Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar

Governing the smart city: a review of the literature on smart urban governance

Academic attention to smart cities and their governance is growing rapidly, but the fragmentation in approaches makes for a confusing debate. This article brings some structure to the debate by analyzing a corpus of 51 publications and mapping their variation. The analysis shows that publications differ in their emphasis on (1) smart technology, smart people or smart collaboration as the defining features of smart cities, (2) a transformative or incremental perspective on changes in urban governance, (3) better outcomes or a more open process as the legitimacy claim for smart city governance. We argue for a comprehensive perspective: smart city governance is about crafting new forms of human collaboration through the use of ICTs to obtain better outcomes and more open governance processes. Research into smart city governance could benefit from previous studies into success and failure factors for e-government and build upon sophisticated theories of socio-technical change. This article highlights that smart city governance is not a technological issue: we should study smart city governance as a complex process of institutional change and acknowledge the political nature of appealing visions of socio-technical governance. Points for practitioners The study provides practitioners with an in-depth understanding of current debates about smart city governance. The article highlights that governing a smart city is about crafting new forms of human collaboration through the use of information and communication technologies. City managers should realize that technology by itself will not make a city smarter: building a smart city requires a political understanding of technology, a process approach to manage the emerging smart city and a focus on both economic gains and other public values.

e‐Government process and incentives for online public financial information

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to examine the extent of financial information made available by public administrations on their web sites and to discover whether this communications policy is influenced by the context in which the public entity operates.Design/methodology/approach – The study took as its reference the prior literature and distinguished three dimensions – information content, qualitative characteristics of information and accessibility – which were converted into a disclosure index that was used to assess government web sites. A multivariable linear regression analysis was performed in search of a relationship between seven external factors and the provision of public financial information online.Findings – The empirical research revealed that the sample municipalities were not fully aware of the potential importance of the internet in enabling the achievement of e‐democracy initiatives as a tool of new public management. The factors previously found to be important in paper‐based repo...

E-Government and Public Financial Reporting The Case of Spanish Regional Governments

Technology has changed the way public organizations relate to the public. Governments use of the Internet and other associated technologies, known as e-government, could become the instrument that makes regular timely information on public finances more forthcoming. New technologies can improve government responsiveness and empower individual citizens. By making government financial information available, the public could continuously assess a government agency through everyday interaction. The financial accountability of government and its response to public demands for information and services are thus a contribution to government openness. It is therefore relevant to determine whether public organizations are also becoming more aware of the importance of placing financial information on their Web sites to help in decision-making processes. This article focuses on the e-democracy process, specifically the transparency of government information, by analyzing governmental financial disclosures on the Web as a tool for the public to assess its financial accountability. To this end, an empirical study was carried out on regional governments in Spain.Technology has changed the way public organizations relate to the public. Governments use of the Internet and other associated technologies, known as e-government, could become the instrument that makes regular timely information on public finances more forthcoming. New technologies can improve government responsiveness and empower individual citizens. By making government financial information available, the public could continuously assess a government agency through everyday interaction. The financial accountability of government and its response to public demands for information and services are thus a contribution to government openness. It is therefore relevant to determine whether public organizations are also becoming more aware of the importance of placing financial information on their Web sites to help in decision-making processes. This article focuses on the e-democracy process, specifically the transparency of government information, by analyzing governmental financial disclosures on the Web as a tool for the public to assess its financial accountability. To this end, an empirical study was carried out on regional governments in Spain.

Cultural contexts and governmental digital reporting

The way in which public sector entities disseminate information publicly is affected by the degree of transparency adopted, and the construction and management of websites are increasingly essential elements of modern public administration. Nonetheless, differences in this process exist among governments worldwide, probably due to different contextual factors. This article examines and discusses the approach of Anglo-Saxon, South American and Continental European central governments to the use of the Web as a means of making financial disclosures. To measure the disclosure of governmental financial information on the Internet, an index has been defined, taking into consideration the data considered to be relevant for a potential user, gathering the data visiting their websites. The results show that the way different countries use the Web for financial disclosure is deeply rooted in and follows from their administrative culture. In conclusion, the Continental European and South American governments should improve their digital reporting.

Citizens’ access to on-line governmental financial information: Practices in the European Union countries

Abstract In recent years we are witnessing simultaneously the need for public sector entities to be more transparent in the information they publish and a series of technological advances that are changing the way these entities relate to citizens. This latter fact could support the former; that is, the information and communication technologies – particularly the Web – could be put to use by governments and become the instrument through which to provide the citizens with regular accurate information on the public finances. In this context, this article (1) explores whether public sector entities (more specifically, the central public administrations of the EU countries) are becoming aware of the importance of including financial information on their Web sites that citizens can use in their decision making, and (2) proposes a model that will facilitate citizen access to financial information.

Evaluating Corporate Environmental Reporting on the Internet: The Utility and Resource Industries in Spain

Extant literature has noted that traditional paper-based reporting is becoming less timely and less useful to decision makers. Stakeholder pressure is making companies use communication channels ot...

Determinants of Financial Transparency in Government

ABSTRACT The search for enhanced transparency and accountability in government organizations has inspired studies to identify the key factors that facilitate greater disclosure of public financial information. With the advantages provided by the meta-analysis technique, applied to a sample of studies, we identify the most significant factors and incentives underlying the decisions adopted by public managers on policy strategies regarding information transparency and public responsibility. Our study shows the variables analyzed to be positively associated with the disclosure of public financial information, but also that this depends on the context in which the research is carried out. The most influential variables were the moderator variables of the administrative culture and of the measurement unit for the variables.ABSTRACT The search for enhanced transparency and accountability in government organizations has inspired studies to identify the key factors that facilitate greater disclosure of public financial information. With the advantages provided by the meta-analysis technique, applied to a sample of studies, we identify the most significant factors and incentives underlying the decisions adopted by public managers on policy strategies regarding information transparency and public responsibility. Our study shows the variables analyzed to be positively associated with the disclosure of public financial information, but also that this depends on the context in which the research is carried out. The most influential variables were the moderator variables of the administrative culture and of the measurement unit for the variables.

Smart Governance

The attention for Smart governance, a key aspect of Smart cities, is growing, but our conceptual understanding of it is still limited. This article fills this gap in our understanding by exploring the concept of Smart governance both theoretically and empirically and developing a research model of Smart governance. On the basis of a systematic review of the literature defining elements, aspired outcomes and implementation strategies are identified as key dimensions of Smart governance. Inductively, we identify various categories within these variables. The key dimensions were presented to a sample of representatives of European local governments to investigate the dominant perceptions of practitioners and to refine the categories. Our study results in a model for research into the implementation strategies, Smart governance arrangements, and outcomes of Smart governance.

Risk Factors and Drivers of Financial Sustainability in Local Government: An Empirical Study

Abstract The current international crisis in public finances has made financial sustainability a key issue for governments. Although the European Union (EU) and other international organisations have recommended governments to monitor demographic and economic variables, few studies have considered the influence of these variables on financial sustainability. This paper seeks to identify and analyse the drivers and risk factors that influence the financial sustainability of local government. The findings identify both risk factors (unemployment and population aged under 16 years) and drivers (budgetary outcome) of financial sustainability, which may constitute a useful basis for decision-taking by managers and policy-makers.

Could fair value accounting be useful, under NPM models, for users of financial information?:

International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) are an essential quality-control factor for Public Sector Accounting Systems in European Union member states. The compliance of the latter systems with IPSAS could be influenced to a large degree by perceptions of how useful these standards are in enabling the needs of financial information users to be met. Therefore, the aim of this article is to investigate the capability of fair value accounting to improve the usefulness of governmental financial information so that administrative reforms may be undertaken with the implementation of New Public Management (NPM) postulates. The theoretical section of the article studies the relevance of fair value accounting with respect to meeting the information requirements for implementing NPM models. This is followed by the results of empirical research carried out to determine the opinions of one of the main groups of information users concerning the practicality of fair value accounting and its association w...International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) are an essential quality-control factor for Public Sector Accounting Systems in European Union member states. The compliance of the latter systems with IPSAS could be influenced to a large degree by perceptions of how useful these standards are in enabling the needs of financial information users to be met. Therefore, the aim of this article is to investigate the capability of fair value accounting to improve the usefulness of governmental financial information so that administrative reforms may be undertaken with the implementation of New Public Management (NPM) postulates. The theoretical section of the article studies the relevance of fair value accounting with respect to meeting the information requirements for implementing NPM models. This is followed by the results of empirical research carried out to determine the opinions of one of the main groups of information users concerning the practicality of fair value accounting and its association with the solvency and feasibility of fair value measures. To achieve this aim, we applied the χ2 test and the ρ Spearman test and obtained findings about the capability of fair value accounting to meet the new information requirements under NPM models more effectively than under historical cost accounting.