A Collaborative and Distributed Decision Support System for the Governance of an Intelligent City

Purpose- The paper aims to present a collaborative and distributed model of a decision support system (DSS) as tool for the governance of an urban context according to the principles of an Intelligent City. The proposed model is centered and inspired to the open innovation (Chesbrough, 2006), user-driven innovation (Prahalad et al., 2008; Prandelli et al., 2008), and collective intelligence (Kim, et al., 2011; Atlee et al., 2006). In this perspective, the proposed model highlights the crucial role played by Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) as emerging structures for the smart configuration of a city (Komninos, 2011, 2008). By concentrating the analysis and the discussion on the collaborative and distributed governance of intelligent cities, the proposed study offers: - an integrative perspective of intelligent city based on a review of the main issues related to, with a specific attention to the governance processes; - a holistic view and a collaborative and distributed decision making model for city governance, which gives much more relevance to knowledge assets of the community of stakeholders rather than to the physical infrastructures. Design/methodology/approach - based on a constructive and qualitative review of the literature and the analysis of some representative cases, the paper intends to organize the existing contributions to design a collaborative and distributed decision support system for the governance of an intelligent city. The model is also cross-validated by using researcher feedback. Originality/value - A first element of originality is related to the actuality of the issues debated, and concerning Intelligent Cities, Knowledge and Innovation Communities, Open and User-driven approaches to innovation, and Collective Intelligence. In particular, by presenting the collaborative and distributed decision support system as tool for the effective governance of a smart city, the paper provides a valuable synthesis of the complexity of the Intelligent Cities phenomenon by adopting an interdisciplinary approach. A further original element is represented by the focus on the KICs model as an emerging field in the European debate on the process of socio-economic growth, and presented in the work as a model to address the creation of a community of innovators enabling the transition of a city toward an intelligent configuration. Practical implications - The paper presents interesting implications both for the agenda of scientists and policy makers. In particular, for what concerns the first aspect, the distributed and collaborative DSS model that is proposed may be largely exploited and contextualized in an urban space. Each component could be further deepened and reciprocal relationships can be identified and investigated. By allowing to test the goodness of the model proposed, this is expected to provide evidences on the validity of the collective intelligence, open and user-driven approaches to the innovation, not only in corporate context, but also in the territorial one. In the meantime, the study offers to the decision makers a comprehensive view of an intelligent city, increasing their capacity of balancing the respect of the technical parameters with the satisfaction of the needs and expectations of stakeholders.