Aug 2026· Siber Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary· Vol 4, pp. 416-429· 0 citations
TL;DR
The findings show that community participation is diverse and encompasses operational, participatory-procedural, and collective-advocacy roles which contribute to improved public service responsiveness, government accountability, and public trust.
Abstract
The successful implementation of Smart City depends not only on digital technology but also on meaningful community participation through Smart Governance. However, previous studies have placed greater emphasis on technological and institutional dimensions, while the role of the community in shaping collaborative digital governance remains underexplored. This study aims to identify the forms and mechanisms of community participation, analyze the factors influencing the effectiveness of participation, and develop an effective participation model within the Smart Governance framework in Jakarta. The study employs a qualitative case study approach with a pragmatic paradigm. Data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews, observations of the implementation of digital public services, particularly Jakarta's government digital service platforms, and analysis of relevant policy documents and official reports. The data were analyzed through analytical coding involving iterative stages of data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion verification. The findings show that community participation is diverse and encompasses operational, participatory-procedural, and collective-advocacy roles. The effectiveness of participation is determined by the interaction among community capacity, digital governance mechanisms, and institutional support, which contribute to improved public service responsiveness, government accountability, and public trust. The novelty of this study lies in the development of an empirically grounded spectrum of community participation roles and an integrated participation model for the implementation of Smart Governance in Jakarta.
This study aims to analyze the strengthening of smart governance through penta-helix collaboration in the development of a smart city in South Solok Regency. A qualitative approach with a case study method was employed to gain an in-depth understanding of multi-actor collaboration dynamics and digital governance processes. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, observations, and document analysis, and analyzed using thematic analysis techniques.
The findings indicate that penta-helix collaboration has begun to emerge but has not yet been systematically and sustainably institutionalized. The local government remains the dominant actor, while the involvement of academia, the private sector, the community, and the media is still partial. The strengthening of smart governance has progressed through the implementation of SPBE and digital public services; however, challenges persist, including system fragmentation, limited data integration, and administrative rather than strategic inter-agency coordination. Public participation also remains limited to service usage rather than substantive involvement in decision-making processes.
These findings imply that smart city development is still at the stage of system and service enhancement and has not yet reached a fully integrated and sustainable transformation. Therefore, strengthening institutional collaboration, improving digital system integration, enhancing cross-sector coordination, and expanding public participation are essential to achieving more effective smart governance.
Siti Osa Kosassy, Thomas Bustomi, T. Fauzi· International journal of res...· 0 citations
Smart city innovation has emerged as a strategic concept in urban governance to improve the quality of life, requiring collaboration among diverse stakeholders. This study examines smart city development from a stakeholder perspective, focusing on Malang City, Indonesia. A qualitative approach was employed, including in-depth interviews, policy document analysis, and field observations, guided by stakeholder theory to understand how various actors influence policy and implementation. The findings indicate that Malang has implemented several smart initiatives, including e-government services, digital infrastructure, traffic management, and environmental monitoring. These efforts are generally perceived to enhance efficiency and transparency. However, challenges persist, particularly in ensuring inclusivity, strengthening inter-agency coordination, and improving digital literacy. The local government plays a leading role, while the private sector, academia, and civil society contribute technical expertise and community engagement. Overall, smart city innovation in Malang is progressing but remains in its early stages and requires stronger collaboration, institutional capacity, and accountability. This study underscores the importance of stakeholders as supporting actors in advancing collaborative and inclusive smart city governance.
Ali Roziqin, Rio Aji Prasetyo, Rifki Muhammad Bintang et al.· Sustainability· 1 citation
Smart city initiatives increasingly claim to be citizen-centric, yet governance frameworks persistently conflate two analytically distinct concepts, citizen participation and citizen engagement, in ways that undermine the design and evaluation of civic involvement mechanisms. This conceptual ambiguity represents a structural problem in the field, not a transitional oversight, and carries direct consequences for how urban managers design governance instruments and measure their effectiveness. This study systematically examines the scope, definition, and operationalization of both concepts in smart city research through a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) following the SPAR-4-SLR protocol. A corpus of 43 peer-reviewed articles published between 2011 and 2025, retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science, was subjected to qualitative content analysis using a structured coding framework. Findings reveal that 53% of reviewed studies use participation and engagement interchangeably, a pattern that remains stable across all publication periods, confirming the structural rather than incidental nature of the ambiguity. Only 26% of articles establish a rigorous conceptual distinction and operationalize both terms through distinct analytical frameworks. The review further identifies a critical mechanism design gap: 30% of articles report no engagement mechanism whatsoever, and only 23% report outcomes with verifiable indicators. Based on these findings, this study proposes a conceptual framework that explicitly distinguishes participation, as a behavioral, often episodic act, from engagement, as a sustained, intrinsically motivated process characterized by genuine influence over governance outcomes. The framework offers researchers a theoretically grounded basis for construct differentiation and provides urban managers with actionable criteria for designing governance mechanisms that move beyond symbolic consultation toward authentic co-creation. Implications for digital governance research and smart city policy are discussed, with particular attention to underrepresented contexts in the Global South.
Kátia Eloisa Bertol, E. Luciano, R. Barichello et al.· Sustainability· 0 citations
Cities worldwide continue to experiment with urban technology solutions to address urban problems. Smart city projects have recently emerged in North America, including Canada, but their governance implications on cities and communities remains not fully understood. This article is based on a post-hoc analysis of a pan-Canadian government-driven technology and innovation competition called the Smart Cities Challenge (SCC). The research explored the impact of the SCC across three areas: (1) municipal innovation and governance, (2) collaboration among public, private, and community networks, and (3) policy implementation within local government structures. The findings indicate that public smart city competitions do succeed in fostering strategic planning and community engagement in municipal governments, however local governments struggle to advance technology-oriented projects to the implementation stage without greater investment. For those that did, sustaining successes without further investment and capacity building. The study’s key contribution lies in revealing how the competition stimulated new governance processes, strategic planning efforts, and collaborative networks, while also exposing significant implementation challenges rooted in fiscal constraints, limited technical capacity, and the short-lived nature of competition-based incentives. The research highlights the promise and limits of government-led smart city competitions as tools for advancing municipal innovation in today’s constrained fiscal context.
Jeffrey Biggar, Austin Zwick, Zachary Spicer· Local Economy· 0 citations
This exploratory research study examines the transformative trajectory of digital governance frameworks within India's Smart City Mission (SCM), elucidating the multifaceted challenges and latent opportunities inherent in technology-mediated urban administration. Drawing upon secondary data from fifteen acknowledged scholarly publications, this study employs a systematic literature synthesis methodology to comprehend the nexus between e-governance frameworks and sustainable urban development paradigms. The study reveals that while digital governance initiatives have catalyzed citizen-centric service delivery, participatory decisionmaking mechanisms, and resource optimization strategies, formidable impediments persist in the domains of digital infrastructure deficiencies, inter-agency coordination lacunae, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and socio-digital divides. The findings underscore the imperative for comprehensive policy recalibration, technological capacity augmentation, and inclusive stakeholder engagement to actualize the transformative potential of digital governance in Indian urban landscape. This pivotal study contributes to the burgeoning discourse on technoadministrative convergence and proffers pragmatic recommendations for ameliorating implementation efficacy within smart city ecosystems.
Rubaya Akther, K. Lakshman, Sumaya Jan· International journal of soc...· 0 citations
This article aims to analyse documents and case studies of fire brigade activities in the context of smart city functioning.
For the purpose of this study, the authors adopted a qualitative research approach that included document analysis and analysis of exceptional cases meeting the criterion of technology use during operational activities.
The study has shown that the digitalisation process in the State Fire Service (PSP) represents not only technological modernisation but also a complex social phenomenon inherent in the logic of smart city development. The analysis of institutional documents and practices has revealed that digital tools are changing operational procedures, redefining relationships between services and communities, becoming a means of building trust and institutional legitimacy. Simultaneously, an ‘implementation gap’ has been revealed – a discrepancy between normative assumptions and the daily practice of rescue operations – indicating the need for flexible adaptation.
The effectiveness of innovative solutions depends not only on the systems themselves but also on adaptability, collaboration, and the joint development of safety standards. The smart city thus emerges as a dynamic socio-technical system in which security arises from a constant negotiation between the promise of technological control and the real experience of risk and uncertainty.
Małgorzata Suchacka, Zuzanna Neuve-Église, Mirosław Skorek· Journal of Modern Science· 0 citations