“…As such, this research empirically explores the gap in the contribution of contingency factors to the development of smart cities. The implications of this study cover the literature dedicated to the factors that characterize a smart city (Aggarwal & Solomon, 2019;Brandão & Joia, 2018;Caragliu et al, 2011;Chourabi et al, 2012;Depiné et al, 2017;Neirotti, De Marco, Cagliano, Mangano, & Scorrano, 2014;Nevado Gil, Carvalho, & Paiva, 2020;Periphèria, 2014;Przeybilovicz et al, 2018;Oliveira & Campolargo, 2015) and Contingency Theory, applied to the public sector (Avellaneda & Gomes, 2017;Goeminne & George, 2019;Macedo & Corbari, 2009;Park, 2019;Sell et al, 2020;Fiirst & Beuren, 2021), when discussing how contingency factors affect the characteristics of a municipality and may or may not contribute to the development of smarter cities.…”