Government Characteristics to Achieve Smart Urban Governance: From Internal to External Transformation

This chapter provides an overview of the government characteristics relevant to smart urban governance. A systematic literature review was conducted and merged with the existing e-government literature on critical success factors for adopting IT in the public sector. Identifying the government characteristics of smart governance sheds light on key organizational attributes that can pave the way for the transition from government to smart urban governance. The qualitative analysis of 96 articles on the governance of smart cities identified three main characteristics. The first is local government governance, related to the nature of the relationship among individuals, interest groups, institutions, and government. The second is government assets, which we believe are useful for providing support to smart urban governance in the form of funding, technology, and human capital. The third includes local government management, involving elements of strategy and the positioning of local public administration. Compared to literature in e-government, the governmental characteristics are quite similar, however, the focus of e-government is to transform the organization internally, while in smart urban governance literature, the focus is to transform both internally and externally. Future research should focus on understanding how governments could develop organizational capabilities to achieve internal and external transformation.