Understanding Factors and Mechanisms for Collaborative Governance Based on Smart Technologies

New information technologies have brought about marvelous changes to public service and social governance. In increasing numbers of smart city projects, collaboration and public private partnerships (PPPs) are a critical issue that both practitioners and academics have paid close attention. The collaborative leadership perspective is important to understanding PPP practices because a single organization does not have all of the features that leadership competencies require in the new context. Therefore, this study proposes a theoretical model that considers both the static factors and dynamic mechanisms for adapting to urban development driven by technological innovations to explain how core organizations act as leaders in multi-party collaborations in ongoing smart city projects. Through two most-different smart urban service cases in Shanghai and Beijing, we try to provide a clearer picture based on the model that describes how two dynamic mechanisms of leadership, catalyzing innovation and controlling conflicts, influence the fundamental static factors of leadership in the core organization during collaboration. The practical implications for both the public and social sectors also are discussed in this paper.