Making sense of variety in place leadership: the case of England’s smart cities

Nicholds, Alyson; Gibney, John; Mabey, Chris; Hart, Dan

doi:10.1080/00343404.2016.1232482

Cited by 33 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Inevitable tensions emerge when innovators and entrepreneurs seek to engage with local governments and citizens in an effort to improve sustainability, resilience and quality of life at the city level [75]. In order to address these tensions successfully, it is crucial to understand all actors' assumptions as for the expected social and commercial gains that may stem from engagement [76], and particularly the tensions and dilemmas relating with common resources [18].…”

Section: The Smart City As An Organizational Fieldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Smart Cities as Organizational Fields: A Framework for Mapping Sustainability-Enabling Configurations

2017

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Despite the impressive growth of smart city initiatives worldwide, an organizational theory of smart city has yet to be developed, and we lack models addressing the unprecedented organizational and management challenges that emerge in smart city contexts. Traditional models are often of little use, because smart cities pursue different goals than traditional organizations, are based on networked, cross-boundary activity systems, rely on distributed innovation processes, and imply adaptive policy-making. Complex combinations of factors may lead to vicious or virtuous cycles in smart city initiatives, but we know very little about how these factors may be identified and mapped. Based on an inductive study of a set of primary and secondary sources, we develop a framework for the configurational analysis of smart cities viewed as place-specific organizational fields. This framework identifies five key dimensions in the configurations of smart city fields; these five dimensions are mapped through five sub-frameworks, which can be used both separately as well as for an integrated analysis. Our contribution is conceived to support longitudinal studies, natural experiments and comparative analyses on smart city fields, and to improve our understanding of how different combinations of factors affect the capability of smart innovations to translate into city resilience, sustainability and quality of life. In addition, our results suggest that new forms of place-based entrepreneurship constitute the engine that allows for the dynamic collaboration between government, citizens and research centers in successful smart city organizational fields.

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Section: The Smart City As An Organizational Fieldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Smart Cities as Organizational Fields: A Framework for Mapping Sustainability-Enabling Configurations

2017

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“…Third, concerning how universities' participation can shape innovation policy-making and institutional capacity, namely in an LDR, it is important to notice that notwithstanding disagreements in approach and initial mistrust, both institutions were able to build on this through a joint exploration of solutions to common problems (Morgan & Nauwelaers, 1999;Nicholds et al, 2017), building a more long-term commitment. This mirrors Aranguren et al's (2009) argument that an 'action research' approach gives way to more consistent interaction between actors.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Once the link has been made, establishing university-regional government collaboration means balancing the inherent power in policy environments (Aranguren et al, 2009;Nicholds, Gibney, Mabey, & Hart, 2017). This is needed to avoid participation and control asymmetries, which can degenerate into tokenism, i.e., a symbolic inclusion of actors in the process, and/or autocratic or technocratic modes, the latter meaning here more prevalence of university actors.…”

Section: From Discourse To Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is needed to avoid participation and control asymmetries, which can degenerate into tokenism, i.e., a symbolic inclusion of actors in the process, and/or autocratic or technocratic modes, the latter meaning here more prevalence of university actors. Balance can be achieved by managing conflicted interests and expectations, enabling dialogue and fostering shared leadership (Nicholds et al, 2017). Nurturing interactive collaborative modes can thus benefit these links, and ensure commitment of players involved in procedures and outcomes (Aranguren et al, 2009).…”

Section: From Discourse To Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

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Designing regional development? Exploring the University of Aveiro's role in the innovation policy process

Fonseca

2019

Regional Studies, Regional Science

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With growing pressure to contribute to their region's development, universities are increasingly called upon to engage dynamically in innovation policy-making and governance activities. Previous studies suggest in their collaboration with local and regional government that universities can emerge as animateurs, providing guidance, consolidating networks, and ultimately activating institutional and human agency. This is especially important in the context of less-developed regions, where the unlocking of innovative potential may rest on those factors. This paper provides an extended perspective on universities' engagement in innovation policy processes and, in a broader sense, on the collaboration between these higher education institutions and local and regional government. Through an analysis of the partnership between two Portuguese institutions, the University of Aveiro and the intermunicipal community of the region of Aveiro, this study explores the potential implications on regional innovation policy and the activation of institutional agency in a less-developed context. Policy documents, reports and interview data from 18 academics, top managers, policy-makers and other stakeholders show that while institutional expectations differ, collaborative interplays have boosted the formation and growing effectiveness of regional innovation networks, crucial for the development of less-developed regions. ARTICLE HISTORY

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“…Because the prospective actors are from various institutional domains, this mode of leadership is also relational in that it requires interaction across boundaries of various types (e.g., organizational/sectoral, professional/disciplinary, territorial/administrative) (Gibney, Copeland, & Murie, 2009;Horlings, Collinge, & Gibney, 2017). As Nicholds, Gibney, Mabey, and Hart (2017) argue, PBL entails a 'complex, large-scale social and economic co-production of activity comprising a range of power and resourcerelated, community and personal agendas and negotiations across organizations, disciplines and professions' (p. 251). There is still, however, only a provisional understanding of how these cross-organizational coalitions can be constructed and steered in strategic directions, particularly by actors in 'non-assigned' leadership positions without formal governance authority or resources (Sotarauta, 2016b).…”

Section: Conceptual Framework: Place-based Leadershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facilitating spaces for place-based leadership in centralized governance systems: the case of Newcastle City Futures

2019

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This paper explores how distributed and relational forms of place-based leadership can be facilitated in environments with constrained local governance capabilities. It is based on an in-depth case study of a university-hosted collaborative platform situated in a city/regional institutional landscape marked by limited local devolution and public sector austerity. The research contributes to a fuller understanding of place-based leadership by analyzing how actors can mobilize interpretive and network forms of power outside formal governance structures to encourage long-term thinking and broker innovative cross-organizational projects. Equally, however, it highlights their continuing dependence on legitimating forms of local institutional and resource authority.

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Making sense of variety in place leadership: the case of England’s smart cities

Abstract: This document is the author's post-print version, incorporating any revisions agreed during the peer-review process. Some differences between the published version and this version may remain and you are advised to consult the published version if you wish to cite from it.

Cited by 33 publications

References 43 publications

Smart Cities as Organizational Fields: A Framework for Mapping Sustainability-Enabling Configurations

Smart Cities as Organizational Fields: A Framework for Mapping Sustainability-Enabling Configurations

Designing regional development? Exploring the University of Aveiro's role in the innovation policy process

Facilitating spaces for place-based leadership in centralized governance systems: the case of Newcastle City Futures

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