Table 1
Examples of events organized in the #Smarthalle according to the smart city areas captured by the smart city wheel (Smart City Hub, n. d.).
| Title | Host | Smart City Area |
|---|---|---|
| Smart metering – risks and opportunities | Municipal infrastructure | Smart environment |
| Share Gallen | Public administration | Smart economy |
| E-Health and active assisted living | Local business | Smart living |
| A digital tourism ambassador | Tourism organization | Smart mobility |
| E-banking support | Local bank | Smart people |
| Improving city life through open data | CDO in collaboration with a local business | Smart governance |
Table 2
Overview of the coding scheme, with the superordinate strategies and associated practices, the targeted stakeholder, and sample quotations.
| Legitimation Strategy (second-order theme) | Practice (first-order category) | Stakeholder (internal/external) | Sample Quotation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Create a vision of a smart city | Collecting ideas | External | “I get a lot of immediate feedback about what the citizens like and what they don’t like. That is important because I believe that this feedback can then be incorporated into our regular work.” |
| Promoting the smart city | External | “It has been noticed that the city of St. Gallen has a dynamic and innovative administration. It was a sign that we wanted to try something new.” | |
| Informing about the smart city | External | “We communicate to the citizens what the city is already doing and what it is planning in terms of becoming a smart city.” | |
| Mobilize allies for the smart city idea | Networking | Both | “The fact that we were able to build up a network of contacts with various providers and stakeholders helped us [the city administration].” |
| Collaborating | Both | “There are various companies or associations working in the smart city area. We described the project to them. That’s how it is. The Smarthalle would not have been possible without these institutions.” | |
| Make the smart city idea tangible | Working agilely | Internal | “We did not have time to formulate a concept first. There was time pressure; there was financial pressure. The organization was not set. The only thing that was fixed was the opening date on September 3rd. I think that accelerated things.” |
| Focusing on citizens | Internal | “They certainly brought openness with them. They became more open with that. They had the courage to sit in the same room with the citizens and do something. This is certainly an issue that I believe was important in the context of this experiment.” | |
| Testing the smart city concept | External | “There is a reason why we are not doing this digitally, but in an analogue way. In the Smarthalle, we wanted to make digitization a vivid and tangible experience.” |