Exploring the ability of tomorrow's leaders to support smart city projects

Purpose: The concept of smart city is more and more explored in different disciplines. The citizen and the community in general are highlighted as the core of a successful smart city transition, in which strategic actors are transforming together a city. However, a dynamic collaborative model is effective only if communities are accepting and supporting the implemented projects. To explore this supportive willingness, this paper focuses on the image that tomorrow’s leaders, which can be categorized as potential smart citizens, build regarding local smart city projects.
Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative research is developed on a sample composed by 215 tomorrow’s leaders in Belgium. A survey was designed and distributed online asking respondents to select uncertainties, opportunities and threats that they associate to smart city projects developed locally. A factor analysis is proposed to analyze the data.
Findings: Smart city projects are perceived as an opportunity to reinforce sustainability, quality of life and city digitalization. As a result, tomorrow’s leaders are more supportive if they have a clear vision of potential benefits and consequences induced by local smart city projects.
Research/practical implications: This research offers new insights on scholars developed by Jun and Weare. As for innovative programs, smart city projects need to be aligned to global social expectations and to subgroup-based interest (taking into account the age, the gender and the cultural identity) in order to reinforce the capacity of the ecosystem to accept change and to develop an adequate behavior.
Originality/value: The paper proposes an original research in the Belgian context, where smart city policies are focusing on human factors. Thus, these findings help Belgian cities in understanding how citizens think and behave in face of a progressive transforming city.