How to manage a smart city brand image, taking into account residents’ perspective?

The objective of this paper is to assess the impact of brand values and their components on smart city brand image (SCBI) from the residents’ perspective. The authors want also to formulate recommendations regarding the management of a smart city brand image in cooperation with inhabitants. Today, smart city branding is an important aspect of public management because it can facilitate better engagement with citizens, leading to a more successful implementation of public authorities’ initiatives and consequently to smart city development. The research was conducted on 250 French respondents and a selfadministered questionnaire was the research tool. This study makes it possible to indicate values and their components creating the smart city’s brand image to properly manage a smart city brand in cooperation with inhabitants. We confirmed the positive impact of smart (SV), functional (FV), and emotional (EV) values on a smart city’s brand image from the residents’ perspective. Considering together the importance of these three categories of values for building the smart city’s image, it should be noticed that on the first place, there are the smart values followed by the functional and emotional ones. The smart city’s brand image is changing with residents’ time living in a city. The longer residents live in the city, the stronger particular values impact a smart city’s brand image. Taking into account the relational and participatory nature of the city’s brand management, citizens – who have lived in a city for a long time or since birth – can be more involved in the cities. Research results concerning French citizens can provide references for other countries. The results of the study contribute to both the theory of city branding and smart city management as a part of modern public management. From the managerial perspective, our findings can be useful for smart cities’ authorities in the management of the smart city brand.