Conceptually Related Smart Cities Services from the Perspectives of Governance and Sociotechnical Systems in Europe
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper provides an important contribution addressing the absence of a smart city governance model, and identifying the characteristics of smart cities service implementation from governance and socio-technical systems perspectives based on stakeholder partnerships and the application of social network analysis. In this respect 3 objectives are identified including clarification of the characteristics of services evolution of smart cities, demonstration of the the different phases of development of services according to different stakeholder partnerships, and to identify connected services and stakeholders. The paper is well researched and referenced and communicates a complex landscape of smart city governance and socio-technical systems in European cities in a satisfactory manner. One significant reservation concerns the assertion in concluding that the findings of this study can inform decision-making regarding services development and contribute to the development of new smart cities by creating a smart city governance model with multifaceted, multidisciplinary and multi-level systems of stakeholders sectors and services. This can be accepted in respect of the theoretical discourse on the subject, but it's far from clear what practical contributions, as claimed can arise from this work. This is a limitation and does not serve to meet the urgent requirement in respect of operationalisation of the government's model and the provision of pragmatic specifications of the most effective ICT Investments to be made in decision making process addressing the grand challenges for Europe and global cities in meeting political commitments regarding climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Author Response
Dear editor and reviewer,
It is much appreciated your sophisticated and careful comments and suggestions. We are glad that the feedback was helpful in taking a deeper look into the practical contribution of European smart cities based on the theoretical background and findings presented in the paper. Although there are some descriptions regarding connected services between waste and energies to adapt to emerging urban challenges written in Lines 500-516, this study does not serve to meet the urgent requirement in respect of the operationalization of the government's model and the provision of pragmatic specifications of the most effective ICT Investments to be made in decision-making process addressing the grand challenges for Europe and global cities in meeting political commitments regarding climate change mitigation and adaptation. Further research compensates for this issue by conducting qualitative in-depth research on the fields through the projection of significant challenges confronting European and global megacities. In this sense, we add your comments like the above statements to the study limitation and further study in Lines 711-717. Again, it is grateful to get a detailed review and comment from the distinguished researcher.
Sincerely,
Nammi Kim and Seungwoo Yang.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper addresses an interesting topic. This is a well-written paper which can bring a relevant contribution to the field.
Some minor comments:
Smart City has become a topic well-researched in terms of institutional policy and promoted by various actors, from local to national governments. In this paper, there are no critical views in terms of the neo-liberalization of urban governance.
-More explanation of the criteria used to select three cities /cases would be useful
-Figure 1 is too large and could be resized.
-Lines 346. Remove the final letter ~e~ from the reference Radulescu..
-The reference to Kim and Yang (2023) seems overrated in the paper.
Author Response
Dear editor and reviewer,
It is much appreciated your sophisticated and careful comments and suggestions. Especially, the critical view in terms of the neo-liberalization of urban governance explains the uprising importance of multistakeholder partnerships in smart city development. We kindly ask you to refer to the added one in Lines 598-609. Meanwhile, we added Table 1 organizing the entire list of cities of the study population, cities that resulted from the first and second screening processes, and the final European cities. It was originally published in Kim and Yang (2023)’s study published by MDPI so we note the sources at the bottom of the table accordingly. As you mentioned for Figure 1, we scale it as shown in Lines 284-285, and revised the author’s name based on the commented reference. We also agreed that the reference to Kim and Yang (2023) is overrated in the paper due to the data sources and the similar study aim. We have revised the references to Kim and Yang (2023) in the paper to make it look more natural by using pronouns instead. Once again, thank you for providing us with a detailed review and valuable feedback.
Sincerely,
Nammi Kim and Seungwoo Yang.
Reviewer 3 Report
indicate the reasons for undertaking the scientific effort, i.e. they put forward a research hypothesis that there is a lack of a comprehensive model of smart city management (10).
Since three groups of research results are specified (clarify the characteristics of services, demonstrate the different phases and identify connected services and stakeholders) and the contribution to scientific cognition is emphasized, the requirements of the IMRaD standard for scientific publications have been met. The correctness of the Abstract is accompanied by the accuracy of the selection of Keywords.
The article has a very good structure and is characterized by maintaining the right proportions of individual parts. Already in "Introduction" (27-98) the "background" of the issue was outlined and the perception of modern smart urban ecosystems was presented in a clear and orderly way. This most appropriate holistic approach will steer all considerations undertaken by the authors in the article. At the same time, a division of the scientific narrative process into 6 clear and fully approved sections was outlined. In section "2. Literature Review” (99-265) focused on the issue of “conceptually related smart cities”, presenting the nature of the complexity of the system, its multidimensionality and indicating that by identifying “cognitive gaps”, “immanent features” of stakeholder partnership systems and “cause and effect relationships” related to with sustainable services, the assumptions of the smart city management model can be developed (261-264). It is logical to go to section "3. Materials and Methods” (266-393), in which Figure 1 Study Framework (291) presents the research algorithm and the cognitive instruments used in an extremely transparent and mature way. In section "4. Results" (394- in Table 1 (425) one can find an in-depth analysis for representative three cities extended by Periodic Matrix Taxonomy (Fig.2) (433). An interesting synthesis is Services' Weighted Degrees - Tab. 2 (457-458), which leads to Tab. 3 (521) Services Development depending on Partnerships. These are the results of the research process, expanding the area of perception of "driving forces" for services provided by endogenous smart cities (based on the type and strength of the partnership). The culmination of the process is section “5. Discussion” (559-644). In the last section "6. Conclusions” (645-701) confirmed the continuation of previously undertaken research, at the same time indicating the expansion of the cognitive field. Rather unnecessarily, the "research goals" already visible in the Introduction were repeated, more one could expect the projection of "new research areas" (and goals).
The list of references shows an impressive number of as many as 122 bibliographic items relevant to the issues discussed and well used in the text, which is why the theoretical basis of the article is very strong.
The article was very well prepared both formally and, above all, methodically. The content has a great cognitive value, is organized and legibly presented in the form expected for this type of scientific statements. It fully meets the review criteria.
Author Response
Dear editor and reviewer,
We appreciate your sophisticated and meticulous comments on every section and line. In particular, it was beneficial to reflect on the recurring research goals in both the introduction and method sections. We rephrase them in the method section in a descriptive manner as the research questions and goals are necessarily explained in both sections. We are grateful that you have recognized these goals as new research areas for developing smart city governance models, and we have appropriately mentioned them in the corresponding Line 86. Thank you once again for providing us with such a thorough review and valuable insights, which we highly appreciate.
Sincerely,
Nammi Kim and Seungwoo Yang.
