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This study addresses the implications of smart city development paths (techno-centric and human-centric) by investigating the evolution of a city strategy, focusing on how different actors in a dialogue centred on strategic planning documents for Saint Petersburg, Russia, visualised the smart city and then made it calculable.

The authors conducted a case study based on a documentary analysis supported by ethnographic elements relying on the smart city conceptual proposals, the approved city strategy and the artifacts of expert discussions leading to the strategy implementation plan.

Through the lens of dialogue theory, the authors show how government and non-government actors in different organisational settings devised techno-centric smart city calculations, which arose despite an initial human-centric vision.

While the case study allowed the study to illustrate the depth and richness of the context of the authoritarian Russian state where the role of citizens in public decision-making is rather limited, different and even contrasting results could be produced in other contexts.

There is a gap between a smart city vision and its grounding in calculations. Thus, the human-centric elements require special attention, and the organisation of the dialogue on smart city strategy must enable plurality of voices besides those of government actors.

The case suggests viewing the human-centric and techno-centric perspectives not as dichotomous, but rather emerging consecutively throughout the journey from an initial strategic vision to its implementation in the city's calculations.

This paper is an empirical study of the organisational approaches used for integration of management systems (MSs) and the comparative effectiveness of such approaches.

Research employed four case studies. Results are derived from the analysis of triangulated evidence obtained from in‐depth interviews, observations, internal documents analysis, archives, and short questionnaires.

Results identified two archetypes of integration strategies termed “systems approach” and “techno‐centric approach”. Maximum benefits are achieved by using a systems approach to integration of MSs, while using the techno‐centric approach leads to benefits mainly at the operational level.

This research is qualitative and, as such, does not investigate the integration of MSs across a large number of organisations. The research does not investigate the causality between strategies employed for integration and their outcomes.

There is little empirical research to date on the strategies employed for integration of MSs and their effectiveness. This research contributes to both literature and practice by demonstrating that a systems approach gives rise to greater integration throughout various organisational levels and greater benefits as compared to other approaches.

E‐governance initiatives are common in most countries as they promise a more citizen‐centric government and reduce operational cost. Unfortunately most of these initiatives have not been able to achieve the benefits claimed. Often the reason for this failure is a techno‐centric focus rather than a governance‐centric focus. The aim of this paper is to explore the necessary attributes of a governance‐centric initiative under the banner “excellent e‐governance” (e²‐governance), and describe a methodology for ensuring such excellence in e‐governance implementations.

The paper follows a case study approach for developing the concept of excellent e‐governance. It first conceptually differentiates between e‐government and e‐governance and describes the status of e‐governance in developing countries. It then differentiates between the two approaches to e‐governance: techno‐centric and governance‐centric. Next, the attributes of excellent e‐governance are explored in detail, and illustrated by two case studies. Then, the major issues for bringing excellence to e‐governance initiatives are identified. Last, a methodology under development, called “e‐governance engineering”, is described, which when applied to an e‐governance initiative, will ensure excellence.

Excellence (or governance‐centricism) in e‐governance requires the initiative to be effectiveness‐driven and not merely efficiency‐driven. This will require the initiative to be led by a “good governance” driven goal/purpose: additionally, the initiative must be outcome‐focused.

There has been a dearth of methodologies for implementing e‐governance initiatives, and an increase in the number of failed e‐governance projects. This paper proposes a methodology, “e‐governance engineering”, which aims to fill this gap and at the same time bring excellence to the e‐governance initiatives implemented.

The paper introduces the notion of “excellence” in e‐governance (e²‐governance), which is supposed to be the goal of all e‐governance initiatives. It also introduces a methodology to accomplish this goal. It is hoped that the methodology will help public administrators and public organisations in successfully designing and implementing e‐governance projects, thereby contributing to enhanced governance at optimal cost.

Management education trainers are increasingly called upon to train students to devise interventions for sustainable development in business settings. Due to the dominant reductionist paradigm, these interventions may lead to unwanted side effects. Teaching students about unacknowledged feedback loops in complex systems should prevent them from choosing “the most obvious” intervention without considering unwanted side effects.The current study aims to report the effects of teaching a systems perspective, applied to transport systems, on students’ opinions and expressed paradigms. The following questions are addressed: Do students adhere to the techno-centric paradigm, believing technology, innovation and growth can solve all types of threats for sustainable development, while neglecting low probability, high impact events? Are paradigms held by students coherent? Can teaching lead to a change in opinions and paradigms held by students?

Measures for several systems concepts (i.e. functional stupidity, paradigms and fragility) are taken across a wide sample of university students. Posttests of some key items are taken for a subsample that followed a sustainability and systems perspective in a course on transport economics.

A large share of students think that technology can solve different types of problems in sustainable development (a kind of weak sustainability), but their paradigms tend to be a mix of conflicting opinions. Though student opinions on topics that were explicitly treated in the course have changed, neither a wider paradigm shift nor significantly more coherent paradigms can be confirmed.

The results show that even though students can be taught about the unwanted side effects and limitations on specific techno-fix interventions, this does not automatically translate into a critical mind-set toward techno-fixing in general.

The purpose of this study is to explore the discrepancies between the services provided by municipalities through e-Government portals and the services sought by residents in the context of smart cities.

This research investigates the information and services delivered by municipalities via e-Government portals and the services that residents wish to access through these portals. A mind map representation of ideas from 707 participants is used to visually illustrate the proposed e-Government portal structure based on user recommendations.

The findings reveal that existing e-Government portals fall short in offering a comprehensive range of e-services desired by residents. The results highlight the need for municipal e-Government websites to grant residents access to a diverse array of services and information. It is crucial to note that the specific services may fluctuate over time and between cities, reflecting the evolving needs of residents and the capabilities of municipalities.

This study is original in its focus on bridging the gap between existing e-Government portals and residents’ preferences, using a mind map representation to visually illustrate the proposed portal structure based on user recommendations. The research emphasizes the importance of considering residents’ needs in terms of services and functionalities and adapting websites accordingly.

This study aims to achieve three goals: present a holistic, flexible and dynamic model; define the model’s factors and explain how these factors lead to effective and efficient usage of big data; and generate indexes based on experts’ input to rank them based on their importance.

This paper uses the analytic hierarchy process, a quantitative method of decision-making, to evaluate the importance of the factors presented in the model. The fundamental principle of the overall model is that of a dynamo which is borrowed from electromagnetic physics. The model is also based on three IS theories.

Technological advancements and data security are among the most important factors that may impact the effectiveness and efficiency of big data usage. Authentication, governments’ focus on it and transparency and accountability are the most important factors in techno-centric, governmental-centric and user-centric factors, respectively.

The findings of this paper confirmed earlier findings in the literature and quantitatively assessed some of the factors that were conceptually presented. This paper also presented a framework that can be used in future studies.

Policy and decision-makers may need to upgrade pertinent technologies such as internet security, frame policies toward information technology (IT) and train the users.

This paper fills a gap in the literature by presenting a comprehensive study of how different factors dynamically contribute to the effective usage of big data in the public sector. It also quantitatively presents the importance of the factors based on the data collected from 12 IT experts.

The purpose of this paper is to propose styles of reasoning for the characterization of sustainable development and sustainability as quasi‐objects of study for management.

This proposition occurs in three primary dimensions: the first deals with ontological postures, the second with epistemological perspectives, and the third with supplementary conceptualizations (dominant paradigms, the meanings of sustainable development and sustainability, and the approaches to classifying sustainability).

After the theoretical‐analytical discussion the authors present a framework that classifies different possibilities for framing sustainable development and sustainability as interesting research themes for management studies.

The paper considers that discussions about sustainable development and sustainability as concerns management studies need a deeper conceptual and theoretical scrutiny. This deficiency is expressed in the difficulty in identifying ontological postures, epistemological perspectives, dominant paradigms, and conceptual approaches that might allow these themes to have a greater coherence so that they may be researched within the scope of management studies.

Sustainable development and sustainability are discussed using various analytical perspectives, a consequence of the fact that these phenomena are understood and discussed by various social collectives, which contributes to an interpretive and conceptual oscillation of these themes for management. The relationship between sustainable development, sustainability, and social factions justifies their characterization as quasi‐objects of study for management. Via this characterization the authors intend to create a space for discussion aimed at presenting statements that are candidates for truth, but not as absolute or unquestionable truths.

At the doorsteps of the fourth wave of the industrial revolution, it is compulsory to develop a new understanding regarding the future of human labor based on “Industry 4.0” for German manufacturers, and two American concepts: “The Industrial Internet” and “The Internet of Things.” How will the nature of human work be in the digital economy of the forthcoming future? The problem of unemployment and the composition of the labor market, in terms of professional skills, are yet to be waiting for answers. Scientific management is also transforming to answer the emerging requirements of this new era, as “Digital Taylorism” to re-organize work in a techno-centric manner. Accordingly, the aim of this chapter is to examine the nature and the possible opportunities and threats of the digital age and try to develop a digital Taylorism understanding to minimize the negative impacts of digitalism on both individual workers and society in a way that all parts including the manufacturers can fully take the benefit of potential advantages of this new era.

This chapters asks: What do the Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategies of the EU, the United States under Donald Trump and China look like? It conducts a critical policy discourse analysis from a Radical Humanist Perspective. It analyses what kind of ideologies we can find in the AI strategies of the European Union, the United States under Donald Trump and China.

The analysis shows that AI and robotics are situated in a digital technology race that is indicative of an international political-economic race for the accumulation of political-economic power.

This paper aims to understand how international interorganizational relationships (IORs) impact the organizational creativity of a local partner in an emerging country, and how the creative capacities of emerging countries firms are developing.

The study is exploratory and qualitative, based on five IORs between European multinational corporations (MNCs) and Tunisian firms operating in the consumer goods sector analyzed using the Gioia method.

The results show that it seems necessary for firms in emerging countries first to be legitimate, then to have dynamic capacities (learning capacities in particular), and that they know how to develop an innovation strategy and implement it concretely. The authors highlight three different organizational mechanisms. The first concerns analyzing the legitimacy of the local partner to engage in an innovation process based on its distinctive capacities and formalization of procedures. The second involves building dynamic capabilities, especially technological and managerial skills, in order to meet the challenges of the growing collaboration between the partners and to expand their mandate. The third deals with implementing an innovation strategy on two fronts: trust between partners and sustainable innovation.

The contributions focus on the international dimension of the IORs' impact on creativity and the role of the local partner's creative capacities. The work highlights to what extent “techno-centric” creativity plays a role in the absorption capacity of local partners, as well as the level of assistance provided by MNCs for developing innovation in emerging countries' firms. Moreover, our results show that increasing awareness of ecological and responsible consumption is reorienting production patterns on both local and global scales and offers many benefits for local and multinational firms. The limitations concern the sample size, the narrow diversity of the sector and the lack of information regarding multinational firms.

The originality of this paper is to show the construction of the creative process at the level of the local partner, from the execution of a specification to the implementation of a sustainable innovation strategy.