Wala Abdalla, Suresh Renukappa, Ph. D., and Subashini Suresh, PhD.
University of Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton, England, UK
The development of smart cities is becoming more and more knowledge based. Thanks to the principles of knowledge economy, knowledge management procedures and knowledge management frameworks have been adopted widely in the strategic directions for global and local development. This paradigm shift in strategic planning has significantly influenced urban development, with the result that knowledge is now perceived as the core element that makes cities smart. Hence, city planners and managers need to take initiative to adapt Knowledge Management (KM) in the development of smart cities. This leads to new managerial challenges, which reflect the complexity of KM issues of smart city projects as well as the need to facilitate the involvement and participation of various smart cities projects partners e.g. public and private sectors, academia, citizens, etc. and the need to manage knowledge that originates both within and beyond projects’ boundaries. However, in-depth research on the development of smart cities from KM perspective has remained scant. Although the acknowledged importance of KM for organisations as a source of sustainable competitive advantage, KM issues in SC context are still understudied. This often calls for the creation, use, capture and exploitation of new knowledge.
The main objective of this study is to investigate how public and private sector organisations are managing knowledge in the context of SC. This poster specifically focuses on what the key issues for effective implementation of KM practices within SC projects.
The study employs a systematic literature review covering smart cities and KM publications within the current literature. First, we started by planning the review by defining the search string to be given in input to the data source. To this aim, we identified and, then, combined two keywords, namely “smart cities” and “knowledge management”. Also, we defined inclusion criteria for the articles. In particular, the articles must be published in peer-reviewed journals.
Managing smart cities related knowledge is a complex task requires special tools and appropriate managerial actions to integrate various project partners. KM governance and KM processes are the main issues to effective implementation of KM practices in SC projects. The knowledge needed for the development and prosecution of smart city projects can reside in various domains. The findings also indicated the various challenges for managing smart cities related knowledge including; organisational issues, lack of time, trust, leadership and awareness, as well as knowledge storage and transfer challenges.
Research Impact: This research contributes to both theory and practice of smart cities. It contributes to the theory by intertwining managing knowledge in the context of smart cities in a novel way. This will encourage smart city researchers to undertake investigations on the development and management processes of the claimed smart cities. It contributes to the practice of smart cities by providing guiding principles for urban planners and decision makers and smart city practitioners.
Keywords: Smart cities, Knowledge management, Issues, Competitive advantage