Increasing innovation capacity in city governments: Do innovation labs make a difference?

(Smart) Citizens from Data Providers to Decision-Makers? The Case Study of Barcelona

“…In the extensive evaluation of the literature discussing Barcelona, considerable consensus can be found regarding the strategic shift in the smart-city pathway [38,58,79,80,122,127,134,135,[141][142][143][144][145][146][147]. Firstly, during the 2011-2014 period and based on the corporative technocratic vendor push, the Barcelona Smart City strategy was driven more by deliberate components than by emergent and experimental components.…”

“…They found great significance in the role of collective leadership practices, creative social strategies, and political dissent in the founding and the social impact of local initiatives. Likewise, Almirall and Wareham [68], Gascó-Hernandez [143], and Timeus and Gascó [147] examined the degree of efficiency in living labs in Barcelona at different periods [63,65,67,94,140]. Although the findings are primarily related to public and private organizations, they suggest that it may be worth exploring the contribution of living labs as intermediaries that mediate between multiple stakeholders in highly political environments such as Barcelona [34].…”

“…After a rigorous literature review covering the case of Barcelona and its transition from the "Smart City Barcelona" strategic period in 2011-2014, led by former mayor Xavier Trias [141][142][143], to the current "Barcelona Data Commons" strategic period led by current mayor, Ada Colau, [58,79,80,127,134,135,[144][145][146][147], this paper offers the hypothesis that the existing smart city cannot simply be reduced to the economic trade-off of the data it generates through partnerships with powerful public and private actors [139]. A key element of this shift in discourse is the need to embrace a multi-stakeholder approach by broadening the representation of social actors in decision-making processes in order to overcome the new religion of data.…”

Integration of Lean and Agile Principles into Innovation Management

“…According to Miles et al [17], a new business model for continuous innovation is an increasing concept and to understand the innovation success of a firm, the interaction between innovation initiatives and core organization should be well examined [18]. Timeus and Gasco [19] explain innovation capacity with the following organizational capabilities; (1) capabilities for idea generation, (2) a knowledge management system to acquire and use new information, (3) a human resource strategy focused on innovation and (4) the intensity of technology use in the organization. Despite there four factors are important for organizations, it is agreed that more involvement of human resources in innovation process has a special importance [19].…”

“…Timeus and Gasco [19] explain innovation capacity with the following organizational capabilities; (1) capabilities for idea generation, (2) a knowledge management system to acquire and use new information, (3) a human resource strategy focused on innovation and (4) the intensity of technology use in the organization. Despite there four factors are important for organizations, it is agreed that more involvement of human resources in innovation process has a special importance [19]. In order to increase their involvement to innovation process, first, what the human resource of an organization know about innovations and what barriers they perceive should be well examined.…”