Value Co-Creation Practices in Smart City Ecosystem

Abstract

Starting from the definition of smart cities, characterized by flexible information processes, innovation facilitation mechanisms, smart and sustainable solutions and platforms, the new urban scenario highlights the creation of value as the core purpose and the central process of exchange between actors. According to this consideration, the present work aims at re-reading smart cities in the light of value co-creation practices, trying to capture the factors that local administrators can leverage to pursue a more acute development of local communities. The work follows an exploratory approach by using, in particular, the single case model (holistic), with the purpose to analyse the value co-creation practices (Frow et al ., 2014) in the context of smart city. Specifically, the city of Turin has been chosen, focusing on the initiative promoted along with the Torino smart city Foundation. Eight value co-creation practices are identified, in order to determine the set of attributes leading to the transformation process in smart cities. In addition, for each type of practice specific measures are identified. The work offers insights to improve the results pursued in different areas of administrative life. In fact, value co-creation practices highlight that an adequate combination of activities carried out by administrators, citizens-users, technology and other players in social life leads to improved performance in the urban sector. Furthermore, the work underlines the importance of value-added practices as tools to facilitate the involvement of several social actors, who are differently interested in contributing to the definition of processes of value generation. The innovative nature of the work arises from the authors’ choice to analyse the theoretical background on practices in terms of co-created value and to connect these practices to smart cities, enabling arriving at a conceptual result steeped in value for scholars and practitioners interested in both business management and technology engineering.