Smart city intellectual capital: an emerging view of territorial systems innovation management
| Published date | 12 October 2015 |
| Pages | 860-887 |
| Date | 12 October 2015 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JIC-02-2015-0018 |
| Author | Renata P. Dameri,Francesca Ricciardi |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Knowledge management |
Smart city intellectual capital: an
emerging view of territorial
systems innovation management
Renata P. Dameri
Department of Economics, University of Genova, Genova, Italy, and
Francesca Ricciardi
Department of Business Economics, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore whether and how the intellectual capital (IC)
approach and concepts could be fruitfully adapted to study the smart city phenomenon from a
managerial point of view.
Design/methodology/approach –This study is based on a long-term, in-depth ethnographic
exploration of the vast global community, which is created around the smart city movement.
Findings –The analysis suggests that, in order to effectively analyse a smart city context through
the IC lens, the traditional IC framework needs to be extended for: expected outcomes, which should
also include sustainability, resilience and quality of life; categories of key resources, which should also
include institutional capital and environmental capital; units of analysis, which should also include
territorial systems, such as transportation or waste; and key managerial challenges implied. As a final
result, a smart city intellectual capital (SC-IC) framework is proposed.
Research limitations/implications –Most of the cases analysed in this study are European;
further studies are advisable to better investigate non-European smart city contexts.
Practical implications –The paper suggests that the knowledge management, project portfolio
management and network management approaches are crucial to better support managerial practices
in smart city organizations.
Originality/value –The SC-IC framework allows for a clear definition of the smart city organization,
as a new knowledge-based, project-oriented, network-shaped type of organization. Therefore, the SC-IC
framework provides smart city research with a consistent rooting in management studies. Further, this
paper contributes to the fourth stage of IC research.
Keywords Intellectual capital, Digital city, Knowledge city, Project portfolio management,
Project-based organization, Smart city
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Being smart is not about profit. Mere profit may even be a driver of stupidity. Being smart is
about capitalizing on all of our resources to build a better quality of life for all –including
the next generations (a manager involved in a “smart”initiative for supporting elderly
independent living, 2011).
Recently, the intellectual capital (IC) scholarly community has identified a new and
challenging goal for the years to come: to investigate how knowledge resources can
be leveraged at the city, regional or national levels, in order to build strong and
sustainable social ecosystems where healthy organizations can flourish (Dumay, 2013).
This has also been labelled as the fourth stage of IC research.
Therefore, the fourth stage of IC research should look at broader fields of interest,
linking the role and value of IC to the creation of stronger social, economic and
environmental ecosystems, and be regarded no more as a single organization, but as a
Journal of Intellectual Capital
Vol. 16 No. 4, 2015
pp. 860-887
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1469-1930
DOI 10.1108/JIC-02-2015-0018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1469-1930.htm
860
JIC
16,4
network of different actors and subjects rooted in different countries, cities and
communities (Gray, 2006). In effect, there is growing awareness that not only is
knowledge the crucial resource to achieve firm success, but also, and even more
importantly, to address the paramount ecological, social and demographic problems
that our societiesare facing. Therefore, the knowledge-based approaches to management
are called into action, in order to contribute to the sustainability and liveability of
social ecosystems.
This study aims tocontribute to such an emerging researcharea. To do so, it explores
the ideas and work of a vast global community, which includes researchers, policy
makers and practitioners, known as the smart city movement.
The smart city approach is vigorously growing worldwide (IDC, 2013) and relies on
very relevant funding and institutional support (EU Parliament, 2014). Thus, the smart
city idea is resulting in a sort of gigantic natural experiment on a global scale, revealing
how technology-enabled innovation by cities’key institutions may trigger virtuous
change for the larger good (Shapiro, 2006).
Smart city projects and research are aimed at the sustainability, resilience, quality
of life and competitiveness of city systems (Levin et al., 1998; Rogerson, 1999; Chourabi
et al., 2012). The smart city community strongly believes that knowledge is the key to
the future, and that the pivotal strategies in the development of “smart”knowledge are
technological innovation, collaborative networking and participative social interactions
(Schaffers et al., 2011).
These ideas are highly compatible with the IC tradition and, especially, with the
fourth stage of IC research. Nevertheless, to the authors’knowledge, a bridge between
the IC and smart city research communities has yet to be drawn.
This is probably because the two communities have very different disciplinary
backgrounds. Whilst the IC tradition is soundly rooted in accounting and management
disciplines,the younger smart city movement stemsfrom a fermenting multi-disciplinary
ground, which includes urban planning, social and political sciences, regional studies,
engineering and computer science (Ricciardi and Za, 2014).
Consequently, even if the two communities often build upon similar concepts and
develop similargoals, they usually attend different events and speakdifferent languages.
Thus, although these two research traditions are potentially highly complementary,
a laborious and accurate translation effort is required to allow for effective
cross-fertilization between them.
The authors firmly believe that such a cross-fertilization has great potential, and the
reasons are twofold.
On the one side, the smart city view may help to go beyond the traditional narrow
view, which links IC to the creation of monetary value, to a more ecological and
sustainable IC, which focuses on well-being in nations and cities (Wasiluk, 2013).The IC
community has expressed its purpose to start focusing on a wider range of possible
IC outcomes, beyond the traditional attention to competitiveness and financial
performance (Dumay and Garanina, 2013). The smart city approach, given its links
with the literature on public value (Fontana, 2014) and its well-established focus on
larger-good goals,such as sustainability, resilience and quality of life, may provide very
useful insights to help broaden the horizon of IC outcomes.
On the other side, thus far, the outcomes of IC research have often been neglected in
the context of the innovation of public administration (Dias et al., 2014). However,
hundreds of smart city initiatives all over the world do need to be governed, managed
and evaluated. There are many explicit complaints about the poor contribution of
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SC-IC: an
emerging view
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