Smart City as a Catalyst for Enterprise Development

This article examines how smart cities can act as catalysts for enterprise development by integrating technological, infrastructural, governance and human capital dimensions into a coherent urban innovation ecosystem. Drawing on an extensive literature review, the study first conceptualizes smart cities as adaptive systems that combine physical infrastructure, digital data layers, and institutional frameworks, creating conditions for knowledge spillovers, entrepreneurial opportunities, and business model innovation. Empirically, the research is based on an expert survey conducted among 54 specialists from academia, business, and public administration, who assessed the importance of technological, infrastructural, governance, innovation ecosystem, and human capital factors for enterprise development in the context of smart cities. The results suggest that advanced digital technologies, smart infrastructure, open data, R&D support, startup programs and talent development are perceived by experts as key, mutually complementary drivers of firms’ innovation, efficiency, sustainable growth, and competitiveness, with notable differences between expert groups. On this basis, the study proposes a synthetic model of relationships and impact pathways linking smart city components with enterprise outcomes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the study’s limitations, related to the expert-based, country-specific, and perceptional character of the data, and outlines directions for further quantitative and qualitative research on the firm-level effects of smart city development.