| Abstract [eng] |
The master 's thesis analyzes the smart coordination of the city, based on the example of Šiauliai city. The topic of the work was chosen taking into account its relevance, as smart cities are receiving more and more attention, however, the smart coordination is extremely important for the development of a smart city. Therefore, in order to increase the development of urban smartness in Lithuania, it is necessary to analyze in detail the different cases of urban coordination in order to identify the existing opportunities, gaps and directions for the improvement. The structure of the final work consists of 3 main parts: theoretical, methodological and empirical one. The theoretical part reveals the conceptual base of a smart city and its management, identifies the concept and features of the city’s smart coordination, reveals the good practice of foreign countries, integrating the concept of the smart coordination in foreign cities, and develops a theoretical conceptual model of the smart coordination of the city. The second part of the thesis presents in details the chosen research methodology and substantiates the research instruments. Qualitative approach and the following methods were chosen for the empirical study: content analysis of legal acts and strategic documents, PEST analysis, SWOT analysis and semi-structured interview. The results of the analysis of the research data revealed that the smartness of cities is one of the priority directions of development both in the EU and in Lithuania. However, despite the increasing focus on smartness, it is necessary to emphasize that the development of a smart city requires the smart coordination, which, as the PEST analysis has revealed, can be influenced by various external (political, technical, social, economic) factors. The SWOT analysis allowed to identify the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of Šiauliai city coordination, therefore it turned out that although Šiauliai city coordination has a number of strengths, there are still a number of weaknesses and threats, and also opportunities to take the full advantage of the potential of Šiauliai city coordination. The results of the semi-structured interview revealed that special attention is paid to the coordination in Šiauliai city. It is worth noting that the concept of the smartness of Šiauliai city started to be implemented only in 2019, and one of the biggest smart achievements of Šiauliai city is the establishment of the City Coordination Department. This unit has been formed on the basis of a good practice. The results of the research revealed that considerable progress has been made since the establishment of the City Coordination Division: technologies are implemented and developed, innovative solutions, communication and cooperation with all stakeholders (residents, business, public sectors) are improved, problems’ solving is improved , infrastructure quality, security of the society and the quality of public services are increasing. Nevertheless, the City Coordination Department faces some challenges to accelerate the development of the smartness: the incompatibility of existing information systems, limited budget, constraints on the regulatory framework, and the disproportionate nature of increasing tasks and stable capacity of human resources. Thus, it can be stated that although the city of Šiauliai has made great progress not only in the field of the smartness of the city, but also in the field of smart coordination. Šiauliai city still has a lot of untapped potential of smartness. |
