer to economic competitiveness, social
and human capital, participation, transport and ICT-related factors, natural resources and
aspects related to quality of life (Giffinger et al., 2007). An integrative framework of smart
cities was proposed by Gil-Garcia, Pardo and Nam (2015) in order to identify core
components that are represented by four dimensions (1) technology and data, (2) government,
(3) society, and (4) physical environment. The interesting aspect in this framework is the
multidimensional and multifaceted view of smart cities and the central function of technology
as a component that extends across other components and helps to enhancing and
interconnecting them. More recently, Anthopoulos, Janssen and Weerakkody (2016)
synthesized existing smart city conceptualizations into a unified smart city model, which
addresses eight classes of conceptual models including smart city 1) architecture, 2)
governance, 3) planning and management, 4) data and knowledge, 5) energy, 6) health, 7)
people and 8) environment, as well as six classes of benchmarking tools, such as smart city
progress, smart city monitoring, city capacity, city sustainability, resilience, and policy
impact. In general, smart city can be considered an umbrella term for the different types of
innovations in the urban environment (Anthopoulos et al., 2016).
The role of technology
The historical predecessors or synonyms of smart city, such as intelligent city, information
city, knowledge city, digital city and ubiquitous city, reflect advances of the related
18
technologies applied in urban management and serving citizens (J. Lee & H. Lee, 2014).
However, the technology has a crucial role on smart cities that goes beyond the traditional
objectives of supporting to optimize urban services and improve quality of life. ICT-enabled
solutions can be especially applied for increasing the quality of the relationship between
government and its constituency, and to create networks that allow people to get connected to
government by electronic public services (Castelnovo et al., 2015). Lee and Lee (2014) call
those services “smart city services”, which can contribute to enhance the city's
competitiveness and citizens' quality of life by using ICT in city planning and management.
The innovative services also provide information, knowledge and transaction capabilities to
citizens regarding the different aspects of their life in the city (J. Lee & H. Lee, 2014).
Besides the ICT infrastructure that is needed for creating smart operations and promoting
smart services, Scholl and AlAwadhi (2016) have identified the need for fundamental change
in organizational integration, alignment and interorganizational cooperation, especially
regarding information systems interoperability, as well as an adequate ICT governance
model.
Although its central function, governments striving to create a smart city are not only
concerned with adopting innovation in technology, but also dealing with overall
management, governance and policies, as well as other factors such as human capital and
education as drivers of change (J. Lee & H. Lee, 2014). This aspect brings us to the topic of
the next subsection, which provides a governance perspective of smart cities.
3.3.2. Smart City Governance
This section focuses on the existing relationships among governance and smart cities,
specifically in the smart cities literature. There is no clear definition about the smart city
governance concept but some attempts to identify the main perspectives in which governance
19
is applied to smart cities. For example, Meijer and Bolívar (2016) identified four ideal-typical
conceptualizations of smart city governance: (1) government of a smart city, (2) smart
decision-making, (3) smart administration and (4) smart urban collaboration. In turn, the
authors address the governance in smart cities as a new form of collaboration through the use
of ICTs. The same is perceived by Castelnovo, Misuraca and Savoldelli (2015), in which
governance is often related to citizen participation in the smart city literature. Osella, Ferro
and Pautasso (2016) also relate the concept of smart cities with the notion of governance, in
which it perceives a greater intention on value creation for society through aspects such as
leadership, citizen participation, partnerships, public-private partnerships, accountability,
responsiveness, transparency, collaboration, data sharing and information integration services
and communication. According to Meijer (2016), smart city governance is about using new
technologies (not necessarily the most advanced) to develop innovative governance
arrangements and to provide better outcomes and processes. Thus, new and innovative forms
of governance are needed to address the challenges of smart cities going beyond the
traditional institutions and the classical processes of governing (Bolívar, 2016). Finally, by
proposing a framework for the assessment of smart city governance in which the citizen
engagement process has a central role, Castelnovo, Misuraca and Savoldelli (2015, p.12)
“reaffirm the central role of citizens in the decision-making process and their fundamental
contribution to public value creation in the city context”. Due to the strong focus of the smart
city governance concept on the citizens, we will discuss this specific aspect in the following
section.
Citizen-centricity
Citizen engagement is considered a foundation of smart city governance (Castelnovo et al.,
2015). The citizen centricity of smart city decision making process is an important aspect in
20
analysing the contribution of smart city governance to generate public values, including
economic growth (Castelnovo et al., 2015; Meijer & Bolívar, 2016; Meijer, Gil-Garcia &
Bolívar, 2016). According to Meijer, Gil-Garcia and Bolívar (2016), a realistic smart city
strategy includes the development of contextual conditions, governance models and public
value. Stimulating citizen participation in decision-making by collecting suggestions and
their point of view on how to improve public services is a traditional engagement approach
(Castelnovo et al., 2015). However, in order to raise the number of participants in public
debate and include those people that are excluded or not attracted by traditional participation
instruments, ICT-based applications, such as Social Media, can help decision makers to make
better decisions that fit with the population’s needs (Kleinhans et al., 2015; Castelnovo et al.,
2015). In other words, city planning and management can be improved through new
technologies by connecting people to places in smart city contexts (Khan et al., 2015).
4. Discussion
Based on the results of our literature review as presented in sections 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3, in this
section we discuss the concepts analysed, their relationships and evolution in the literature.
The section is structured into two separate sub-sections which reflect the research questions
posed in the introduction. Thus, section 4.1 deals with the relationships between
smart/electronic government and smart/electronic governance. Whereas section 4.2, by
building on section 4.1, deals with the smart city domain and discusses the key elements of
smart governance in the context of smart cities. Figure 1 illustrates the framework developed
in this study on building smart city governance based on the relationship between smart
government and smart governance.
21
Figure 1. Building Smart City Governance
The framework illustrates the government’s evolutionary (but not necessarily linear) process
of adopting necessary capabilities and models of electronic and smart government, followed
by the development of effective smart governance settings and the collaborative
environment which characterises them. This smart governance model can be translated to the
local level to elaborate and come up with smart city plans, initiatives and solutions. The
Digital Government Evolution Model proposed by Janowski (2015) corroborates this idea in
which the evolution is related to the transformation level that goes from no governmental
22
transformation, to internal government transformation, transformation that also affects the
relationships between government and non-government stakeholders, and finally
transformations that depends on the national, city or sectoral government context. The main
relations of the concepts presented in the framework are represented by the Discussion I and
Discussion II (respectively section 4.1 and 4.2) and synthetized at Table 1.
Table 1. Identified concepts and definitions
Dimension
Definition
Indicators
References*
E-
Government
Introduction of ICT
in government
organizations in
order to achieve
administrative
efficiency and
interoperability,
service
improvement and
citizen centricity
Administrative
efficiency
Interoperability
Service Improvement
Citizen centricity
(focus on
transparency and trust
in government)
Ayanso, Chatterjee & Cho, 2011; Bertot,
Jaeger & Grimes, 2010; Gil-
Garcia, 2012;
Gottschalk, 2009; Helbig, Gil-García & Ferro,
2009; Hu et al., 2012; Janowski, Pardo &
Davies, 2012; Janssen & Estevez, 2013; Khan
& Park, 2013; Linders, 2012; Rose, Persson &
Heeager, 2015; Sandoval-Almazan & Gil-
Garcia, 2012; Zissis & Lekkas, 2011.
Smart
Government
Initiatives
undertaken by the
government to
integrate ICT in
their operations,
functions, processes
and relationships
with other
stakeholders
Evidence-based
Participatory
decision-making
process
The rise of social
media
ICT-promoted
internal
transformation
Burkhardt et al., 2014; Chun, Luna‐Reyes &
Sandoval
‐Almazán, 2012; Estevez, Ojo &
Janowski, 2010; Gil-
Garcia, Helbig & Ojo,
2014; Gil-Garcia, Zhang & Puron-Cid, 2016;
Jansson, 2013; Mellouli, Luna-
Reyes &
Zhang, 2014; Nam & Pardo, 2014; Picazo-
Vela, Gutierrez-Martinez & Luna-Reyes, 2012
Smart
Governance
The capacity of
applying digital
technologies and
intelligent activities
in processing of
information and
decision-making
Data and evidence-
based policymaking
Collaborative open
and citizen-centric
forms of governance
ICT-promoted
transformation
(internal and within
the society)
Barnes et al., 2008; Bonsón, Royo & Ratkai,
2015; Estevez & Janowski, 2013; Janowski,
Pardo & Davies, 2012; Klaus, 2016; Linders,
Liao & Wang, 2015; Mergel, 2013; Misuraca,
Broster & Centeno, 2012; Reddick, Chatfield
& Jaramillo, 2015; Scholl & AlAwadhi,
2016a; Scholl & AlAwadhi, 2016b; Silva,
2013; Ubaldi, 2013; Wijnhoven, Ehrenhard &
Kuhn, 2015.
Smart City
Governance
A form of smart
governance,
allocating decision-
making rights to
stakeholders (in
particular citizens)
and enabling them
to participate in
effective and
efficient decision-
making processes to
improve the quality
of life in cities
Collaboration, citizen
participation and
data-based evidence
Improving the quality
of life in cities
Bolívar, 2016; Castelnovo, Misuraca &
Savoldelli, 2015; Khan et al., 2015; Meijer,
2016; Meijer & Bolívar, 2016; Meijer, Gil-
Garcia & Bolívar, 2016; Osella, Ferro &
Pautasso, 2016.
23
4.1. Discussion I: the relationship between smart government and smart governance
In sections 3.1 and 3.2, we presented the results of our literature review regarding the
concepts of smart/electronic government and smart/electronic governance. In line with the
objective of this paper, i.e. providing more insight in the definitions of and relationships
between smart governance and the concepts of smart and electronic government, we now turn
to the discussion of these relationships. The review has reconfirmed that the concepts of
government and governance are strongly related. This connection arises from a number of
larger trends. First of all, governments from all over the world are being challenged to
become much more innovative and simultaneously reduce costs, increase efficiency and
effectiveness, and engage a wide range of stakeholders in solving various societal problems.
It appears that challenges to governments are not only based on issues related to economy,
health care, transport, built environment, climate change, democracy, social (in)equality,
justice, etc., but also on the increasing number and complexity of (flexible) governance
arrangements surrounding each of these issues. Governments not only need to become
smarter in their operations, but also engage with complex issues in the context of the multi-
actor governance surrounding problems and tasks. The adjective ‘smart’ implies that
governments need to acquire almost chameleonic skills and flexibility to become effective in
the wake of constantly changing governance settings. A useful perspective on this
relationship is the digital government evolution model designed by Janowski (2015), which
conceptualises how e-government evolves toward contextualization and complexity in a four-
stage model comprising the technology in government, electronic government, electronic
governance and policy-driven electronic governance. It starts with digitization with no
organizational change, moving to internal government transformation only, thus affecting the
external relations and context-specific transformation.
24
Furthermore, technology plays an important facilitating role making the connection
between government and governance, as expressed by Gil-Garcia and colleagues (2014, p.1):
“emerging technologies coupled with innovative strategies to achieve more agile and resilient
government structures and governance infrastructures” (Gil-Garcia et al., 2014, p.1).
However, technology is neither the only component affecting the relationship between
government and governance, nor do we perceive a unidirectional relationship. In fact, the
literature has shown that institutional settings have a strong influence on digital forms of
citizen engagement in government activities (Bonsón et al., 2015; Mellouli et al., 2014;
Sæbø, et al., 2008; Zissis & Lekkas, 2011). The application of ICT, digital and mobile
technologies, a key feature of both smart and electronic governance (Estevez & Janowski,
2013; Janowski et al., 2012; Scholl & Alawadhi, 2016), emphasises the transformational
nature of the efforts by governments, citizens, businesses, and other actors to meet the
aforementioned challenges in improving the performance of their organisation, but also the
performance and effectiveness of the respective governance setting.
Finally, the transformational element is also clear in the increasing use of new digital
platforms and social media in the evolution of communication linkages between political
representatives and citizens (Sandoval-Almazan & Gil-Garcia, 2012; Sandoval-Almazan &
Gil-Garcia, 2014; Criado et al., 2013; Ferro et al., 2013; Kleinhans et al., 2015; Porwol et al.,
2016). There is evidence that social media use by governments has positive effects, including
(but not exclusively) improved and increased government-citizens exchange and
collaboration, citizen empowerment, transparency, openness, and ultimately, governance
(Bonsón et al., 2015; Criado et al., 2013; Stamati et al., 2015). Especially when governments
are open to be influenced by such public media, deploying them is an act of governance, with
digital platforms and social media enabling transformation in the delivery of (public)
25
services, decision-making and collective action. The next section reconsiders these issues in
the context of smart cities and in particular smart city governance.
4.2. Discussion II: Smart City Governance
The first part of the discussion of this paper presented the relationship between smart
government and smart governance and the main elements that emerged from those concepts.
In section 3.3 we presented the findings of the literature review on the Smart City domain.
Thus, in line with the second objective of this paper, i.e. defining the key elements of smart
governance in the context of smart cities, we now combine the results of the first discussion
on smart governance as a new perspective of governance in the smart cities context. Smart
governance is a concept that can be applied to the different levels of government as the
application of emerging technologies for improving decision-making processes. When
applied to the local government, smart city governance strongly focuses on the decisions
made by government for improving the quality of life in cities, being the intersection of the
main smart city dimensions (Smart Living, Smart Mobility, Smart People, Smart Economy
and Smart Environment). Thus, the main objective of smart city governance is to increase the
quality of the urban environment through the use of new technologies (Meijer, 2016).
As discussed in section 3.2, collaboration, citizen participation, and data-based
evidence are among the main elements which characterize the concept of smart (city)
governance. Meijer and Bolívar (2016) make a strong connection between technology,
human resources and governance (as synonym of collaboration) when defining the mains
aspects of smart cities. Information sharing and cooperation are the main elements in framing
the use of ICT to enable collaborative governance in smart cities along with participation and
engagement practices in decision making (Viale Pereira et al., 2017; Estevez et al., 2010;
Chun et al., 2012). In this sense, collaborative and effective governance has the main goal of
26
enabling and allocating decision making rights to stakeholders to participate in decision
making processes (Ferro et al., 2013; Attard, Orlandi, Scerri & Auer, 2015). This aspect is
related to the previous section (4.1) on collaboration in government and the transformational
element of the new digital platforms to be deployed in order to improve the delivery of
(urban) services, increase evidence-based decision making and promote collective action.
Among the potential benefits of using ICT in local governments are the increasing
openness and the possibility for mass collaboration and participation, which in turn may
radically change governance models to become smarter (Misuraca et al., 2012). The
interesting aspect of the emerging technologies is that besides challenging existing
governance models, they make it possible for new governance models to emerge. The
interdisciplinary nature of smart cities and the changes on the complexity of contemporary
urban problems make flexible institutional arrangements necessary which are able to deal
with context-specific solutions and multi-stakeholders’ environment.
When discussing the role of e-government in the smart city domain, governance plays
a role as one of the six smart city capacity dimensions and smart services can be seen as a key
local e-government capacity (Antholoulos & Reddick, 2016). According to Anthopoulos and
Reddick (2016, p.2) “smart cities can be considered as a means for governments to enhance
public service delivery and democracy in urban spaces”. Looking at the growing political and
administrative complexity of contemporary playing fields, we understand that smart cities can
only achieve their aims if they manage to effectively deploy forms of governance that make
the best of the available technological options, but also of the interactions between various
stakeholders, in particular citizens. In sum, we define smart city governance as a form of
smart governance, allocating decision-making rights to stakeholders (in particular citizens)
and enabling them to participate in effective and efficient decision-making processes to
improve the quality of life in cities.
27
5. Concluding Remarks
This paper has focused on smart governance as an emerging domain of study that attracts
significant scientific and policy attention. More specifically, the literature review presented
here has served a twofold purpose: 1) to provide more insight in the definitions of and
relationships between smart governance and concepts of smart and electronic government,
and 2) to define the key elements of smart governance in the context of smart cities. The main
contribution of this paper to the literature is to provide a better distinction between the
strongly related concepts of government and governance in the context of smart cities, which
is prone to a predominantly technological approach that may not always pay proper attention
to the governance aspects of (lacking) collaboration between smart governments, smart
citizens, and other stakeholders. This review provides the needed clarity to start building new
governance models that address the challenges of the digital society regarding collaborative
governance, information sharing, evidence-based decision making, citizen engagement,
transparency and openness.
We have found that the development of e-government and therefore the use of ICT
for purposes mainly related to improving administrative efficiency, performance, citizen-
centricity and improved service delivery, lays the foundation as an essential prerequisite for
the development of a smart government. In this concept, the use of ICT evolves from
supporter of existing processes to a more pervasive facilitator of new relationships where the
evidence-based nature and citizen-centric focus take on much more importance in
participatory decision-making policy, cleverly using Web 2.0 and interactive social media.
Once a ‘status’ of smart government is achieved, and processes become more collaborative,
this forms the basis for the development of forms of electronic and smart governance where
the government (by definition a smart government) is an essential part of new forms of
governance and plays a pivotal role in the coordination efforts of all stakeholders involved.
28
We therefore conclude that smart government can be considered as a basis for developing
smart governance, through the application of emergent information and communication
technologies (ICT) for governing. In other words, the application of technology enables
governments to transform themselves, their interactions with customers and the relationships
with citizens, businesses, other non-state actors and other arms of government, creating
impact on the society (Estevez & Janowski, 2013; Janowski et al., 2012).
We also conclude that governments needs to go through an evolutionary non-linear
process of adopting necessary capabilities and models of electronic/smart government before
they are able to develop effective smart governance settings and the collaborative
environment which characterises them. Once a model of smart governance has been
developed and the smart government is intrinsically part of this smart governance, then
maturity can be reached to elaborate and come up with smart city plans, initiatives and
solutions.
While the concept of smart governance might be applied to various contexts, we have
sought to contextualise it in relation to smart cities, which are characterized by a new way of
governing with the use of technology and the increase in the public administration capacity of
improving the quality of life of citizens, provision of public services and democracy
(Castelnovo et al., 2015; Anthopoulos & Reddick, 2016). Previous literature has defined
smart cities as places with good performance and prospects in areas such as economy, people,
governance, mobility, environment and livelihoods (Giffinger & Pichler-Milanović, 2007;
Gil-Garcia et al., 2015). We therefore conclude that the notion of smart governance in the
context of smart cities has three fundamental implications:
1. It strongly focuses on government decisions for improving the quality of life in cities,
which are the intersection of various dimensions (Smart Living, Smart Mobility, Smart
People, Smart Economy and Smart Environment);
29
2. An indispensable role of widely-available, user-friendly and interactive technology that
goes beyond the traditional objectives of supporting engagement of citizens and other
stakeholders, to optimize and co-produce services and improve the quality of life; and
3. A strong focus on citizens, acknowledging their key role in collaborative decision-making
processes to increase public values creation (see e.g. (Castelnovo et al., 2015; Meijer &
Bolívar, 2016; Meijer et al., 2016)).
To encapsulate these implications, we have defined smart city governance as a form of
smart governance, enabling and allocating decision-making rights to stakeholders (in
particular citizens) to participate in effective and efficient decision-making processes to
improve the quality of life in cities.
Obviously, this study has some limitations. The first limitation concerns the fact that,
although we applied a systematic approach to the search strategy, we initially limited
ourselves to a search in the four most influential academic journals in the field of smart (city)
governance. Even though we applied a snowball sampling technique to extend the sample of
papers emerging from the four ‘top’ journals, we cannot exclude the possibility that we have
missed relevant papers. Second, the review has targeted academic papers and book chapters,
and thus misses out on ‘grey’ literature which may include government reports, policy briefs
from knowledge centers and other practitioner-based fora.
Based on the conclusions and limitations of the literature review, we can identify
several directions for further research. First, the operationalization of the concept and the
proposed relations to be analysed in smart city initiatives can contribute in particular to the
understanding of the transformational efforts needed to improve overall performance and
opportunities for smart (city) governance.
30
Second, the digital transformations explained in this paper change the process of
policy-making and governance models in a disruptive way. Rapid developments regarding
open data, data processing, data mining and visualizations combined with social media,
participatory tools and civic engagement increase the potential for online supported forms of
co-production between governments and citizens. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of
research that uncovers whether online forms of collaboration and (smart) governance truly
result in offline improvements in the quality of life. More in-depth research is needed with
regard to this matter.
Third, the impact of open government on collaborative governance as one of the main
elements of smart city governance could be better explored. Data openness, along with
transparency, participation, and collaboration remain the fundamental principles of open
government. Open government is highly related to the collaborative governance concept,
since open data increases the possibilities for knowledge development, decision making and
interdisciplinary collaboration (Kamateri, Panopoulou, Tambouris, Tarabanis, Ojo, Lee &
Price, 2015). Therefore, these new possibilities can enable stakeholder engagement in
collaborative decision making processes with focus on the needs of the citizens to increase
their quality of life.
Acknowledgements
The research leading to these results has been developed in the context of the SmartGov
Project (Advanced decision support for Smart Governance). It has received funding from the
Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) Urban Europe, i.e. the program ERA-NET Cofund Smart
Cities and Communities (ENSCC).
31
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