Leading smart city projects: Government dynamic capabilities and public value creation

Abstract

This research studied the effect of different combinations of government capabilities (innovation capability mix) on public value in smart city-framed innovation projects. The study drew on the public value theory, the collaborative public innovation approach and the dynamic capabilities theory to devise a conceptual framework that links government capabilities and public value. Insights from smart cities and literature on public innovation were also used to identify a range of intra-organizational and external collaboration capabilities of governments that should lead to valuable public sector innovation. These capabilities were combined inductively through factor analysis, which was applied to a sample of 143 innovation projects in Spanish municipalities, leading to four forms of innovation capability mix. A factor analysis regression was then estimated. Overall, the study found that ‘citizen-oriented management’ (i.e., outstanding innovation-oriented internal management coupled with strong collaboration with citizens) and ‘provider focus’ (i.e., outstanding collaboration with providers) seem to have a positive influence on three dimensions of public value (i.e., efficiency, effectiveness and societal challenges). By contrast, ‘citizen and expert focus’ (i.e., outstanding collaboration with experts and citizens) and ‘peer focus’ (i.e., outstanding collaboration with other governments) do not contribute to any of the three dimensions of public value. While project type was studied, it was found that its isolated effect was limited, although analyzing it provided some interesting findings.