Smart governance in the context of smart cities: A literature review

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 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 et al., 2009; Bertot et al., 2010; Ayanso et al., 2011; Hu et al., 2012; Janowski et al., 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; 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 et al., 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 technologies and applications has become crucial in improving performance of e-government service provision (Hung et al., 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 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 et al. (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 et al. (2016):

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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 et al. (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 generations, and quickly recover and respond to their citizens in cases of emergency and disaster.

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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 et al., 2014; Jaeger, 2011; Norris, 2001; Picazo-Vela et al., 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).

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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 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 & Sandoval-Almazan, 2012; Estevez & 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 et al., 2016).

The use of ICT solutions to increase public participation in government has long been known as e-participation (Macintosh & Smith, 2002; Zissis et al., 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 et al, (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 et al., 2015; Mellouli et al., 2014). ICT-based tools can mediate, extend, and transform participation in democratic and consultative societal processes (Sæbø et al., 2008). Thus, the task of e-participation is to empower people through ICT, 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 et al., 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 et al., 2013; Ferro et al., 2013; Kleinhans et al., 2015; Porwol et al., 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 et al., 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 et al., 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 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:

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Data and evidence-based policymaking;

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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 et al., 2012; Ubaldi, 2013). According to Reddick et al. (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 et al., 2008; Bekkers et al., 2013; Mergel, 2013).

3.2.2 Collaborative, open and citizen-centric forms of governance

According to Linders et al. (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 et al., 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 et al., 2015; Reddick et al., 2015).

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 et al., 2016, p.12). Castelnovo et al. (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.

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 et al. (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 et al. (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 technologies applied in urban management and serving citizens (Lee & 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 (Lee & 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 (Lee & 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 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 et al. (2015), in which governance is often related to citizen participation in the smart city literature. Osella et al. (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 et al. (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 analysing the contribution of smart city governance to generate public values, including economic growth (Castelnovo et al., 2015; Meijer & Bolívar, 2016; Meijer et al., 2016). According to Meijer et al. (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).