Platform Business Models for Smart Cities: From Control and Value to Governance and Public Value

This article presents a theoretical framework for the analysis of platform business models that involve public actors, and city governments in particular, in the value network. It starts from an established business model framework and expands it to include an additional set of parameters required to successfully perform an analysis of the business models of new (mostly digital) services offered by cities. It then applies this framework to several divergent cases from the mobile services sector in which city governments are involved as part of their efforts to become "smarter cities."