Understanding electronic government research and smart city: A framework and empirical evidence

Abstract

Smart cities have been evolving since their early appearance in late 1990s from metropolitan-wide Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based solutions to today's innovations - not necessarily based on ICT - that utilize city resources and improve local everyday life. This paper attempts to answer two research questions: (a) Does e-government research provide the appropriate theoretical capacity consisting of terms and frameworks that define smart city? and (b) Is e-government research evolution able to provide the appropriate theoretical capacity to deal with smart city challenges? To answer these two research questions this paper follows a multi-methods approach comprising of (a) retrospective literature review (27 interdisciplinary journals, from 1997-2015 that publish smart city works are examined with regard to e-government and smart city) and define the key-areas of study (i.e., e-government in smart city etc.); and (b) prospective Delphi study (involving 16 experts in both e-government and smart city domains from prestigious universities, organizations, and cities across the globe), which identify action areas (i.e., livability and co-design) and measures for future e-government research contribution to the smart city. The results of this study shed light on existing gaps, interrelations, and reciprocities between e-government research and smart city and define an agenda for future research.