Digital Innovation as a Management Trend: A Case Study on the Adoption of Smart City Initiatives

A smart city is defined as the integration of digital technologies into the development of a city’s infrastructure components and services. It is viewed as a form of digital innovation. Governments worldwide are recognizing the potential of digital technologies in establishing smart cities to enhance the quality of life and optimize their operational models and governmental functions. A central research question in the field of smart cities is: What motivates governments to adopt smart cities? The literature has proposed two primary reasons: performance and legitimacy. The performance perspective, rooted in an economic-rationalistic viewpoint, suggests that governments adopt smart cities to enhance performance. In contrast, the legitimacy perspective, grounded in an institutional viewpoint, argues that governments adopt smart cities to pursue legitimacy. Despite these discussions, the adoption of smart city initiatives cannot be fully explained by either economic performance or institutional forces. Instead, it appears to align more closely with a management trend in innovation. This research aims to delve into this matter. I focus on the characteristics of smart city initiatives through the lens of management fashion, utilizing a case study methodology as the research approach. This research’s contribution to the literature is providing an in-depth understanding of the phenomena that transpire when governments adopt smart cities, not due to performance and legitimacy, but within the context of management fashions.