Making Indian cities smart: Framing incongruencies and reconciliation

© 40th International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2019. All rights reserved. Smart cities aim to utilize information technologies to improve efficiency and effectiveness of urban infrastructure and service delivery, and to advance the agenda of sustainability. Smart cities typically involve a variety of stakeholders with diverse agendas. In this study, we seek to explore incongruencies in stakeholder perspectives and identify how these are negotiated and reconciled. We examine the evolution of a smart city initiative in Bhubaneswar, an Indian city, over a three-year period, focusing on the divergence of stakeholder perspectives. We draw upon Technological Frames of Reference theory in identifying framing incongruencies present in the city's foundational frames. We understand these through the underlying frameworks of archetypal core constitutive values. We delineate mechanisms used to reconcile the incongruencies through building a shared foundational frame, boundary spanning, perspective seeking and cultural adaptation of technology-in-use. The study has implications for deliberately designed mechanisms that can aid inversion and negotiation of incongruent frames.