Øyvind Hellang
email: oyvind.hellang@uia.no

Leif Skiftenes Flak
email: leif.s.flak@uia.no

Assessing Effects of eGovernment Initiatives Based on a Public Value Framework

Keywords: e-government, performance indicators, public value, interpretive evaluation of IS, eGEP measurement framework, action design research

Assessing effects of eGovernment initiatives is considered an important but challenging endeavor. Assessments are, among other things, important to justify e-government investments. They are challenging because they are complex, often based on locally defined indicators, many times overemphasizing financial effects, imprecise, faced with a number of contingencies and very seldom validated. Consequently, effect assessments can be seen as imprecise and difficult to compare across different initiatives. This paper addresses some of the challenges by attempting to assess effects based on a public value framework through an action design study with a Norwegian government agency. Based on our findings, we suggest 5 design principles for adapting and using performance indicators for assessing effects from eGovernment initiatives.

Introduction

In spite of the massive focus on technology fuelled public sector reforms, accurate documentation of effects is scarce [START_REF] Flak | What is the value of eGovernment -and how can we actually realize it? Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy[END_REF][START_REF] Jenner | Realising Benefits from Government ICT Investment: a Fools Errand?[END_REF]. This is problematic, as further investments need justification to in order for new technology to be developed and implemented. Further, eGovernment investments are often justified based on locally defined indicators that make aggregation of effects almost impossible as effects are likely to be inconsistent and too diverse to compare. Hence, there is a need for a shared effect model allowing different organizations and projects to adopt the same indicators and thereby facilitate development of comparable data.

Challenges of assessing and measuring effects of IT/IS is well documented in the general IS literature [START_REF] Smithson | Analysing information systems evaluation: another look at an old problem[END_REF][START_REF] Irani | Developing a frame of reference for ex-ante IT/IS investment evaluation[END_REF][START_REF] Irani | Quantitative and qualitative approaches to information systems evaluation[END_REF]. Consequently, traditional or analytical evaluations of these effects have focused on summative financial descriptions based on conventional accountancy frameworks [START_REF] Serafeimidis | Information systems evaluation as an organizational institution -experience from a case study[END_REF][START_REF] Stone | Assumptions and Values in the Practice of Information Systems Evaluation[END_REF][START_REF] Irani | Evaluating e-government: learning from the experiences of two UK local authorities[END_REF]. Measurement techniques in this approach often include Return on Investment, Internal Rate of Return, Net Present Value and Payback. These traditional evaluation techniques tend to focus rather narrowly on monetary effects and profit. The focus on profitability in existing methods makes direct transfer across sectors problematic and resulting in a need for custom models for the public sector [START_REF] Irani | Evaluating e-government: learning from the experiences of two UK local authorities[END_REF].

The public sector is characterized by a more complex value structure than the private sector [START_REF] Boyne | Public and private management: What's the difference[END_REF][START_REF] Bretschneider | Management-Information-Systems in Public and Private Organizations -an Empirical-Test[END_REF]. Where private sector organizations are primarily occupied with ensuring and increasing profitability, public sector organizations need to balance their focus between e.g. transparency and accountability, equal treatment of all service recipients, promoting democratic participation -all in a cost efficient and legal manner.

These fundamental differences between the sectors have spurred initiatives to establish public and even eGovernment effect models that can be used both in planning (justification) and evaluation of eGovernment investments. Examples of such models are the eGovernment Economics Project (eGep) measurement framework [START_REF] Codagnone | eGovernment Economics Project (eGEP) -Measurement Framework Final Version[END_REF] and to some extent OECD´s model for core data for public efficiency [START_REF] Lonti | Towards government at a glance: Identification of core data and issues related to public sector efficiency[END_REF]. Of these, eGep appears to be the most comprehensive with 92 performance indicators organized in three high-level value categories. However, eGep has received little validation and it´s practical applicability is therefore uncertain.

This paper reports from an effort to apply eGep in a practical eGovernment setting. Our research objective has been to gain experience with readily available public value based indicator set(s) in practical use.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. First we present the eGep model and discuss the model in relation to public value and recent developments in the IS evaluation literature. Then we present Action Design Research and show how we used this approach to support our research objective. Finally, we present and discuss results and draw conclusions and implications.

Background

Our normative stance is that eGovernment effect measures should be aligned with the ideals of public value as discussed in the public administration literature. In this section we briefly present the theoretical ideals of public value, and discuss how the eGep measurement framework encompasses key elements of public value.

Public value

Public value has been subject for many scholarly articles over many years. Public value discussions originate from the public administration literature [START_REF] Moore | Public value as the focus of strategy[END_REF][START_REF] Moore | Creating public value: Strategic management in government[END_REF], but are starting appear also within the eGovernment community [START_REF] Persson | Government Value Paradigms -Bureaucracy, New Public Management, and E-Government[END_REF]. A recent study summarizes the discussions from both public administration and eGovernment fields and proposes that public value can be understood in the form of four value drivers; administrative efficiency, service improvement, citizen engagement and foundational values [START_REF] Rose | E-government value priorities of Danish local authority managers[END_REF].

According to Rose and Persson [START_REF] Rose | E-government value priorities of Danish local authority managers[END_REF], administrative efficiency can be described as positive cost benefit and can be expressed by three E values; efficiency, effectiveness and economy. Service improvement represents customer orientation in various forms, e.g. cost savings for citizens, better access to information and shorter response times. Citizen engagement is in part a democratic value as it promotes issues such as participatory policymaking and dialogue, but extends the democratic value to also include issues such citizen participation in the design and use of services. The foundational value represents traditional bureaucratic values such as rule of law, transparency, accountability, objectivity that would translate into digital infrastructure issues in the context of eGovernment.

eGep

The eGep measurement framework was presented in 2006 to assess the impact of eGovernment services [START_REF] Codagnone | eGovernment Economics Project (eGEP) -Measurement Framework Final Version[END_REF]. The framework is heavily influenced by five existing national methodologies (e.g. the UK business case model and the Danish signpostmethodology) and considered to be sufficiently general to fit governments across Europe.

The measurement framework is organized around three high level value drivers as shown in Fig. 1. At this level of conceptualization we find the framework to have obvious similarities with public value as discussed by Rose and Persson [START_REF] Rose | E-government value priorities of Danish local authority managers[END_REF]. Efficiency (eGep) corresponds to administrative efficiency [START_REF] Rose | E-government value priorities of Danish local authority managers[END_REF], Democracy (eGep) corresponds to citizen engagement (Rose and Persson) and Effectiveness (eGep) translates to Service improvement (Rose and Persson). The values of Rose and Persson´s fourth category, foundational values, are distributed over the democracy and effectiveness categories in eGep. We therefore find eGep to be consistent with a theoretical understanding of public value and consider eGep a public value framework.

Our study was carried out as an Action Design Research (ADR) effort [START_REF] Sein | Action design research[END_REF] as this approach is consistent with our ambition of influencing practice directly by trying out a public value based indicator set in a practical setting. ADR consists of four stages with seven principles (Fig. 2) that have guided our research and framed our discussion later. This participatory design research incorporates intervention through instantiations of a design artifact into organizational contexts. The information technology artifact in ADR is viewed as an ensemble artifact. ADR emphasizes the need to integrate intervention and evaluation in the organization when building the design artifact in an iterative cycle of Building, Intervention, and Evaluation (BIE).

A Theory-ingrained Artifact

The measured the state of, or the estimated future state of, any aspects of an organization's value creation (e.g. processes, services, business units) can be described by performance indicators. Our empirical research is centered on an ensemble artifact of performance indicators (content), description of the eGovernment initiative (context), and their use in the assessment (process) of effects from eGovernment initiative [START_REF] Stockdale | An interpretive approach to evaluating information systems: A content, context, process framework[END_REF]. eGovernment indicator sets are viewed as ensemble design artifacts incorporating material and organizational features [START_REF] Sein | Action design research[END_REF][START_REF] Orlikowski | Research Commentary: Desperately Seeking the IT in IT Research. A Call to Theorizing the IT Artifact[END_REF]. They are not required to be purely technology-based designs, but can have organizational intervention as the source of innovation where performance indicators and their influence on public organizations, policies and work practices are viewed as an ensemble design artifact [START_REF] Sein | Action design research[END_REF][START_REF] Boland | Design in the Punctuation of Management Action. Managing as Designing: Creating a Vocabulary for Management Education and Research[END_REF][START_REF] Boland | Design in the Punctuation of Management Action[END_REF][START_REF] Hevner | Design science in information systems research[END_REF].Following the principles of ADR we emphasize the importance of practiceingrained research for the research's relevance to practice, and also the ingraining of theory in the artifact which is the basis for distinguishing ADR from traditional design efforts. Our research is motivated by the expressed need from practitioners to measure the effects of eGovernment initiatives. We argue that the eGep measurement framework can be seen as a theory ingrained artifact as it is seen as consistent with the public value framework proposed by Rose and Persson [START_REF] Rose | E-government value priorities of Danish local authority managers[END_REF].

Organizational Dominant BIE

The nature of the ensemble artifact, and need to instantiate the artifact in the context of the problem domain, lead us to choose an organizational dominant (Fig. 3) iterative process of BIE, where the primary source of innovation is the organizational intervention [START_REF] Sein | Action design research[END_REF]. Eventual problems are addressed by the iterative instantiations of different versions of the artifact. Generalized outcomes from the evaluation and reflection from the BIE iterations are formed from casting the problems in this specific context into a class of problems, and the specific solutions into a class of solutions. Yet, the main goal of the design effort is to formulate design principles from the specific solutions in this context. Design principles are statements reflecting the knowledge gained from the process of building these solutions, or other instances belonging to this class of solutions [START_REF] Sein | Action design research[END_REF].

Different digital solutions for receiving written correspondence from citizens and businesses have existed for several years, and some public organizations have also developed solutions for digital replies. The Norwegian government wanted to evaluate whether or not a shared digital solution supporting such to-way communication would be more socio-economically sound.

The Agency for Public Management and eGovernment (Difi) was in 2010 tasked by the Ministry of Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs (FAD) to provide a business case comparing different alternatives for two-way digital communication between public organizations and citizens/businesses. The next section describes the case as it unfolded from 2010-2011 based on the ADR stages (Fig. 2).

ADR Stages -assessing effects of public digital communication

This ADR effort followed the stages with related principles outlined by the ADR method, that capture the underlying assumptions, beliefs, and values that have guided our research.

Stage 1 Problem Formulation

Difi wanted a methodical approach, including recommended performance indicators, to find and estimate the socio-economic effects of different alternatives for public digital communication. Research Council Norway has funded a project on the use of technology supporting interoperability in the public sector called Semicolon. One result from this project was a method for eGovernment socio-economic analyses including an adaptation of the eGep measurement framework to fit a Norwegian context, such as the Norwegian quality assurance approach [START_REF]Det sentrale styringsdokumentet[END_REF] and general method for socio-economic analyses [START_REF]SSØ -Senter for statlig økonomistyring, Håndbok for samfunnsøkonomiske analyser[END_REF][START_REF]Gevinstrealisering -En innføring i planlegging og oppfølging av gevinster[END_REF]. This paper focuses on this performance indicator set and its use in this case as the original version of the ensemble design artifact.

Researchers and practitioners in this project were asked by Difi to use this adapted method and performance indicator set in a combined effort to create the necessary decision support documents requested by the ministry. An ADR team was formed (Table 1) consisting of two practitioners from Difi together with one supporting staff member from Semicolon, in addition to the authors.

Table 1. ADR team members and end-users, roles and activities

The goal of the first stage was to determine the needs and possibilities regarding communication between public organizations and citizens/businesses. This was performed through a small set of survey questions to citizens and ten workshops covering eight state level agencies and two municipalities. One result from this investigation was the initial definition of three alternatives for public digital communications:

1.

Message Hub: the government developing a new shared infrastructure 2.

Private service: outsourcing similar functionality to private service providers 3.

Status Quo: leave agencies and municipalities to develop their own solutions

This investigation into the needs and possibilities for public digital communications also identified benefits that the public organizations, and to some extent citizens and businesses wanted to see. The ADR team decided to use insights from the investigation to evaluate the performance indicators in the original Semicolon set.

The original Semicolon performance indicator set was based on a sub-set of the 92 indicators described in the eGep measurement framework. This adaptation of the eGep performance indicator set into 39 indicators still covered all three value drivers of the effect model and thus also still consistent with the public value framework proposed by Rose and Persson [START_REF] Rose | E-government value priorities of Danish local authority managers[END_REF].

Stage 2 Building, Intervention, and Evaluation

Based on the evaluation of the findings in the Problem Formulation stage the ADR team chose to refine the original performance indicator set. The starting point of this stage was the original version 1 of the Semicolon performance indicator set, which was developed instantiated and evaluated in two iterations, resulting in an Alpha and a Beta version of the artifact (see Fig. 4).

iteration: Alpha version.

The first BIE iteration started with the researchers in the ADR team evaluating the performance indicators compared to the eGovernment initiative, and the team's understanding of the context from the problem formulation stage. Some changes were suggested based on the indicators relevance to the eGovernment initiative in the case, such as very specific indicators (e.g. indicators narrowly focused on chemical wastes). Five indicators were removed and five indicators had changes made to their description/definition. Difi provided an additional list over indicators compiled based on their earlier experience. The ADR team compared and in part accommodated this list with the coverage of performance indicators in the artifact.

At the same time the ADR team supported Difi's work on detailing the alternatives for public digital communication, so that the end-users could relate better to the implications of the different alternatives. These activities helped the team to create a shared understanding of the different possible types of effects from the alternatives. The resulting Alpha version of the artifact, now with 35 performance indicators, needed to be instantiated with end-users to enhance the formative evaluation of the artifact. Consequently, a pilot in one municipality was carried out.

Difi provided a document describing the details in the three alternatives for public digital communication based on the input from the investigation in the Problem Formulation stage and inputs from the ADR team. This was sent together with the Alpha version of the performance indicator set in the format of a table in a spreadsheet and instructions on creating estimates for each indicator to one municipality.

This first instantiation of the Alpha version of the artifact (Fig. 4) was observed and transcribed by the ADR team. Three public communication professionals (ICT consultant, head of archives and vice-chief administrative officer) used a half-day workshop to discuss and attempt to create estimates in light of the three alternatives presented in the documents. This instantiation showed issues regarding unclear descriptions of the indicators, and issues concerning the amount of effort needed to create estimates even when only estimating a few service areas of the municipality. Both the number of indicators and the complexity of estimating effects were contributing to the end-users frustration. Even simple impacts of the alternatives for digital public communication on the daily mail handling routines led the participants to do simplified process analyses with a number of assumptions that were not covered by the detailed alternatives (e.g. security issues and non-repudiation). The end-users wanted more details on the changes that their organization would experience. "This is an aspect where the proposed alternatives have been simplified. This is unacceptable for us! We need to know how they expect us to solve this little part of the system." -ICT consultant commented on integration with the local case handling system

The ADR team discussed the feedback from the end-users, which addressed these main points:

• Too many indicators • Unclear descriptions of indicators • Confusing table format and content in the description of the alternatives

The ADR team decided to refine the performance indicator set based on the evaluation during this first instantiation. The experiences from the pilot lead to a reassessment of the structure of the artifact, such as the scope of effects, the number of indicators, descriptions of indicators, and the existing table-based presentation format.

iteration: Beta version.

Due to the complexity of the proposed alternatives for two-way public digital communication, the scope of the estimates was reduced to encompass only out-going messages from public organizations to citizens and businesses. The number of indicators was reduced to 13 indicators for expected effects for the public organizations and an additional 17 indicators for expected external effects for citizens and businesses. For this first large scale instantiation of the indicator sett, one indicator was obligatory and required an estimate. This main indicator was the number of out-going messages the agencies had today, and which communication channels were used for these messages.

This clear-cut and scoped selection of indicators had an emphasis on more easily measurable quantitative indicators was intended to provide an indication of possible effects from a digitalized channel of communication without encountering many of the issues experienced in the pilot. These changes were done to the Alpha version of the performance indicator set which was transferred from a table format to an online questionnaire format, resulting in a new Beta version of the artifact.

The Beta version was instantiated through a questionnaire sent to the contacts provided by Difi (e.g. CIOs and department heads for communication) for 14 public organizations including the original participating organizations from the problem formulation stage. The ADR team received full feedback from seven state agencies and supplemental feedback (e.g. number of out-going messages) from one agency.

Earlier estimates of the yearly number of out-going messages have been suggested to be 47 million in total [START_REF]Utredning -Offentlig Elektronisk[END_REF]. Results from the questionnaire showed that there are over 70 million out-going messages sent by ordinary mail every year (not including email or other channels) just from these eight respondents. The state level agencies in Norway number about 800 agencies in all [START_REF]enheter per COFOG[END_REF].

The respondents were asked to evaluate the cost of each out-going message compared to the government's average estimates of 2.7 EUR per ordinary postage and 0.4 EUR per electronic transfer [START_REF]Difi -Direktoratet for forvaltning og IKT, En felles meldingsboks -Rapport 2011:7[END_REF]. Results from the questionnaire showed a mixed evaluation for the cost of ordinary postage, depending on the degree of process automation or outsourcing of handling and arrangements for postage. An estimate using the average numbers as-is indicates a saving in cost of 2.3 EUR per digitized out-going message. This shows a potential of over 160 million EUR a year when considering only the volume from the eight agencies. It is easy to assume that the total cost saving potential on the state level alone, with its 800 agencies, would be much higher.

Each respondent was also contacted by phone and was questioned about the process of creating estimates and their initial evaluation of the performance indicators. Half of the respondents reported that they had trouble providing estimates for the main indicator: number of out-going messages per year. This surprised the team as it was considered a tangible quantitative indicator. One main issue reported was the need to involve several people from different sub-departments, including archives, to get an overview over the different types of out-going messages and estimates for each type.

These results, and our experience with the use of the performance indicator set were reported to Difi for their use in the decision support documents to be sent to the ministry as the exit criteria of the BIE iterations. The scope of effects estimated with the performance indicator set was not comprehensible enough for Difi's goal of a socio-economic analysis of the three approaches to digital communication. They did not reach the objective of establishing necessary information for the ministry to reach a decision.

Stage 3 Reflection and Learning

The ADR team's initial understanding of the context from the Problem Formulation stage and the evaluation of the iterations in the BIE stage followed a concurrent stage of Reflection and learning. The researchers in the team had an initial understanding of the performance indicator set as it related to the eGep framework. From the Problem Formulation stage we cast Difis problem with assessing different approaches to digital communication as an instance of assessing effects of eGovernment initiatives as a class of problems. The adaptation and use of the original Semicolon performance indicator sett based on eGep was a solution to the specific problem Difi was facing, cast as an instance of performance indicator sets for eGovernment effects as a class of solutions.

Inputs from practitioners for the Alpha version, such as the Difi list of indicators, were compared to the same eGep framework adjusting the indicator set to the context. The end-users in one municipality used the indicators and provided their perspectives on the artifact. This early evaluation of the Alpha version in the 1 st iteration showed the ADR team the importance of a shared understanding of the performance indicators and the context in which these were to be applied.

This formative evaluation led to a major revision for the Beta version, including reducing the number of indicators in total, and requiring only an estimate for one main indicator (the number of out-going messages). Outcomes of this more summative evaluation showed that even an estimate for a tangible quantitative performance indicator required enough coordination efforts and time resulting in several agencies to opt out of contributing to the business case. Together with goals and scope changes in the assessment process changing over time, the resulting report was not enough to ensure a decision in the ministry.

Stage 4 Formalization of Learning

Reflection on the design efforts in the case uncovered several problems for this specific assessment of approaches to digital communication, which in turn can be related to the assessing the effects of eGovernment initiatives as a class of problems:

•

Performance indicators had very general and unfamiliar definitions, which led to a difficulty in application of the indicators.

•

The description of the suggested eGovernment initiative was lacking important details that lead to uncertain assumptions in the assessment.

•

Performance indicators and the description of the eGovernment initiative were developed apart, and were not viewed as a whole until end-users were to assess the approaches.

•

The assessment goals and scope changed over time and were not clearly communicated up-front, contributing to insufficiencies in the resulting decision documents. • End-users and managers did not have a shared understanding of the indicators, change context, and assessment process, leading to misunderstandings.

Our learning from experiencing these problems and trying to solve them using a performance indicator set can be related to performance indicator sets for eGovernment effects as a class of solutions. We have described this learning in the form of proposed design principles (Table 2) which are prescriptive statements for building this or other instances of the class of solutions [START_REF] Sein | Action design research[END_REF].

Table 2. Design Principles

An overview of the BIE stage including start and exit criteria, summarizes the participatory design efforts and contributions of this case (Fig. 4). The contributions reflect learning from successes and mistakes of developing, instantiating and evaluating the ensemble artifact of performance indicators as content, change context description, and the assessment process including application of indicators and the use of the resulting measures [START_REF] Stockdale | An interpretive approach to evaluating information systems: A content, context, process framework[END_REF].

Conclusion

This paper has provided experiences from a Norwegian effort to use readily available performance indicator set(s) in a practical setting. Results from this effort uncovered several issues when applying a standardized set of performance indicators on very diverse public services. Based on our active involvement as part of an ADR team we formulated five design principles that can guide future design and instantiations of similar artifacts namely Simplicity, Precision, Pragmatism, Realism and Shared understanding. Further research can refine the proposed design principles or add additional principles based on the assessment of effects from eGovernment initiatives as the class of problems and performance indicator sets as the class of solutions.

Principles from the recently proposed ADR method guided our design and assessment of the indicator set together with practitioners from Difi and the validation through instantiations by public organizations in Norway. We found the method very useful for providing researchers and practitioners with the required structure to collaborate on practical problem solving and suggest that the method has a strong potential in a practical and interdisciplinary field such as eGovernment.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. eGep Measurement framework analytical model [11] p. 15

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig. 2. ADR method: Stages and Principles [17] pp. 41 Action Design Research incorporates the guided emergence of the artifact from interventions inspired by Action Research, without separating the actions of designing and intervening in different stages [17].

Fig. 3 .

 3 Fig. 3. The Generic Schema for Organization-Dominant BIE [17] pp. 43

Fig. 4 .

 4 Fig. 4. Organization-Dominant BIE in the Difi case (based on [17] pp. 43)

Acknowledgements

This research was part of the Semicolon II Project supported by Research Council of Norway.


Suha Alawadhi
email: suhaa2@uw.edu

Armando Aldama-Nalda

Hafedh Chourabi
email: hafedh.chourabi.1@ulaval.ca

J Ramon Gil-Garcia

Sofia Leung
email: sofialeu@uw.edu

Sehl Mellouli
email: sehl.mellouli@sio.ulaval.ca

Taewoo Nam
email: tnam@ctg.albany.edu

Theresa A Pardo
email: tpardo@ctg.albany.edu

Hans J Scholl
email: jscholl@uw.edu

Shawn Walker

Building Understanding of Smart City Initiatives

Keywords: Smart city, City management, City government, Smart Government, Technology, E-government, Governance, Citizen engagement, Policy

à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Introduction

Over half of the world's population lived in urban areas in 2010, and this figure is expected to increase to three quarters by 2050 [START_REF] Bakıcı | A Smart City Initiative: The Case of Barcelona[END_REF]. With the rise in urban populations, city governments are required to manage an escalating number of technical, social, physical, and organizational issues arising from complex congregations of people in spatially limited areas. Rapid urbanization creates an urgency and imperative for cities to find smarter ways to manage the accompanying challenges-e.g., traffic congestion, air pollution, high crime rate, difficulty in waste management, wasteful energy consumption, and so on [START_REF] Nam | Conceptualizing Smart City with Dimensions of Technology, People, and Institutions[END_REF][START_REF] Nam | Smart City as Urban Innovation: Focusing on Management, Policy, and Context[END_REF]. The concept of "smart city" is evolving as a new approach to mitigate and remedy current urban problems and make urban development more sustainable. Recent studies have conceptualized and defined a smart city in various contexts and meanings [START_REF] Boulton | Cyberinfrastructures and "Smart" World Cities: Physical, Human, and Soft Infrastructures[END_REF], [START_REF] Chourabi | Understanding Smart City Initiatives: An Integrative and Comprehensive Theoretical Framework[END_REF], [START_REF] Hollands | Will the Real Smart City Please Stand Up? Intelligent, Progressive or Entrepreneurial[END_REF]. Some working definitions merit attention, and they share some com-monalities in definitional elements. Washburn et al. [START_REF] Washburn | Helping CIOs Understand[END_REF] emphasized technology by defining a smart city as "the use of smart computing technologies to make the critical infrastructure components and services of a city--which include city administration, education, healthcare, public safety, real estate, transportation, and utilities--more intelligent, interconnected, and efficient" (p. 2). The definition made by Anavitarte and Tratz-Ryan [START_REF] Anavitarte | Market Insight: 'Smart Cities' in Emerging Markets[END_REF] also underscores the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by defining it as "an urban area functioning and articulated by modern information and communication technologies in its various verticals, providing ongoing efficient services to its population." The definition from the Natural Resources Defense Council (smartercities.nrdc.org)-"a city striving to make itself smarter (more efficient, sustainable, equitable, and livable)"-includes the meanings of smartness in urban context. There is a definition that indicates domains of urban smartness. According to Giffinger et al. [START_REF] Giffinger | Smart Cities: Ranking of European Medium-Sized Cities[END_REF], a smart city denotes "a city well performing in a forward-looking way in economy, people, governance, mobility, environment, and living, built on the smart combination of endowments and activities of self-decisive, independent and aware citizens." In sum, the comprehensive definitional elements include the role of technologies, the meanings underlying a city's smartness, and a set of components representing the smartness of a city.

Another definition views a smart city from a different angle. Caragliu et al. [START_REF] Caragliu | Smart cities in Europe[END_REF] claim that a city is smart "when investments in human and social capital and traditional (transport) and modern (ICT) communication infrastructure fuel sustainable economic growth and a high quality of life, with a wise management of natural resources, through participatory governance" (p. 70). Their claim highlights the role of smart city initiatives by stressing where a city should invest (human and social capital, traditional and modern communication infrastructure) and how it becomes smarter (wise management of natural resources, participatory governance).

This view allows us to recognize a gap in the current discussions of smart cities. While an increasing number of studies and practical reports explore desirable properties of a smart city [START_REF] Boulton | Cyberinfrastructures and "Smart" World Cities: Physical, Human, and Soft Infrastructures[END_REF], [START_REF] Dirks | Smarter Cities for Smarter Growth: How Cities Can Optimizes Their Systems for the Talent-Based Economy[END_REF][START_REF] Dirks | A Vision of Smarter Cities: How Cities Can Lead the Way into a Prosperous and Sustainable Future[END_REF][START_REF] Dirks | How Smart is Your City?: Helping Cities Measure Progress[END_REF], [START_REF] Giffinger | Smart Cities: Ranking of European Medium-Sized Cities[END_REF][START_REF] Giffinger | The Role of Rankings in Growing City Competition[END_REF], [START_REF] Hall | The Vision of a Smart City[END_REF][START_REF] Harrison | Foundations for Smarter Cities[END_REF][START_REF] Hollands | Will the Real Smart City Please Stand Up? Intelligent, Progressive or Entrepreneurial[END_REF], [START_REF] Washburn | Helping CIOs Understand[END_REF] and cases of self-labeled "smart" (or dubbed with other equivalent progressive terms such as intelligent and innovative) cities [START_REF] Bakıcı | A Smart City Initiative: The Case of Barcelona[END_REF], [START_REF] Cairney | Developing a 'Smart City': Understanding Information Technology Capacity and Establishing an Agenda for Change[END_REF], [START_REF] Inayatullah | City Futures in Transformation: Emerging Issues and Case Studies[END_REF], [START_REF] Odendaal | Information and Communication Technology and Local Governance: Understanding the Difference between Cities in Developed and Emerging Economies[END_REF], little research purports to develop a systematic understanding of smart city initiatives that make a city smarter. We have identified this research gap and developed a preliminary framework for helping understand smart city initiatives. The Smart City Initiatives Framework included in Chourabi et al.'s [START_REF] Chourabi | Understanding Smart City Initiatives: An Integrative and Comprehensive Theoretical Framework[END_REF] paper is a product of the authors' joint efforts to understand city government-driven initiatives to make a city more efficient, effective, attractive, competitive, sustainable, equitable, and livable. In that paper, we derived eight core pillars of smart city initiatives from a wide array of conceptual and empirical studies in the disciplinary background of egovernment, public administration, and information science. The eight categories the preliminary framework suggests include technology, management and organization, policy, governance, people and communities, economy, built infrastructure, and natural environment.

With the reference to the Smart City Initiatives Framework [START_REF] Chourabi | Understanding Smart City Initiatives: An Integrative and Comprehensive Theoretical Framework[END_REF], this paper aims to build an understanding of smart city initiatives through a case study of four cities in North America-Philadelphia and Seattle in the United States, Quebec City in Cana-da, and Mexico City in Mexico. We also try filling the gap between growing attention to a smart city itself and relatively little research of smart city initiatives. We expect this empirical research to make a first-of-a-kind contribution to systematic understanding of smart city initiatives. In this paper, we do not compare smart city initiatives between our cases, instead we suggest a comprehensive understanding of smart city initiatives. To build this understanding we conducted semi-structured interviews with government officials and managers with responsibilities for smart city initiatives in the four cities selected. We analyzed documents and the qualitative data from the interviews with respect to the eight components of the Smart City Initiatives Framework. In this paper we present new understanding of smart city initiatives in terms of insights and lessons learned to-date from this multi-case study.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. The next section provides an overview of the Smart City Initiative Framework as a lens to see smart city initiatives. The subsequent section describes the method of data collection and the multiple cases we focus on. Then the following section reports the findings from the first-round analysis of the data. The final section addresses future research and presents concluding remarks.

Understanding Smart City Initiatives

We suggested an integrative framework to understand smart city initiatives in our previous paper [START_REF] Chourabi | Understanding Smart City Initiatives: An Integrative and Comprehensive Theoretical Framework[END_REF]. The eight components included in the framework are derived from the exploration of a wide and extensive array of literature from various research fields such as e-government, local government administration and management, and information systems. Figure 1 illustrates the framework. This set of factors can help understand differences in smart city initiatives implemented in different contexts and for different purposes. The framework also helps explain the relationships and influences between these factors and smart city initiatives. As illustrated in the framework, all factors have a two-way impact on smart city initia-tives. The framework also reflects the differentiated levels of the impact. Three core factors (technology, management and organization, and policy) shape and form smart city initiatives. As well, smart city initiatives may lead to some change in the three factors. Smart city initiatives have a significant impact on various sides of a smart city (governance, people and communities, economy, natural environment, and built infrastructure). These are not only the aspects of outcomes made by smart city initiatives, but the components as contexts and conditions of localities also shape the characteristics of smart city initiatives.

Technology is considered one of core components of a smart city in practical research [START_REF] Dirks | Smarter Cities for Smarter Growth: How Cities Can Optimizes Their Systems for the Talent-Based Economy[END_REF][START_REF] Dirks | A Vision of Smarter Cities: How Cities Can Lead the Way into a Prosperous and Sustainable Future[END_REF][START_REF] Dirks | How Smart is Your City?: Helping Cities Measure Progress[END_REF], [START_REF] Giffinger | Smart Cities: Ranking of European Medium-Sized Cities[END_REF][START_REF] Giffinger | The Role of Rankings in Growing City Competition[END_REF], [START_REF] Washburn | Helping CIOs Understand[END_REF]. ICTs are a key driver of smart city initiatives [START_REF] Hollands | Will the Real Smart City Please Stand Up? Intelligent, Progressive or Entrepreneurial[END_REF]. Egovernment research offers knowledge of technology-related challenges government projects usually face. For example, Ebrahim and Irani's [START_REF] Ebrahim | E-government Adoption: Architecture and Barriers[END_REF] study of e-government adoption highlighted the challenges in using technologies for e-government projects. Notably, the lack of IT skills and (cross-) organizational (cultural and political) challenges are identified as main technological challenges instead of technical concerns.

Managerial and organizational factors do not draw much from smart city research, but instead the factors have been discussed in the extensive literature on egovernment and IT projects. Smart city initiatives may differ from general egovernment initiatives in the light of their specific focus on localities and strategic goals for making cities smarter. However, our previous paper [START_REF] Chourabi | Understanding Smart City Initiatives: An Integrative and Comprehensive Theoretical Framework[END_REF] suggested many commonalities between e-government or public sector IT projects and smart city initiatives. Gil-Garcia and Pardo's [START_REF] Gil-García | E-government Success Factors: Mapping Practical Tools to Theoretical Foundations[END_REF] research is worthy of attention. Managerial and organizational factors that influence e-government projects broadly comprise project size, managers' attitudes and behavior, organizational diversity, alignment of organizational goals, multiple goals, compliance to change, and perceived turf.

Policy context is important to understanding smart city initiatives. Nam and Pardo [START_REF] Nam | Smart City as Urban Innovation: Focusing on Management, Policy, and Context[END_REF] consider a smart city as innovation in policy and management as much as in technology. In the Smart City Initiatives Framework, the policy context comprises political components (the form of a city government, mayor-council and councilmanager type, and the relationships among key players such as mayor or city manager, council, and related agencies) and institutional components (law, regulation, code, and intergovernmental agreement). According to Mauher and Smokvina [START_REF] Mauher | Digital to Intelligent Local Government Transition Framework[END_REF], transformation from an ordinary (non-smart) to a smart city entails the interaction of technological components with political and institutional components.

There is an increasing need for better governance to manage initiatives or projects to make a city smart [START_REF] Griffith | Smart Governance for Smart Growth: The Need for Regional Governments[END_REF]. Some studies identify the importance of governance for a smart city in various contexts. According to Johnston and Hansen [START_REF] Johnston | Design Lessons for Smart Governance Infrastructures[END_REF], smart governance involves the implementation of processes with constituents who exchange information in accordance with rules and standards. Mooij [START_REF] Mooij | Smart Governance? Politics in the Policy Process in Andhra Pradesh[END_REF] emphasized a smart governance infrastructure that should be accountable, responsive, and transparent. Odendaal's [START_REF] Odendaal | Information and Communication Technology and Local Governance: Understanding the Difference between Cities in Developed and Emerging Economies[END_REF] case study found smart governance promotes collaboration, data exchange, service integration and communication. Giffinger et al.'s [START_REF] Giffinger | Smart Cities: Ranking of European Medium-Sized Cities[END_REF] model to assess European mid-sized smart cities views smart governance as a core of smart cities. In their model, smart governance represents citizen participation and transparent processes. Scholl et al. [START_REF] Scholl | E-commerce and Egovernment: How do They Compare? What Can They Learn from Each Other?[END_REF] identified stakeholder relations as one of critical gov-ernance factors to determine success and failure of e-government projects. The "stakeholder relations" factor includes the ability to cooperate among stakeholders, support of leadership, structure of alliances and working under different jurisdictions.

The Smart City Initiatives Framework includes four other components. The framework emphasizes both people and communities, because it is critical to refer to the members of a city, not only as individuals but also as communities, groups, and segments of the whole population that have their own wants and needs [START_REF] Chourabi | Understanding Smart City Initiatives: An Integrative and Comprehensive Theoretical Framework[END_REF]. Regarding the importance of people and communities, social and human capital is considered a core component of a smart city [START_REF] Giffinger | Smart Cities: Ranking of European Medium-Sized Cities[END_REF]. Smart city initiatives welcome residents to participate in the governance and management of a city. Urban economy is a major driver of smart city initiatives, and economic competitiveness is one of important properties of a smart city [START_REF] Dirks | Smarter Cities for Smarter Growth: How Cities Can Optimizes Their Systems for the Talent-Based Economy[END_REF][START_REF] Dirks | A Vision of Smarter Cities: How Cities Can Lead the Way into a Prosperous and Sustainable Future[END_REF][START_REF] Dirks | How Smart is Your City?: Helping Cities Measure Progress[END_REF], [START_REF] Giffinger | Smart Cities: Ranking of European Medium-Sized Cities[END_REF]. In turn, economic outcomes of smart city initiatives include business creation, job creation, talent attraction, workforce development, and retention, and improvement in productivity. In addition, smart city initiatives are forward-looking in terms of preserving and protecting the natural environment and improving and leveraging the built infrastructure [START_REF] Hall | The Vision of a Smart City[END_REF]. Thus, smart city initiatives have an impact on environment-friendly development, sustainability, and livability of a city.

Method

This paper focuses on four cities in North America: Philadelphia and Seattle in the United States, Quebec City in Canada, and Mexico City in Mexico. These cities are making critical efforts-through a variety of initiatives-to become smarter and more innovative. The cities range widely in terms of many conditions such as population, demographics, economy, and location, and thus smart city initiatives reflect differences in contexts and conditions around the cities' efforts toward becoming smarter. This study selects the four cities as research cases, but the unit of observation is a smart city initiative. The selection of cities and initiatives as cases for empirical research follows an information-oriented (not random but rather purposive) approach. Flyvbjerg [START_REF] Flyvbjerg | Five Misunderstandings about Case-study Research[END_REF] suggests four information-oriented strategies for case selection in qualitative case research: extreme/deviant case selection, maximum variation case selection, critical case selection, and paradigmatic case selection. This study is characterized as critical case selection, of which the logic is "if this is (not) valid for the case, then it applies to all (no) cases" [11, p.230]. The critical case selection approach allows for the collection of information that permits logical deductions. For this research, the four cities are used as selected cases for logical deduction. Interviews, based on the Smart City Initiatives Framework, were used to qualitatively understand concepts and factors that characterize smart city initiatives. We conducted semi-structured interviews with individuals who are responsible for projects and initiatives underway in each of the four cities. Table 1 briefly describes those initiatives. Interviewees were selected from various levels and functions, including executives (elected officials, chief executive officers, and chief information offic-ers), heads of departments or agencies that lead smart city projects or initiatives, project managers, team leaders, and technical experts. Through 39 individual and group interviews across the four cities in the second half of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012, we met and interviewed a total of 87 people. Interviews took place at their work site, and each session lasted approximately an hour. We used the interview protocol that we have jointly developed for the multina-tional research project, titled "Smart Cities and Service Integration." To ensure accuracy of data and minimize recall biases, all interviews were recorded and transcribed. Interview transcripts in Quebec City (French) and Mexico City (Spanish) were translated in English. We analyzed the interview data following an inductive logic approach and using grounded theory techniques. Using text coding and analysis tools (Atlas-ti, Dedoose), we systematically coded and analyzed the transcripts in an iterative process. The results of the analysis are presented without any identifiable personal information of individual interviewees and also without any identifiable information related to cities and initiatives. Table 2 lists the high-level interview questions while the actual interview protocol included a sizable number of sub-questions and items for probing. The interview questions are categorized into the components included in the Smart City Initiatives Framework.  What is the relationship between the initiative and the built infrastructure such as roads, bridges, power grid, water systems, etc? Natural environment  What is the relationship between the initiative and the city's natural environment?

Table 2. Interview Questions

Categories

Interview questions

Findings from the First-round Analysis

This section presents findings from our first-round of analysis of documents and interviews in terms of the eight areas of the Smart Cities Initiatives Framework. The data provide insights into each of those areas. Interviewees talked more about technology, management and organization, policy context, and governance, than the other areas. Those other areas are at times not directly related to the smart city initiatives that we focused on, but those initiatives have some also an impact on people and communities, economy, built infrastructure, and natural environment, and vice versa.

The interviews provided evidence that smart city initiatives are influenced and shaped by technology-related factors, managerial and organizational factors, the policy context, and the governance structure.

Technology

Across the cities a range of technologies are being used to implement smart city initiatives. Interviews revealed various opportunities and challenges of using technologies. Smart city initiatives involve adopting new systems. For example, a new enterprise project management system allows a city to track the scope, schedule, budget, and the overall situations from a portfolio standpoint. Some interviewees considered a single database system for a number of different government programs as crucial to integrating and sharing information. While these technological tools are emerging as essential back office systems, social media and smart phones are drawing attention from city managers of smart city initiatives that seek to improve front lines of municipal services. For instance, social media is broadly used to engage citizens and give them an opportunity to get feedback from them. City governments' attention to smart phones as a possible way to bridge a digital divide is growing, because an increasing number of people are using the Internet via smart phones. Various mobile services through short text messaging and smart phone applications include collecting requests for municipal services and sending residents alerts of city information. While city governments have such new opportunities from emerging technologies, traditional challenges around technologies in government still exist. All four different cities have recently experienced financially insufficient support stemming from budget constraints, which ultimately arise from the economy downturn. Some city governments lose human resource, particularly technology staff, and others miss an opportunity to update and upgrade technical systems that are pivotal to smart city initiatives. One interviewee emphasized the impact of "the right technology in the right time." Our findings bolster Ebrahim and Irani's [START_REF] Ebrahim | E-government Adoption: Architecture and Barriers[END_REF] claim that technological challenges of government IT projects are mostly organizational rather than technical in nature.

Management and Organization

Interviews suggest various managerial and organizational insights. Despite different organizational and interdepartmental settings across the four cities, the existence of a leading organization is common in quite a number of smart-city initiatives in our study. There are diverse organizational forms that lead a smart city initiative. One type is a committee, which has a strong authority to command and manage the initiative. In other cases, one particular city agency or department takes the lead to organize a smart city initiative. The agency or department plays an important role in linking with other related internal and external organizations and stakeholders. Another type appears as a collaborative structure, where any particular organization does not have a strong authority in decision making and project management.

There are some common characteristics across the various forms. The role of communication and interaction is central to managing and organizing smart city initiatives. The initiatives require interdepartmental collaboration and cooperation through sharing information, resources, and sometimes authorities. Interviewees recognize interdepartmental and interorganizational meetings as essential to proceeding smart city initiatives.

Smart city initiatives may result in change in organizational culture, and in turn cultural change in city government also may influence smart city initiatives. Many interviewees reported changes towards a more service-friendly and participative orientation in the organizational culture. The initiatives can change the way city departments do their businesses. Data and information is key to the cultural change. Public management is increasingly being driven by data and information. Public managers' decision making is informed by more accurate data that smart city initiatives provide. In addition, more data and information can open governmental internal processes to the public. For example, smart city initiatives in one city are considered an effective way to blocking corruption and favoritism. Interviewees viewed these changes consistently increase transparency, integrity, and accountability to a substantial extent.

Managers interviewed commonly stressed the role of the top management in envisioning a smart city and championing smart city initiatives. The executive support facilitates citywide and organizational commitment to the initiatives. Many interviewees also emphasized political support from elected officials.

An obvious managerial challenge indicated budgetary constraints because some initiatives have not been full-blown due to limited funding. However, interviewees viewed smart city initiatives as maintaining and even improving the quality of city services given insufficient financial support. In this sense, the practical meaning of a city's smartness refers to successfully achieving the city government's goals and objectives despite some unfavorable conditions.

Policy Context

Each city has different policy contexts, but there are some shareable findings across the four cities though the findings are not necessarily representative of common characteristics of all cities studied. In one city, interdepartmental agreements are considered as policy requirements for interdepartmental workings for smart city initiatives. The mutual agreements stipulate measurable service standards. Quite a few interviewees talked about policy directions made by the mayor or the city manager, respectively. Along with his or her strong support and championing of smart city initiatives, the mayor's policy directions shape the city's overall strategies to make it smarter. Various initiatives are formed in line with the mayor's and the incumbent administration's directions.

The mayor's political position also impacts policy directions that outline smart city initiatives. In one city, the mayor's administrative leadership does not belong to any political affiliation (independent). In other cities, the mayor's political affiliation may be one of the reasons for strong support for government-driven smart city initiatives from the public and groups.

Governance

There are diverse models for governance and thus different types of a governance body. The cases of the four cities showed there is no uniform governance model for smart city initiatives. Governance structures are embedded in all stages of any project: starting from conception of a smart city initiative, through initiation, through design, construction, and closeout (or maintenance in permanent projects). Participatory, hierarchical, and/or hybrid models are found in various initiatives. In one city, a steering committee has been formed by high authorities of multiple departments involving in a smart city project. The committee may support existing decisions or make a decision when the participatory structure of governance cannot reach consensus. Interviewees identified the committee system as hierarchical and effective for relatively swift decision making. In another city, there is no formal governance body for a smart city initiative, but regular interdepartmental meetings play as informal governance structure. In this case, the relationship among city departments is important to interdepartmental partnership for collaboration on their smart city initiative.

While these models represent internal (within government) governance, governance also means the interaction with external actors. Smart city initiatives often entail intersectoral as well as interagency collaboration. In addition, governments increasingly pay attention to citizen participation in decision making, monitoring city services, and providing feedback. An individual citizen and civic groups are important players in governance of smart city initiatives. Interviewees also see governance as stakeholder engagement. Since smart city initiatives are citywide movements, stakeholders of the initiatives include various actors such as governments in other jurisdictions, nonprofits, companies, schools, universities, and individual citizens.

People and Communities

Smart city initiatives in the four cities promote citizen and community engagement. One meaning of a city's smartness may be to better know citizens' wants and needs and their opinions. Many initiatives solicit their ideas and feedback on governmental efforts to make a city smart. One interviewee's comment is noteworthy: "We want to be able to use constituents as eyes and ears to tell us what's going on." Smart city initiatives are using mobile technology, social media, and other technology-enabled innovative solutions to enhance citizen participation in city governance. Community engagement changes the relationship between citizens and government. People are getting more involved in smart city initiatives because they know those initiatives have a great impact on the quality of their life.

Economy

Interviewees considered a smart city as a city that intelligently combines its resources to provide the best economic and social conditions. Some smart city initiatives aim at fostering economic growth and enhancing a city's competitiveness in local and global markets alike, by creating jobs and attracting skilled workforce. Smartness indicates using limited resources effectively because smart city initiatives should find more innovative ways and solutions in order to overcome economic challenges such as budget cuts and financial recession across countries. It was interesting to find that one city had looked beyond its boundaries and had actively teamed up with neighboring municipalities in order to make the entire region more competitive and attractive within the global context.

Built Infrastructure

We heard more about information and communication infrastructures than other physical infrastructures. Interviewees said IT infrastructures enable and facilitate various smart city initiatives. These information and communication infrastructures create capacity to deliver city services seamlessly to residents and businesses. In turn, some smart city initiatives aim to develop and further improve those infrastructures. As a case in point, in one city multi-agency efforts were underway to help build a smart power grid, which is capable of dramatically reducing the loss of energy and making the smart management of the entire power grid and its various sub-grids as well as individual buildings and households a reality.

Natural Environment

Interviewees had some opinions about conservation and sustainable development of the natural environment to ultimately improve the quality of life and create conditions as a livable city. The smart city initiatives that interviewees involve do not directly address issues of the natural environment, but some interviewees mentioned the impact of those initiatives on the natural environment as a larger context of a space for living. Cities are being socially responsible and striving to make various options available in order to be able to remain green and environmentally sustainable. Energy saving and environment protection are a tag for smartness in one city. A greener city or go green is included in the cities' strategic goals. Table 3 summarizes the findings discussed up to this point.

Table 3. Main Findings from the Interviews

Categories

Main findings Technology

 New technologies for back office functions are used for the initiatives.  Social media and smart phone are increasingly used for the initiatives.  The lack of staff and budgetary constraints are main challenges.

Future Research and Concluding Remarks

This study presented the findings from the first-round analysis of semi-structured interviews with government officials and managers in the four North American cities, with the reference to the Smart Cities Initiative Framework that the authors' previous paper [START_REF] Chourabi | Understanding Smart City Initiatives: An Integrative and Comprehensive Theoretical Framework[END_REF] created. The study does not compare among smart city initiatives and the four cities focused, but it builds a new understanding of smart city initiatives and suggests insights and lessons that cities can share with each other. The first-round findings reveal characteristics and challenges of smart city initiatives. Given budgetary pressures, financial constraints are main challenges in proceeding the initiatives. However, emerging technologies such as social media and mobile communication offer new opportunities to engage people in smart city initiatives. Smart city initiatives are changing organizational culture in some way. Datadriven and information-centric management enhances the level of transparency and accountability. Internal and external governance influences participatory and collaborative decision making related to smart city initiatives.

This study presents a first-round analysis of smart city initiatives and as such represents reconnaissance research. Future publications will focus on and discuss the investigated cases in fine detail. We will also add more smart city cases and practices around the world. At a later stage of our research we plan to perform a comparative study of smart city cases based on the data collected.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Smart City Initiatives Framework (Source: Chourabi et al., 2012)



  Description of initiatives  How did the initiative start?  What are the main goals of the initiative?  What organizations are involved and how? Technology  How are technologies being used for the initiative?  What are the barriers or challenges to using technologies for the initia-How is the initiative organized and managed?  What organizational challenges is the initiative facing in achieving its objectives? How are those challenges being overcome? Policy  What is the relationship between the initiative and the policy environment? Governance  How is the initiative governed?  What's the authority and role of staff, partners, and stakeholders?  How are citizens and other organizations involved in the initiative? People and communities  How does the initiative affect the population and communities of the city? Economy  What is the relationship between the initiative and the economy of the city? Built infrastructure



  The role of a leading organization is essential to the initiatives.  Managing the initiatives involves interdepartmental collaboration.organization The initiatives change organizational culture, and vice versa. The role of the top management and leadership is critically important.  Limited funding continues as a major challenge.Policy context Interdepartmental agreements shape the policy context of the initiatives.  The executives' policy directions shape policy context.Governance Various types of governance models and governance bodies exist.  Governance encompasses programmatic directions, budgetary and resource allocations, the interactions with external actors as well as internal partnerships with other departments and agencies.People and communities Smart city initiatives aim to better know people's wants and needs, involve citizens, businesses, and other stakeholders, and also improve the citizen-government relationship. Economy  Smartness in the context of urban economy indicates overcoming economic challenges, creating new jobs and businesses, and increasing regional attractiveness and competitiveness. Built infrastructure  Smart city initiatives develop information and communication infrastructures, and in turn those infrastructures promote smart city initiatives. Smart power grids and smart traffic control and steering are among such initiatives. Natural environment  Smart city initiatives help create desirable conditions for a livable and sustainable city by preserving and protecting the natural environment, which in turn increases the city's attractiveness and livability.

Table 1 .

 1 Selected Cities and Smart City Initiatives

	Cities	Smart city initiatives
	Philadelphia  Philly311: receiving non-emergency service and information requests
		 PhillyRising: revitalizing distressed neighborhoods
		 PhillyStat: meetings to review operation and strategic performance
	Seattle	 Seattle.gov portal with 20+ language support
		 data.seatle.gov (open data, open government)
		 Community Technology Planner
		 Equitable Justice Delivery System
		 Communities Online
		 Puget Sound-Off
		 Smart Grid
		 Automated Metering Infrastructure
		 Pacific Northwest Regional Demonstration Project
		 Fiber to the premise
		 GigU
		 Customer Relationship Model
		 Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)
		 Drainage and Waste Water System
		 Rain Watch Program
		 Field Operations Management System (FOMS)
		 Common Operating Picture
		 IT Cloud
		 Electronic Plan Review System
		 Digital Evidence Management System (DEMS)

Quebec City  Zap Quebec: providing Wi-Fi internet access  Text messaging service of snow cleaning information  Snow cleaning management project: providing sensors at each snow cleaning machine  Inter-cities network: connecting with major cities (100,000 population and more) of the province of Quebec  Mobile homepage: developing a mobile version of the city's website  Infrastructure management system: integrating different information systems to coordinate activities related to infrastructure management  Open data initiative: making city data open  Developing a new transportation plan Mexico City  AngelNet

Acknowledgement

This study is partially supported by a grant from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada and the home institutions of researchers in Canada, Mexico, and the United States: Université Laval, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, University of Washington, and the Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany. The authors want to thank the valuable help and support from all the members of the "Smart Cities and Service Integration Project" research team. The views and conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SSHRC or their home institutions.