Governance, quality of life and city performance: A study based on artificial intelligence

Abstract The purpose of this study is to analyse the joint influence of several good governance variables (e-government, transparency and reputation) and quality of life (QoL) on the performance of Spanish cities. Using objective data with a time lag, this study employed artificial intelligence (AI) and the Konstanz Information Miner (KNIME) open-source tool platform to test the proposed model. The results of this study indicate that the city’s performance − measured by the employment ratio − is largely explained by good governance resources (e-government, transparency and reputation) and quality of life (QoL). The findings of this study contribute to fill the gap of studies that analyse the effect of city governance resources and QoL on city performance. Furthermore, they support the premises of the resource-based view (RBV) theory employing a novel methodology. The results of the study also provide important clues for city governments that want to improve and/or maintain the performance of their cities.