Smart communities inside local governments: a pie in the sky?

Purpose - Via embracing the idea that who directly experiences a problem is keener to develop more innovative solutions, local governments have started to engage smart communities in the innovation of public services’ delivery. Even if the meaning of “smart community” generally refers to the community participation in the innovation of public services for urban living, local governments have predominantly stimulated the participation of their citizens. But innovative ideas can potentially spring out also from the insiders. This paper aims to find the managerial and technological issues that public managers have to consider when planning an internal smart community initiative. Methodology - For this purpose, the authors analyse the case study of the Municipality of Turin that developed a participatory smart community project, named Innova.TO, through the theoretical lens of sensemaking (Weick et al., 2005; Weick, 1979). Findings - Results show that there are three main aspects to be considered when implementing smart community initiatives in local governments. Originality - Even if there is the potential, the engagement of public employees in a smart community of innovators is not straightforward and several complexities may challenge its success. Otherwise, real-life examples and empirical studies are still episodic. As a consequence, if it is concretely possible to build a smart community of innovators inside a local government still remains a question to which this paper aims to response.