Towards a service-dominant platform for public value co-creation in a smart city: Evidence from two metropolitan cities in China

Providing, integrating and improving efficient public service in the construction of 'smart cities' in metropolitan areas have been showed to be difficult to achieve. In this article, we propose a strategy for developing service dominant platforms with the advancement of ICT and more internet enterprises initiatives. We use the concept of SDP (service dominant platform) as a key contributor in a smart city's construction to explain how value can be co-created during the formation and evolution of the platform. Drawing on case materials from a Business oriented platform named WeChat in Guangzhou and a government-oriented one in Shanghai, an analytic framework on platform and service innovation-relevant theories are built around the dynamic cyclical value co creation, and three elements are identified in this process defined as value proposition, value in exchange and value in use, which consist of ten sub-elements on different SDPs along four dimensions, namely openness, services innovation, governance and resource. The study makes three contributions. First, it provides new evidence that pursuing smart city construction is not a mere technological architecture but a value co-creation oriented strategy. While facing persistent problems, China's paths exhibit significant and rapidly improving readiness for it. Second, the study provides new insights into, by positively bridging the linkage between platform governance and service innovation and proposing the service dominant platform (SDP) as a clear sustainable strategy. Finally, the study proposes two different resources-based models for guiding smart city initiatives in developing countries. By providing theoretical concepts to support public service innovation, identifying some implications for smart city developed in emerging countries, and suggesting some operational approaches to co-creating value against the local context, this paper has made a meaningful theoretical and practical significance about smart city.