Francesco Bifulco

ICT and sustainability in smart cities management

Purpose – Contemporary debate is increasingly focused on ICT and sustainability, especially in relation to the modern configuration of urban and metropolitan areas in the so-called smartization process. The purpose of this paper is to observe the connections between smart city features as conceptualized in the framework proposed by Giffinger et al. (2007) and new technologies as tools, and sustainability as the goal. Design/methodology/approach – The connections are identified through a content analysis performed using NVivo on official reports issued by organizations, known as industry players within smart city projects, listed in the Navigant Research Report 2013. Findings – The results frame ICT and sustainability as “across-the-board elements” because they connect with all of the services provided to communities in a smart city and play a key role in smart city planning. Specifically, sustainability and ICT can be seen as tools to enable the smartization process. Research limitations/implications – An...

Comparing Research Streams on Smart City and Sustainable City

Nowadays, the issues connected to the new configurations of urban contexts are gaining more and more space both in management literature and in city managers’ agendas towards the conceptualization of ―smart city‖. More recently, sustainability has acquired even more relevance in smartization interventions as a goal to reach in the long term. The pivotal role of sustainability led to a new perspective acquiring relevance, namely the ―sustainable city‖ as a new way to approach to the resources’ management of a city and to the implementation of services, both old ones and innovative ones. In order to investigate if the new topic could be considered as an evolution of the previous, the authors performed a multi-level analysis starting from a bibliometric analysis to investigate on the ties between smart and sustainable aiming to understand if these two topics are related from the scholars’ point of view and which are the possible connections. A content analysis on official reports issued by 17 out of 30 industry players listed on the Navigant Research Report 2014, as they are involved in the most advanced smart city projects, is aiming to observe the connections between smart city features and each of the three dimensions of sustainability. The results from the first step of the investigations show that, as the labels previously examined, it is not easy to define this more recent conceptualization, because it is still hard to observe it from an all-inclusive point of view; following in the comparison between the ―characteristics‖ of a smart city and the three dimensions of sustainability—economic, environmental, and social—the results led to consider the economic domain as the most relevant one when debating about sustainability.

Searching through the jungle of innovation conceptualisations: System, network and ecosystem perspectives

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the interdisciplinary debate promoted by service research community by establishing the conceptual frame within which different perspectives addressing systemic and multifaceted approaches to innovation are framed. Growing research interest in innovation has led to different definitions, which are referred to here as “innovation system(s)”, “innovation network(s)” and “innovation ecosystem(s)”. The paper examines the theoretical foundations, outcomes, and patterns of contributions to which each innovation perspectives is tied and proposed a subject and the framework allowing an exploration of an interdisciplinary dialogue between the different research positions. Design/methodology/approach A literature review was conducted to discern differences in concepts and their meanings. An overview obtained using Web of Knowledge leads to a focus on studies, followed by a content analysis using NVivo, which enables identification of key concepts and their definitions. By highlighting relationships among terms, the paper establishes a framework of the ontological assumptions of different innovation discourses and explores their contribution to the interdisciplinary dialogue promoted by service research perspective on innovation. Findings A comparison among the three innovation perspectives leads us to focus on innovation itself, alongside context, actors, enablers, and governance, which are useful to mark the commonalities and differences among the three research approaches. The framework is helpful to break down the fragmented and sometimes overlapping points of view of innovation and provides a more integrative stance from which to address the emergence of the service ecosystems approach on innovation. Research limitations/implications The investigation focuses on three innovation perspectives and on top-cited articles alone; hence, it can be complemented with a full analysis through a bibliometric approach to test whether the features highlighted are linked to other elements. Moreover, the different approaches grouped on “innovation ecosystems” perspective suggest the possibility to enhance service ecosystems discourse on innovation by looking at different knowledge and contributions that are rapidly growing in this area. Social implications The central idea this work puts forward is that after some decades of separation, there is a need to move towards an increasing convergence of economics, business and service based on the milestones of innovation systems, innovation networks, and innovation ecosystems thoughts. Originality/value This research sheds light on the different ways innovation, in multi-actor and the interconnected setting, is theoretically framed and described. By capturing established thinking in different innovation perspectives, the paper provides an integrated framework to making sense of the full picture of economies and societies seen as complex networks and systems of service systems.

Knowledge Sharing in Innovation Ecosystems: A Focus on Functional Food Industry

This research investigated knowledge-based activities and outcomes in an innovation context, which is in line with recent contributions on ecosystems. The interactions that shape an innovation ecosystem are addressed to improve knowledge through sharing; this phenomenon was analyzed in-depth by focusing on a cross-industry, namely the Functional Food industry. Through a qualitative approach of the top firms in the UK regarding how they depict the innovation processes, the role of knowledge is described. The results are useful in illustrating how the openness of the approach adopted by firms leads to emphasizing the orientation towards knowledge sharing due to both new products and specific initiatives.

Multiple Context of Innovation: Insights from Literature

The aim of this paper is to investigate the most relevant conceptualizations of innovation taken into account by scholars, and the linkages among them. Over time, the increasing interest in this area has involved a great variety of actors and contexts in establishing the definition of different innovation labels; we chose to focus the analysis on “system innovation”, “network innovation” and “ecosystem innovation”. In order to observe the most relevant elements of each research stream and common aspects, a two-step analysis of literature contributions has been performed through a bibliometric analysis comparing the evidence emerging from one survey of keywords provided by authors and a second of keywords provided by editors. Through this kind of investigation the editors’ keywords emerged as more objective, but nevertheless, by considering some of the different evidences obtained from the keywords provided by authors, the two-step analysis is useful to provide more complete results.

Crossing technology and sustainability in cities’ development

This paper deals with sustainability in cities and the role technology plays in furthering sustainable results. Recently, many interventions have been implemented in cities to propose paths and models promoting the sustainability of cities from an overall perspective. Technologies are favouring the achievement of aims recalling the three spheres of sustainability as proposed by Arcadis (2017), namely “planet”, “profit”, and “people”. The ties between technology and the three spheres are investigated through a content analysis of reports issued by the 10 cities with the most significant advances in terms of becoming sustainable cities, as indicated in the Arcadis Report 2016. The results highlight technology as an element crossing sustainability, as processes and models in cities management and service provisions to citizens are significantly changing. New tools are innovating the processes addressing environmental issues, thus leading to cost efficiency and better economic conditions. Parallel to this, new models for city management and the provision of public services are addressing the need for a better quality of life for citizens and cities’ other stakeholders. Technology itself is thought of as sustainable because it should lead to efficiency and being efficient itself. A qualitative cluster analysis and a focus on excerpts from reports are proposed to highlight the ties between technologies and the elements representing key issues in managing and leading a city towards more sustainable conditions.

Service Innovation and Smart Cities: Linking the Perspectives.

Cities are innovating thanks to the transformations in smart cities taking place in recent years. Nowadays, cities are emerging as contexts in which different stakeholders merge their resources in activities, by defining and improving the way they focus on the support given to reach common aims. This phenomenon is becoming increasingly prevalent, but an investigation on how to frame it in the service innovation literature is still missing. We move from this gap to link smart cities and service innovation from a theoretical point of view; subsequently, an analysis is performed on documents provided by organisations carrying on smart projects all over the world. A content analysis is used to highlight how the interventions by smart service providers can be considered in service innovation literature and to show how different firms operate in connection with the key elements of service innovation provided by Lusch and Nambisan (MIS Quarterly, 39(1), 155–175, 2015). The results of the analysis are useful to describe, from a practical point of view, how service innovation is taking place in cities and how relevant the roles played by actors involved in smart services are, as these actors favour a better knowledge of the needs to be satisfied, carry resources and skills, evaluate services and provide data. Finally, data play a crucial role when referring to platforms, as the core of smart service provision, leading technology to act as a significant support for service innovation in the city context.

Managing Actors, Resources, and Activities in Innovation Ecosystems – A Design Science Approach

Through a design science approach, the paper explores how actors in a network create and sustain competitive advantage independently and through participation in a system of actors (i.e., a collaborative network) who are not hierarchically managed but, rather, act toward their own goals within the innovation ecosystem. In accordance with design studies, the relevance of research and its quality are evaluated against practice. The two cases discussed in the paper highlight that, in practice, innovation ecosystem actors must manage activities and relationships at the level of both individual and organisation. This finding has interesting research implications, as innovation ecosystems have been studied mostly at either macro or interpersonal (micro) level while the organisation (meso) level is seldom discussed. Furthermore, the findings should help managers to strive for and utilise innovation ecosystems better and to evaluate their ability and potential to survive via internal and external collaboration aimed at innovation.

Knowledge Practices for an Emerging Innovation Ecosystem

Knowledge and learning mechanisms are investigated in a multiple and inter-related context depicted by the definition of an innovation ecosystem [Lusch and Nambisan (2015)]; by questioning knowledge, the paper opens up practice-based learning studies [Gherardi (2000)]. Action research offered the opportunity to focus on knowledge and learning mechanisms in an emerging innovation ecosystem linked to a project supported by the Italian Ministry of Research. The paper identifies three different knowledge practices — connecting knowledge dots, integrating knowledge, and authoring and disseminating knowledge — to describe learning and knowledge mechanisms in a networking innovation context, leading to an innovation ecosystem.