Defining Rural Smartness and Its Impact: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

The utilisation of information technology to facilitate “smartness” is considered as a promising approach to improve the rural economy. However, the explanation of how the adoption of smartness in rural areas can lead to an improvement in the citizen’s economic welfare is still lacking in current studies. This paper aims to formulate a theoretical model that explains the causal mechanism of smartness adoption in rural areas to contribute to the improvement of rural citizen’s economic welfare. To achieve this, we conducted a systematic literature review based on three research questions resulting in 119 selected articles, which we used to formulate a theoretical model. The proposed model posits that rural smartness has a mediating effect on the citizen’s economic welfare through its positive impact on the competitiveness and innovativeness of rural business entities. Additionally, the proposed theoretical model highlights the necessity of adopting a smart service platform, representing the IT artefact for smartness. We argue that the adoption of such a platform would have a significant moderating effect on the competitiveness and innovativeness of rural business entities. We also contribute a comprehensive set of candidate measures we extracted from the selected literature as operationalisation of the proposed model. In terms of contribution to practice, the proposed theoretical model can be used as the starting point to guide the diffusion of smartness in rural areas.

Rural smartness: Its determinants and impacts on rural economic welfare

“…To identify the resources and the process aspects of rural smartness (i.e., the other two key aspects mentioned in the urban smartness definition), we analyze characteristics of urban smartness that have been mentioned in the extant literature as having an economic contribution and might be also relevant for rural areas. For this, we refer to the results of the systematic literature review (SLR) study by Mukti et al (2021). We found four main characteristics of smartness that are expected to have positive impacts on the economic welfare of citizens in rural areas.…”

“…To formulate a rural smartness model: A theoretical model that explains the determinants of rural smartness, and its impact on economic welfare for people living in rural areas. The model we are proposing is grounded upon the following studies: the TOE framework by Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990), the service innovation framework by Lusch and Nambisan (2015), the business competitiveness index and the microeconomic foundation of prosperity by Porter et al (2007), and on the systematic literature study on rural smartness that has been carried out previously by Mukti et al (2021). 2.…”

“…This section is dedicated to a definition of the concept of rural smartness and to the theories and frameworks on which our rural smartness model is grounded. As mentioned earlier, our work rests on earlier research, as follows: the process-oriented framework of IT business value developed by Mooney et al (1996), the TOE framework by Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990), the service innovation framework by Lusch and Nambisan (2015), the business competitiveness index and the microeconomic foundation of prosperity by Porter et al (2007), and on the systematic literature study on rural smartness that has been carried out previously by Mukti et al (2021). In the remainder of this section, these are briefly explained and their relevance for rural smartness is made explicit.…”

“…On the other hand, we used the concept of service ecosystem and the microeconomic foundation of prosperity to identify the variables that mediate the impact of rural smartness on economic welfare improvement. Next to these foundational theories, we also use relevant articles based on a systematic literature study by Mukti et al (2021) to define indicators of the variables included in the model.…”

“…Table 1 presents their formal definition and their indicators. The indicators (and the instrument development process) are the result of the SLR included in Mukti et al (2021), which identified the challenges occurring during the adoption and diffusion of smartness in rural areas from the perspective of the TOE. We argue that by being ready to overcome these challenges, we can increase the likelihood of realizing rural smartness.…”