Purpose\ud – 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.\ud \ud Design/methodology/approach\ud – 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.\ud \ud Findings\ud – 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.\ud \ud Research limitations/implications\ud – An all-in-one perspective emerges by embedding sustainability and ICT in smart interventions; further research could be conduct through direct interviews to city managers and industry players in order to understand their attitude towards the development of smart city projects.\ud \ud Practical implications\ud – Potential approaches emerging from this research are useful to city managers or large corporations partnering with local agencies in order to increase the opportunities for the long-term success of smart projects.\ud \ud Originality/value\ud – The results of this paper delineate a new research path looking at the development of new models that integrate drivers, ICT, and sustainability in an all-in-one perspective and new indicators for the evaluation of the interventions

The present work aims to determine the existence of commonalities between two modern conceptions of cities, i.e., smart and sustainable. To accomplish this, the authors carried out a systematic review of the most-cited scientific contributions chosen by the scholars proposing conceptualisation of the two topics, according to the H-index determined by Web of Science. The findings show that the most important contributions representing the antecedents with respect to the concepts of a smart city and a sustainable city can be classified into three groups: labelled as what, how and with, and describing the definitions, the role of technology, and the pillars (in the case of a smart city); the groups labelled as what, how and with depicts definitions, change and challenges, and key features (in the case of a sustainable city). Starting from the conception of a smart city as the evolution of a digital city, the smart city concept not only considers aspects related to technology and innovation but adds the human features of city life. The sustainable city concept can be understood as a new approach through the filter of a new philosophy; it is an equitable and balanced setting of goals in line with the principles of sustainable development. Both concepts cannot be thought of as contrasting; in fact, they share many commonalities. This is because the attention focused on social, environmental and economic issues has framed the debate over sustainability and converged in the definition of a smart city and—obviously—in the notion of a sustainable city. The main contribution of this paper is in considering the smart city as mainly setting the guidelines of a transforming city, while the sustainable city is mostly thought as an approach and a philosophy to modern cities.

The aim of this paper is to chart the value creation process of firms excelling in sustainability. To accomplish this goal, we devise an analytical framework based on a review of the literature combining value creation in service-dominant logic (SDL) and sustainability. We then use the framework to analyze the practices of 100 firms excelling in sustainability, so as to offer a contribution in the form of a combination of insights from practice and theoretical analysis portraying the service ecosystem incorporating sustainability. The double-step analysis highlighted the relevance of a multi-actor perspective as a driver for the incorporation of sustainability in the value creation process, as well as the relevance of actors’ participation in firms’ processes, such as in resource integration and in line with the aim of sustainable service provision. The results advance the understanding of the elements of SDL as well as how the interplay among them occurs from a sustainability-based perspective.

Abstract:Olive oil consumption has grown substantially in recent years, due in part to the fact that olive oil is healthy. Much of the global olive oil production comes from the rural areas of Jaén in southern Spain. Surrounding this industry, services such as oleotourism are increasing. This paper aims to identify the key elements supporting the development of oleotourism. After a preliminary exploratory analysis of the existing data, a qualitative analysis was performed with actors directly involved in the industry in Jaén. The results helped us define the level of the stakeholders' involvement and the sustainability, the opportunities, and the constraints affecting oleotourism in this area. The practical implications of this investigation can be useful for governing agencies, local firms, and the tourism industry in support of oleotourism development.

PurposeThe purpose of this article was to provide an outline of the citation practices of “Evolving to a new dominant logic for marketing” by Vargo and Lusch (2004) to identify and discuss the most prominent research topics in which citations were used and to suggest future research based on the results of the analysis.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used a comprehensive framework of citation practices based on iterations of previous literature to analyze the relevant literature, which they identified by accessing, systematically and rigorously, every available contribution matching a set of criteria. The authors then categorized these contributions and highlighted the main topics of research interest in each category.FindingsThe findings identify some of the factors in the continuous development of SDL, the way this new marketing logic permeated the scientific debate, the infusion of Vargo and Lusch (2004) into several contributions framed in the new logic or justified through it, and a general perception of a default reference. Additionally, the findings highlight the main topics of research interest in each category.Research limitations/implicationsThe analysis enabled the detection of the original paper's influence through advances in service studies, pollination into other fields of research and continuous scientific debate. The authors have highlighted several avenues for research and proposed future research directions.Originality/valueThis research analyzed the effects of the spread of the SDL cornerstone article and emphasized the advantage of using an in-depth approach to the analysis of studies through a framework applied to more than 4,600 studies.