Mind the gap: smart cities as entrepreneurial ecosystems?

• Main Author: Santos, Domingos
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: eng
• Source: Repositórios Científicos de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP)
• Download full: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.11/7367
• topic: Smart City; Entrepreneurial ecosystem; Urban policy; Entrepreneurship; Innovation policy

The concept of the smart city gained increasing expression and has become an intensely discussed field in the recent past among, either the research community, either the political stakeholders. In this paper, the importance of deepening the understanding about smart cities entrepreneurial ecosystems is explored. This involves working on existing knowledge about smart cities but extending its application to entrepreneurship and innovation. This paper aims, first, to contribute to shed light on the meaning of the word smart in the context of urban developmentthrough an approach based on an in-depth literature review of pertinent studies and then, to establish the links with the determinants of entrepreneurship that can help guide more effective urban development policies. Furthermore, the paper underlines the critical importance of being innovative and entrepreneurial in the approach for smart cities, aiming to deepen and improve policy-making on the subject of promoting entrepreneurial mindsets and contexts, speculating on some principles and guidelines that may help fertilize urban dynamics and build smarter cities. The entrepreneurial ecosystem concept has potentialities that may enable smart cities to adopt more profound and structural broad spectrum strategies to respond to competitiveness urban challenges.