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In this chapter, we analyze the interactions between local governments and citizens’ initiatives. In the Netherlands, local governments take up the role of civic enabler based on a modest approach that leaves citizens room to invent and design initiatives on what they deem to be public issues by facilitating and activating their efforts. We focus on how a proactive form of this approach toward citizens’ initiatives in deprived neighborhoods affects citizen–government relations. Our research is based on a case study in the city of Amsterdam. We find that particularly more women and migrants took up a wide variety of initiatives, which suggests that the neighborhood approach is more inclusive than deliberative approaches. We also find that initiators developed a positive attitude toward public institutions that enable them and that they started to see frontline workers as collaborators in their initiatives with whom they could have personal and authentic interactions, as opposed to the cool bureaucratic response from government officials that they were used to. To close the chapter, we discuss some risks of the proactive enabling approach, we compare our findings to problems that citizens’ initiatives often face during their interactions with local institutional actors in the Netherlands found in other literature, and we briefly discuss possible implications of practicing a modest enabling approach for developments in governance.

In recent years, the term “smart city” has attracted a lot of attention from policy makers, business leaders and citizenship in general. Although there is not a unique definition of what a smart city is, it is generally accepted that “smart” urban policies refer to local governments’ initiatives that use information and communication technologies in order to increase the quality of life of their inhabitants while contributing to a sustainable development. So far, “smart city” approaches have generally been related to top-down processes of technology diffusion. The purpose of this paper is to present a broader view on “smart” initiatives to analyze both top-down and bottom-up dynamics in a smart city. The authors argue that these two perspectives are complementary and its combination can reinforce the collaboration between different city stakeholders. Top-down and bottom-up initiatives are not opposed forces but, on the contrary, can have a synergistic effect on the innovation capacity of the city. Both perspectives are illustrated by providing examples of different “smart” aspects in the city of Barcelona: smart districts, open collaborative spaces, infrastructures and open data.

To illustrate the arguments, the authors analyze the case of the city of Barcelona providing examples of top-down and bottom-up initiatives in four different smart city aspects: smart districts, open collaborative spaces, infrastructures and open data. The research method is based on a case study (Yin, 1984). The primary data consisted on interviews to city council representatives as well as managers of local public institutions, like economic development offices, and local organizations like for instance coworking spaces. The authors interviewed also specialists on the innovation history of the city in order to validate the data. In addition, the authors used secondary data such as reports on the 22@, and documentation on the Barcelona innovation policies, as well as doing a compilation of press articles and the online content of the institutional webpages. All together, the authors have followed a data triangulation strategy to seek data validation based on the cross-verification of the analyzed data sources.

The analysis suggests that the top-down and bottom-up perspectives are complementary and their combination can reinforce the collaboration between different city stakeholders. Top-down and bottom-up initiatives are not opposed forces but, on the contrary, can have a synergistic effect on the innovation capacity of the city. Both perspectives are illustrated by providing examples of different “smart” aspects in the city of Barcelona: smart districts, open collaborative spaces, infrastructures and open data.

Nevertheless, the analysis has its limitations. Even if the authors have emphasized the importance of the bottom-up initiatives, citizens do not have often the resources to act without governmental intervention. This is the case of services that require high-cost infrastructures or regulatory changes. Also, as it usually happens in the case of disruptive technology, it is hard for citizens to understand the possibilities of its use. In these cases, firms and institutions must play an important role in the first phases of the diffusion of innovations, by informing and incentivizing its use. It is also important to note that some of the emerging usages of technology are confronted to legal or regulatory issues. For instance, distributed and shared Wi-Fi networks might be in opposition to economic interests of internet providers, that often difficult its expansion. It is also the case of services of the sharing economy that represent a menace to established institutions (like the tensions between Uber and taxi companies, or Airbnb and hotels). In these cases, city halls like it is the case in Barcelona, tend to respond to these emergent uses of technology by regulating to ensure protection to existing corporate services.

In conclusion, the transformational process that leads a city to become a smart city has to take in consideration the complexity and the plurality of the urban reality. Beyond considering citizens as being users, testers or consumers of technology, local administrations that are able to identify, nourish and integrate the emerging citizens’ initiatives would contribute to the reinforcement of a smart city reality.

The contribution of the paper is to go beyond the generalized technologic discourse around smart cities by adding the layer of the citizens’ initiatives.

This chapter concludes the book by addressing the complexities and challenges associated with smart cities. Despite the widespread enthusiasm and progressive policies surrounding smart cities, navigating this world remains a desirable yet complex challenge. Drawing on existing literature, this final chapter serves as a synthesis of the key points covered throughout the book and offers practical guidelines for navigating the landscape of smart cities. This chapter provides valuable tips and insights for both citizens and policymakers, recognizing their pivotal roles in shaping the future of smart cities. Additionally, it delves into the current challenges faced by smart city initiatives and discusses potential future directions. Emphasizing the need for ongoing adaptation and innovation, this chapter highlights the importance of overcoming obstacles and capitalizing on opportunities in the rapidly evolving digital age. By offering a comprehensive overview and practical recommendations, this chapter aims to equip readers with the knowledge and tools to navigate the complexities of smart cities effectively. It concludes the book on a forward-looking note, emphasizing the dynamic nature of smart city development and the continuous need for adaptation and innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent of corruption in India, Fiji and Ethiopia and survey citizen perception of how e‐governance could fight corruption. The main objective is to investigate and explore the potential of e‐governance applications in three countries representing three different regions of Asia, Africa, and Oceania.

A survey was conducted over 918 citizens in India, Ethiopia and Fiji using convenience random sampling. A structured questionnaire was used. The main emphasis of the survey was on citizen perception about corruption and poor service. It further asked respondents on how e‐governance can cut corruption.

Benefits of e‐governance in developing countries are the same as those in developed countries but there are many potential benefits that remain unreaped by developing countries as a consequence of their unlimited use of e‐governance. Based on these assertions, the researchers tried to evaluate and assess the potential of e‐governance initiatives in India, Ethiopia and Fiji. By exploring the role of e‐governance for reducing corruption that has afflicted the entire public sector in these countries, the main finding is that e‐governance is positively related to government, “citizen relationship and corruption reduction”.

This study is highly empirical and does not provide case studies to further extend on the findings.

The implications of the research are that information communication technology (ICT) needs to be effectively integrated in the development agenda of government plans in Ethiopia and Fiji. Government agencies in Ethiopia and Fiji do not seem to be much motivated to build sound government‐citizen partnerships. Citizens can see little of the internal workings of government. However, for India, where there are many e‐governance projects underway, and which is normally considered to be awakening to the challenges of e‐governance and which has to date many success stories relating to e‐governance, it is surprising to see that citizens find various existent formats of corruption and non‐transparent service delivery activities. It is quite evident that bureaucracy is more or less opaque and very little attention has been paid to improving transparency, including through the use of e‐governance processes. Time, cost and red‐tape procedures are major constraints in public service delivery.

The paper explores a problem that is of practical importance using principal‐agent theory, which is very applicable to the public sector context.

The purpose of the present paper is to attempt to examine the determinants of citizens’ electronic participation with respect to the communication aspects. To accomplish this objective, using the extant literature, the paper delineated factors that determine and the theories that can explain citizens’ e-participation. An analysis of citizens’ democratic communication through multiple e-participation forums is carried out, and the determinants of electronic participation are described in the paper.

In light of the literature, e-participation services were classified on the basis of characteristics of democratic communications. The factors that determine citizens’ online democratic participation were also identified and validated. Indian citizens who often e-participate were surveyed through online and offline questionnaires. A regression analysis of the 407 responses was carried out to predict the influence of individual, governance and technology components on various e-participation initiatives.

Citizens’ participation efficacy, value system and participation freedom were found to determine different e-participation initiatives. Further, e-participation is also found to be varyingly determined by the governance and technology components.

The theoretical contribution of this study includes the classification of determining factors and the illustrative labeling (I, G and T) for an e-participation framework. The delineation of e-participation from democratic communication aspects also contributes to the e-participation literature. However, this research had considered only one set of e-participation services and had incorporated only select forms of e-participation that are in coherence with the services selected.

Past studies often consider separate e-participation forums and infrequently report a simultaneous analysis of multiple e-participation forums. The factors that determine citizens’ e-participation from a democratic communication aspect are also inadequately discussed. The significant contribution of this study includes policy recommendations to improve e-participation in different information and communication technologies initiatives.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of local entrepreneurs, embedded in both the civil and the business arena, in creating public value by establishing strategic collaboration around smart technologies.

The paper suggests a novel – the local entrepreneurial – type of smart bottom-up initiative between civil grassroots and market-based initiatives. This idea is further evolved in the paper to define the patterns of this alternative type of smart bottom-up initiative. For this purpose, the paper conducts a case study of a community-based sustainable energy and mobility system launched by a local entrepreneur in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

The local entrepreneur has played a catalyzing role in public value creation by initiating and upscaling cooperative practices around smart technologies. This success has mainly been achieved due to the entrepreneurial attitudes of pioneering and risk-taking as well as the capability to bridge between the state, the market and society to accelerate urban sustainability transition.

This paper offers a practical illustration of the potential of local entrepreneurs to evolve cooperative practices with smart technologies for societal change. It also shows the vital role of local governments in the achievement of bottom-up initiatives contributing to urban smartness. However, in the case of commercializing initiatives, governments also need to take a balancing role to safeguard the needs of all citizens based on fairness and equity, which is at the core of public value creation.

The study adds to the citizen participation literature by revealing a novel type of active citizen grasping technological opportunities to mobilize networks to cooperate for the collective good. The research also contributes to a better understanding of the bottom-up smart city as a form of governance, and its advantages as well as drawbacks concerning public value creation.

The temporary use of vacant spaces as a format to co-produce public services is becoming popular. Research addressing the question of whether the public outcomes created in temporary co-production lead to sustainable results is lacking. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential sustainability of public outcomes created through temporary co-production.

The paper builds on the literature on creating sustainable outcomes in policy making and on co-production to design a theoretical framework that captures the sustainable co-production of public outcomes. Attention is directed to problem solving and capacity building, and to addressing the needs of society today and being responsive to the needs of tomorrow. A study of 8 temporary initiatives set in a large city in Flanders and 35 in-depth interviews with public servants, project coordinators and citizen co-producers provide empirical data for this exploratory study of the creation of sustainable outcomes in temporary co-production.

The data indicate that lasting collaborations, institutionalized (flexible) processes and empowered citizens support the creation of sustainable results from temporary co-production.

The paper bridges the literature on policy capacity, the co-production of public services and value creation. By doing so, the paper sheds light on the temporary use of vacant spaces as a way to effectively create outcomes. In addition, the paper addresses the paradox of temporary co-production and the creation of lasting outcomes. Finally, the framework presented offers a tool for analysts and practitioners to take into account various conditions for co-production to create lasting effects.

Ongoing environmental threats have intensified the need for firms to take big leaps forward to operate in a manner that is both ecologically sustainable and socially responsible. This paper aims to assess the degree to which firms are adopting citizen science as a tool to achieve sustainability and social responsibility targets.

This study applies a qualitative content analysis approach to assess the current presence of citizen science in sustainability and social responsibility reports issued by Globescan sustainability leaders and by firms ranked by the Fortune 500 and Fortune Global 500.

While the term itself is mostly absent from reports, firms are reporting on a range of activities that could be classified as a form of “citizen science.”

Citizen science can help firms achieve their corporate sustainability and corporate social responsibility goals and targets. Linking sustainability and social responsibility efforts to this existing framework can help triangulate corporate efforts to engage with stakeholders, collect data about the state of the environment and promote better stewardship of natural resources.

Supporting citizen science can help firms work toward meeting UN Sustainable Development Goals, which have highlighted the importance of collaborative efforts that can engage a broad range of stakeholders in the transition to more sustainable business models.

This paper is the first to examine citizen science in a corporate sustainability and social responsibility context. The findings present information to support improvements to the development of locally relevant science-based indicators; real-time monitoring of natural resources and supply chain sustainability; and participatory forums for stakeholders including suppliers, end users and the broader community.

Citizen engagement is key to the success of many Open Government Data (OGD) initiatives. However, not much is known regarding how this type of engagement emerges. This study aims to investigate the necessary conditions for the emergence of citizen-led engagement with OGD and to identify which factors stimulate this type of engagement.

First, the authors created a systematic overview of the literature to develop a conceptual model of conditions and factors of OGD citizen engagement at the societal, organizational and individual level. Second, the authors used the conceptual model to systematically study citizens’ engagement in the case of a particular OGD initiative, namely, the digitization of presidential election results data in Indonesia in 2014. The authors used multiple information sources, including interviews and documents, to explore the conditions and factors of OGD citizen-led engagement in this case.

From the literature the authors identified five conditions for the emergence of OGD citizen-led engagement as follows: the availability of a legal and political framework that grants a mandate to open up government data, sufficient budgetary resources allocated for OGD provision, the availability of OGD feedback mechanisms, citizens’ perceived ease of engagement and motivated citizens. In the literature, the authors found six factors contributing to OGD engagement as follows: democratic culture, the availability of supporting institutional arrangements, the technical factors of OGD provision, the availability of citizens’ resources, the influence of social relationships and citizens’ perceived data quality. Some of these conditions and factors were found to be less important in the studied case, namely, citizens’ perceived ease of engagement and citizens’ perceived data quality. Moreover, the authors found several new conditions that were not mentioned in the studied literature, namely, citizens’ sense of urgency, competition among citizen-led OGD engagement initiatives, the diversity of citizens’ skills and capabilities and the intensive use of social media. The difference between the conditions and factors that played an important role in the case and those derived from the literature review might be because of the type of OGD engagement that the authors studied, namely, citizen-led engagement, without any government involvement.

The findings are derived using a single case study approach. Future research can investigate multiple cases and compare the conditions and factors for citizen-led engagement with OGD in different contexts.

The conditions and factors for citizen-led engagement with OGD have been evaluated in practice and discussed with public managers and practitioners through interviews. Governmental organizations should prioritize and stimulate those conditions and factors that enhance OGD citizen engagement to create more value with OGD.

While some research on government-led engagement with OGD exists, there is hardly any research on citizen-led engagement with OGD. This study is the first to develop a conceptual model of necessary conditions and factors for citizen engagement with OGD. Furthermore, the authors applied the developed multilevel conceptual model to a case study and gathered empirical evidence of OGD engagement and its contributions to solving societal problems, rather than staying at the conceptual level. This research can be used to investigate citizen engagement with OGD in other cases and offers possibilities for systematic cross-case lesson-drawing.