Making sense of variety in place leadership: the case of England’s smart cities

Alyson Nicholds, John Gibney, Chris Mabey, Dan Hart

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Citations (Scopus)
254 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Making sense of variety in place leadership: the case of England’s smart cities. Regional Studies. There is rising interest in cities becoming ‘smart’ knowledge-oriented economies by prioritizing more digitally enabled modes of production and service delivery. Whilst the prevalence of these new organizational forms is well understood, the way that leadership agency is exercised (i.e., the actors involved and their modalities of action) is not. Drawing on new empirical data and sense-making methodology, the paper reveals discursive patterns in how public agencies, private firms and communities ‘see’ and ‘do’ leadership within these place-based contexts, and concludes that success in exploiting the social and spatial dynamics of ‘smart’ development lies in understanding actors’ assumptions about commercial and social gain.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)249-259
JournalRegional Studies
Volume51
Issue number2
Early online date17 Nov 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017

Keywords

  • smart city
  • leadership
  • place
  • knowledge
  • Urban and Regional Development
  • sense making

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