Abstract
Smart cities (SC) are communities that use digital technology infrastructure to improve the lives of the individuals and groups, while increasing the productivity and competitiveness of their organizations. This paper suggests that innovative organizations should be designed under the same principles that make smart cities better places to live and work in. In order to do so, Smart Organizations should be redesigned in three levels: firstly, they should rethink their systems and structures to support more flexible processes and facilitate collaboration from a distance, while taking measures to improve the work environment and reduce the ecological impact of their activities. This infrastructure level borrows on the SC concepts of Smart Mobility / Smart Environment. Secondly, they should adapt their knowledge management systems to encourage the emergence of more collaborative and innovative communities in their ecosystems while facilitating more participative, transparent and open decision-making processes among all stakeholders. This intermediate level borrows on the SC concepts of Smart Economy and Smart Governance. Finally, they should attract and develop talented, creative, skilled and diverse knowledge workers who contribute to a corporate culture of innovation through learning, sharing and growth while at the same time creating meaningful values, social cohesion and well-being at work. This top level, much lower in technology intensity, builds upon the two lower levels and borrows on the SC concepts of Smart People and Smart Living. This article conducts a multi-case study of 18 innovative companies that have adopted several elements of the hybrid smart city model to (re)design their organizations. The cases illustrate 18 performance sub-categories that could help innovative organizations think about the way they can combine their lower level “hard” components with their upper level “soft” ones in order to better adapt to smart city environments.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ahvenniemi, H., Huovila, A., Pinto-Seppä, I., & Airaksinen, M. (2017). What are the differences between sustainable and smart cities? Cities, 60(A), 234–245.
Albino, V., Berardi, U., & Dangelico, R. M. (2015). Smart cities: Definitions, dimensions, performance, and initiatives. Journal of Urban Technology, 22(1), 1–19.
Alexandre, J. D. O., Kruchten, P., do E Pedrosa, M. L., de Almeida Neto, H. R., & de Moura, H. P. (2014). State of the art of agile governance: A systematic review. International Journal of Computer Science & Information Technology, 6(5), 121.
Angelidou, M. (2015). Smart cities: A conjuncture of four forces. Cities, 47, 95–106.
Appio, F.C., Lima, M., Paroutis, S. (2018). Understanding smart cities: Innovation ecosystems, technological advancements, and societal challenges. In press at Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Editorial for the special issue understanding smart cities: Innovation ecosystems, technological advancements, and societal challenges. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2018.12.018.
Barlett, C. (2015). Unilever's new global strategy: Competing through sustainability. Harvard Business. Publishing. Case Study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
Baudier, P., Ammi, C., & Deboeuf-Rouchon, M. (2018). Smart home: Highly-educated students' acceptance. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 153, 119355. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2018.06.043.
Beckman, S. L., & Barry, M. (2007). Innovation as a learning process: Embedding design thinking. California Management Review, 50(1), 25–56.
Bedford, N., Hutchison, W., & Bedford, S. (2011). Ukraine’s global strategy in the post-crisis economy: Developing an intelligent nation to achieve a competitive advantage. Innovative Marketing, 7(1), 46–53.
Bernstein, E. ; Gino, F. ; Staats, B. (2015). Opening the valve. Harvard Business Publishing. Case Study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
Brettel, M., Friederichsen, N., Keller, M., & Rosenberg, M. (2014). How virtualization, decentralization and network building change the manufacturing landscape: An industry 4.0 perspective. International Journal of Mechanical, Industrial Science and Engineering, 8(1), 37–44.
Carayannis, E. G., & Campbell, D. F. (2009). Mode 3′ and 'Quadruple Helix': Toward a 21st century fractal innovation ecosystem. International Journal of Technology Management, 46(3–4), 201–234.
Chesbrough, H. ; Bogers, M. ; Strand, Robert (2018). 12. Sustainability Through Open Innovation: Carlsberg and the Green Fiber Bottle. Harvard Business Publishing. Case Study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
Chourabi, H., Nam, T., Walker, S., Gil-Garcia, J. R., Mellouli, S., Nahon, K., ... Scholl, H. J. (2012). Understanding smart cities: An integrative framework. In System Science (HICSS), 2012 45th Hawaii International Conference on (pp. 2289–2297). IEEE.
Cohen, A. (2015) Box. Inc.: Preserving Start-Up Culture in a Rapidly Growing Company. Harvard Business School Publishing. Case Study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
Coleman, J. S. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94, S95–S120.
Davies, G., Mete, M., & Whelan, S. (2018). When employer brand image aids employee satisfaction and engagement. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 5(1), 64–80.
Demchenko, Y., De Laat, C., & Membrey, P. (2014). Defining architecture components of the big data ecosystem. In 2014 International Conference on Collaboration Technologies and Systems (CTS) (pp. 104-112). IEEE.
Dhebar, A. (2016). Grupo SALA - improving lives, spaces and the environment. Harvard Business Publishing. Case Study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
Dravigne, A., Waliczek, T. M., Lineberger, R. D., & Zajicek, J. M. (2008). The effect of live plants and window views of green spaces on employee perceptions of job satisfaction. HortScience, 43(1), 183–187.
Dul, J., Ceylan, C., & Jaspers, F. (2011). Knowledge workers' creativity and the role of the physical work environment. Human Resource Management, 50(6), 715–734.
Edmondson, A., Ribot, S., and Zuzul, T. (2012). Designing a culture of collaboration at Lake Nona Medical City. Harvard Business Publishing. Case Study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
Edmondson, A., Ribot, S., & Saunders, M. (2013). Building innovation at terrapin bright green. Harvard Business Publishing. Case Study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
EIP. (2013). European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities: Operational Implementation Plan. Available at https://www.smartcities.at/assets/Uploads/operational-implementation-plan-oip-v2-en.pdf
Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532–550.
Farhoomand, A. and Havovi, J. (2015). Creativity in design: Experimenting and innovating at teamLab Japan. Harvard Business Publishing. Case Study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
Filos, E. (2008). Smart organizations in the digital age. In Knowledge Management: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 48-72). IGI global.
Florida, R. L. (2014). The rise of the creative class: Revisited. New York: Basic Books.
Garvin, D. & Thilyani, R. (2011). MindTree: A Community of Communities. Harvard Business Publishing. Case Study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
Ghayvat, H., Subhas, M., Xiang, G., & Nagender, S. (2015). WSN-and IOT-based smart homes and their extension to smart buildings. Sensors., 15(5), 10350–10379.
Giffinger, R., Fertner, C., Kramar, H., & Meijers, E. (2007). City-ranking of European medium-sized cities. Cent. Reg. Sci. Vienna UT, 1-12.
Gilson, L. L., Maynard, M. T., Jones Young, N. C., Vartiainen, M., & Hakonen, M. (2015). Virtual teams research: 10 years, 10 themes, and 10 opportunities. Journal of Management, 41(5), 1313–1337.
Grimaldi, D., & Fernandez, V. (2017). The alignment of university curricula with the building of a Smart City: A case study from Barcelona. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 123, 298–306.
Groysberg, B., & Connolly, K. (2018). Zurich insurance: Diversity and inclusion. Case Study: Harvard Business Publishing available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/.
Gulati, R. (2010). Cisco: Unifying a functional Enterprise with an internal governance system. Harvard Business Publishing. Case Study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
Herskovits, R., Grijalbo, M., & Tafur, J. (2013). Understanding the main drivers of value creation in an open innovation program. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 9(4), 631–640.
Iasiti, M. and Lakhani, K. (2009). 10. SAP AG: Orchestrating the Ecosystem. Harvard Business Publishing. Case Study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
IASP. (2018). International Association of Science Parks and Innovation Areas. https://www.iasp.ws/about-us/facts-and-figures.
Ijaz, S., Shah, M. A., Khan, A., & Ahmed, M. (2016). Smart cities: A survey on security concerns. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, 7(2), 612–625.
Jamil, M. S., Jamil, M. A., Mazhar, A., Ikram, A., Ahmed, A., & Munawar, U. (2015). Smart environment monitoring system by employing wireless sensor networks on vehicles for pollution free smart cities. Procedia Engineering, 107, 480–484.
Johnson, M. (2014). Winning the war for talent: How to attract and keep the people who make your business profitable. John Wiley & Sons.
Kiel, D., Müller, J. M., Arnold, C., & Voigt, K. I. (2017). Sustainable industrial value creation: Benefits and challenges of industry 4.0. International Journal of Innovation Management, 21(08), 1740015.
Kitchin, R. (2014). The real-time city? Big data and smart urbanism. GeoJournal, 79(1), 1–14.
Koutitas, G. (2018). The Smart Grid: Anchor of the Smart City. In Smart Cities (pp. 53-74). Springer, Cham.
Kraus, S., Richter, C., Papagiannidis, S., & Durst, S. (2015). Innovating and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities in smart cities: Evidence from Germany. Creativity and Innovation Management, 24(4), 601–616.
Lakhani, K., Hutter, K., Pokrywa, S., Fuller, J. (2013). Open innovation at Siemens. Harvard Business Publishing. Case Study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
Laney, D. (2001), “3-D Data Management: Controlling Data Volume, Velocity and Variety,” META Group Research Note, February 6. http://goo.gl/Bo3GS.
Lee, J. H., Hancock, M. G., & Hu, M.-C. (2014). Towards an effective framework for building smart cities: Lessons from Seoul and San Francisco. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 89(1), 80–99.
Leydesdorff, L., & Deakin, M. (2011). The triple-helix model of smart cities: A neo-evolutionary perspective. Journal of Urban Technology, 18(2), 53–63.
Luger, M. I., Goldstein, H. A. (1991). Technology in the Garden: Research parks and regional economic development. University of North Carolina Press.
Marsal-Llacuna, M. L., Colomer-Llinàs, J., & Meléndez-Frigola, J. (2015). Lessons in urban monitoring taken from sustainable and livable cities to better address the smart cities initiative. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 90(B), 611–622.
Martins, E. C., & Terblanche, F. (2003). Building organisational culture that stimulates creativity and innovation. European Journal of Innovation Management, 6(1), 64–74.
Meyer, K. & Han, A. (2017). 11. Bossard AG: Enabling industry 4. 0 logistics, worldwide. Harvard Business Publishing. Case study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
Mezgar, I. (Ed.). (2006). Integration of ICT in smart organizations. IGI Global.
Moreno, M. V., Zamora, M. A., & Skarmeta, A. F. (2014). User-centric smart buildings for energy sustainable smart cities. Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies, 25(1), 41–55.
Neirotti, P., De Marco, A., Cagliano, A. C., Mangano, G., & Scorrano, F. (2014). Current trends in smart city initiatives: Some stylized facts. Cities, 38, 25–36.
Ning, Z., Xia, F., Ullah, N., Kong, X., & Hu, X. (2017). Vehicular social networks: Enabling smart mobility. IEEE Communications Magazine, 55(5), 16–55.
Nonaka, L., Takeuchi, H., & Umemoto, K. (1996). A theory of organizational knowledge creation. International Journal of Technology Management, 11(7–8), 833–845.
Perera, C., Zaslavsky, A., Christen, P., & Georgakopoulos, D. (2014). Sensing as a service model for smart cities supported by internet of things. Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies, 25(1), 81–93.
Peters, T. J. (2011). A brief history of the 7-S model. Available at https://tompeters.com/2011/03/a-brief-history-of-the-7-s-mckinsey-7-s-model/.
Quelch, J. and Rodriguez, M. (2015). Philips healthcare: Marketing the HealthSuite digital platform. Harvard Business Publishing. Case Study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
Rao, J. (2012). W. L. Gore: Culture of Innovation. Harvard Business Publishing. Case Study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
Salem, F. (2016). A Smart City for public value: Digital transformation through agile governance-the case of'Smart Dubai'. Dubai: Governance and Innovation Program, Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government, World Government Summit.
Sengupta, A. , Gupta, A. , Singh, P. (2016). Box. Inc. : Preserving start-up culture in a rapidly growing company. Harvard Business Publishing. Case study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
Stanton, C. and Ghosh, S. (2016). Collage. Com: Scaling a distributed organization. Harvard Business Publishing. Case study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
Stock, T., & Seliger, G. (2016). Opportunities of sustainable manufacturing in industry 4.0. Procedia Cirp, 40, 536–541.
Stratigea, A., Papadopoulou, C.-A., & Panagiotopoulou, M. (2015). Tools and technologies for planning the development of smart cities. Journal of Urban Technology, 22(2), 43–62.
Streitz, N., Prante, T., Röcker, C., Van Alphen, D., Stenzel, R., Magerkurth, C. & Plewe, D. (2007). Smart artefacts as affordances for awareness in distributed teams. In The disappearing computer (pp. 3–29). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Suzuki, L. R. (2017). Smart cities IoT: Enablers and technology road map. In smart city Networks (pp. 167–190). Springer, Cham.
Teece, D. J. (2018). Business models and dynamic capabilities. Long Range Planning, 51(1), 40–49.
Toffel & Sesia (2009). Genzyme Center. Harvard Business Publishing. Case Study available at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
Torro, O., & Pirkkalainen, H. (2017). Strengthening social ties via ICT in the organization. In Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.
Tucker, A. L., & Singer, S. J. (2015). The effectiveness of management-by-walking-around: A randomized field study. Production and Operations Management, 24(2), 253–271.
Voss, C., Tsikriktsis, N., & Frohlich, M. (2002). Case research in operations management. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 22(2), 195–219.
Waterman Jr., R. H., Peters, T. J., & Phillips, J. R. (1980). Structure is not organization. Business Horizons, 23(3), 14–26.
Zheng, P. (2014). The contrasting strategies of owner-managed and foreign-engaged joint ventures under market socialism in China. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 10(3), 539–560.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lima, M. Smarter organizations: insights from a smart city hybrid framework. Int Entrep Manag J 16, 1281–1300 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11365-020-00690-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11365-020-00690-x