Smart Cities as a Local Government Innovation and Governance Reform Agenda: A Bibliometric and Systematic Literature Review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.38035/dijemss.v7i4.6316Keywords:
Smart Cities, Public Administration, Local Government, Urban Governance, DecentralizationAbstract
Smart city initiatives have rapidly increased; however, existing literature is fragmented across technological, urban planning, and governance frameworks. This study examined smart city research within the framework of local government innovation and governance reform. This research employed an integrated review strategy that combines bibliometric analysis with a PRISMA-compliant systematic literature review, analyzing 482 peer-reviewed journal articles indexed in Scopus to outline the field's history, intellectual framework, and thematic structure. The results indicate a notable transition from technology-focused narratives to frameworks that emphasize governance and public value. Smart cities should be regarded as socio-technical governance systems that utilize digital platforms to improve citizen engagement, policy development, and service delivery. Institutional capability, regulatory alignment, and organizational learning enable the transformation of digital investments into enduring public benefits. This study presents a capability-oriented framework for the analysis of smart city performance and situates urban digital transformation within decentralized local self-governance systems.
References
Albino, V., Berardi, U., & Dangelico, R. M. (2015). Smart cities: Definitions, dimensions, performance, and initiatives. Journal of Urban Technology, 22(1), 3–21.
Angelidou, M. (2014). Smart city policies: A spatial approach. Cities, 41, S3–S11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2014.06.007
Anthopoulos, L. (2017). Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases. Cities, 63, 128–148.
Anttiroiko, A.-V., Valkama, P., & Bailey, S. J. (2014). Smart cities in the new service economy: building platforms for smart services. AI & SOCIETY, 29(3), 323–334. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-013-0464-0
Aria, M., & Cuccurullo, C. (2017). bibliometrix: An R-tool for comprehensive science mapping analysis. Journal of Informetrics, 11(4), 959–975.
Bakıcı, T., Almirall, E., & Wareham, J. (2013). A smart city initiative: The case of Barcelona. Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 4(2), 135–148.
Barns, S. (2018). Smart cities and urban data platforms: Designing interfaces for smart governance. City, Culture and Society, 12, 5–12.
Batty, M., Axhausen, K. W., Giannotti, F., Pozdnoukhov, A., Bazzani, A., Wachowicz, M., Ouzounis, G., & Portugali, Y. (2012). Smart cities of the future. The European Physical Journal Special Topics, 214(1), 481–518.
Bibri, S. E., & Krogstie, J. (2017). Smart sustainable cities of the future: An extensive interdisciplinary literature review. Sustainable Cities and Society, 31, 183–212.
Caragliu, A., Del Bo, C., & Nijkamp, P. (2011). Smart Cities in Europe. Journal of Urban Technology, 18(2), 65–82. https://doi.org/10.1080/10630732.2011.601117
Choi, H.-S., & Song, S.-K. (2022). Direction for a Transition toward Smart Sustainable Cities based on the Diagnosis of Smart City Plans. Smart Cities, 6(1), 156–178. https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities6010009
Cordella, A., & Bonina, C. M. (2012). A public value perspective for ICT enabled public sector reforms: A theoretical reflection. Government Information Quarterly, 29(4), 512–520. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2012.03.004
De Guimarães, J. C. F., Severo, E. A., Felix Júnior, L. A., Da Costa, W. P. L. B., & Salmoria, F. T. (2020). Governance and quality of life in smart cities: Towards sustainable development goals. Journal of Cleaner Production, 253, 119926. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119926
Donthu, N., Kumar, S., Mukherjee, D., Pandey, N., & Lim, W. M. (2021). How to conduct a bibliometric analysis: An overview and guidelines. Journal of Business Research, 133, 285–296.
Gil-Garcia, J. R., Dawes, S. S., & Pardo, T. A. (2018). Digital government and public management research: finding the crossroads. Public Management Review, 20(5), 633–646. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2017.1327181
Gil-Garcia, J. R., Pardo, T. A., & Nam, T. (2015). A comprehensive view of the 21st century city: Smartness as technologies and innovation in urban contexts. In Smarter as the new urban agenda: A comprehensive view of the 21st century city (pp. 1–19). Springer.
Hollands, R. G. (2008). Will the real smart city please stand up? City, 12(3), 303–320. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604810802479126
Janssen, M., & van den Hoven, J. (2015). Big and Open Linked Data (BOLD) in government: A challenge to transparency and privacy? In Government Information Quarterly (Vol. 32, Number 4, pp. 363–368). Elsevier.
Kitchin, R. (2015). Making sense of smart cities: addressing present shortcomings. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 8(1), 131–136. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsu027
Komninos, N., Pallot, M., & Schaffers, H. (2013). Special issue on smart cities and the future internet in Europe. Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 4(2), 119–134.
Kummitha, R. K. R., & Crutzen, N. (2017). How do we understand smart cities? An evolutionary perspective. Cities, 67, 43–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2017.04.010
Lewis, J. M., Ricard, L. M., & Klijn, E. H. (2018). How innovation drivers, networking and leadership shape public sector innovation capacity. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 84(2), 288–307. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852317694085
Meijer, A., & Bolívar, M. P. R. (2016). Governing the smart city: a review of the literature on smart urban governance. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 82(2), 392–408.
Meijer, A. J., Gil-Garcia, J. R., & Bolívar, M. P. R. (2016). Smart City Research. Social Science Computer Review, 34(6), 647–656. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439315618890
Mergel, I., Edelmann, N., & Haug, N. (2019). Defining digital transformation: Results from expert interviews. Government Information Quarterly, 36(4), 101385. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2019.06.002
Mora, H., Gilart-Iglesias, V., Pérez-del Hoyo, R., & Andújar-Montoya, M. D. (2017). A comprehensive system for monitoring urban accessibility in smart cities. Sensors, 17(8), 1834.
Mora, L., Gerli, P., Ardito, L., & Messeni Petruzzelli, A. (2023). Smart city governance from an innovation management perspective: Theoretical framing, review of current practices, and future research agenda. Technovation, 123, 102717. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.technovation.2023.102717
Olubunmi Adeolu Adenekan, Chinedu Ezeigweneme, & Excel Great Chukwurah. (2024). The evolution of smart cities: Integrating technology, governance, and sustainable development. International Journal of Applied Research in Social Sciences, 6(5), 891–902. https://doi.org/10.51594/ijarss.v6i5.1131
Page, M. J., Moher, D., Bossuyt, P. M. M., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T., Mulrow, C. D., Shamseer, L., Tetzlaff, J., Akl, E. A., Brennan, S. E., Chou, R., Glanville, J., Grimshaw, J. M., Hróbjartsson, A., Lalu, M. M., Li, T., Loder, E., Mayo-Wilson, E., McDonald, S., … McKenzie, J. E. (2021). PRISMA 2020 explanation and elaboration: updated guidance and exemplars for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ, 372. https://doi.org/10.1136/BMJ.N160
Paul, J., & Criado, A. R. (2020). The art of writing literature review: what do we know and what do we need to know? International Business Review, 29(4), 101717.
Ruhlandt, R. W. S. (2018). The governance of smart cities: A systematic literature review. Cities, 81, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2018.02.014
Sharifi, A., Allam, Z., Feizizadeh, B., & Ghamari, H. (2021). Three Decades of Research on Smart Cities: Mapping Knowledge Structure and Trends. Sustainability, 13(13), 7140. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137140
Snyder, H. (2019). Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines. Journal of Business Research, 104, 333–339.
Tomor, Z., Meijer, A., Michels, A., & Geertman, S. (2019). Smart Governance For Sustainable Cities: Findings from a Systematic Literature Review. Journal of Urban Technology, 26(4), 3–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/10630732.2019.1651178
Tranfield, D., Denyer, D., & Smart, P. (2003). Towards a Methodology for Developing Evidence-Informed Management Knowledge by Means of Systematic Review. British Journal of Management, 14, 207–222. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.00375
Valencia-Arias, A., Martínez Rojas, E., García Pineda, V., Agudelo-Ceballos, E., del Rocio Castañeda Rodriguez, L., Espinoza Requejo, C. C., Cardona-Acevedo, S., Londoño-Celis, W., & Alvitez Adan, T. E. (2025). Research trends on sustainable development in smart cities. Discover Sustainability, 6(1), 369. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-025-01210-z
Vanolo, A. (2014). Smartmentality: The Smart City as Disciplinary Strategy. Urban Studies, 51(5), 883–898. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098013494427
Viale Pereira, G., Cunha, M. A., Lampoltshammer, T. J., Parycek, P., & Testa, M. G. (2017). Increasing collaboration and participation in smart city governance: a cross-case analysis of smart city initiatives. Information Technology for Development, 23(3), 526–553. https://doi.org/10.1080/02681102.2017.1353946
Vujković, P., Ravšelj, D., Umek, L., & Aristovnik, A. (2022). Bibliometric Analysis of Smart Public Governance Research: Smart City and Smart Government in Comparative Perspective. Social Sciences, 11(7), 293. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci11070293
Wiig, A., & Wyly, E. (2016). Introduction: Thinking through the politics of the smart city. Urban Geography, 37(4), 485–493. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2016.1178479
Yigitcanlar, T., Kamruzzaman, Md., Foth, M., Sabatini-Marques, J., da Costa, E., & Ioppolo, G. (2019). Can cities become smart without being sustainable? A systematic review of the literature. Sustainable Cities and Society, 45, 348–365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2018.11.033
Zhao, F., Fashola, O. I., Olarewaju, T. I., & Onwumere, I. (2021). Smart city research: A holistic and state-of-the-art literature review. Cities, 119, 103406. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2021.103406
Zheng, C., Yuan, J., Zhu, L., Zhang, Y., & Shao, Q. (2020). From digital to sustainable: A scientometric review of smart city literature between 1990 and 2019. Journal of Cleaner Production, 258, 120689. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.120689
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Edem Lekettey, Nugraha Nugraha, Maya Sari, Denny Andriana
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish their manuscripts in this journal agree to the following conditions:
- The copyright on each article belongs to the author(s).
- The author acknowledges that the Dinasti International Journal of Education Management and Social Science (DIJEMSS) has the right to be the first to publish with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
- Authors can submit articles separately, arrange for the non-exclusive distribution of manuscripts that have been published in this journal into other versions (e.g., sent to the author's institutional repository, publication into books, etc.), by acknowledging that the manuscript has been published for the first time in the Dinasti International Journal of Education Management and Social Science (DIJEMSS).
