Governance indicators and Smart City innovation: Lessons from Brazil's urban ecosystems

This study analyzes how local manager actors in Brazil manage governance indicators within innovation ecosystems to advance Smart City development. Adopting a qualitative, exploratory design, the research analyzed interviews with local public managers and ISO certification experts, alongside document analysis. Thematic coding was conducted using ATLAS.ti, supported by collaborative governance frameworks and ISO standards (ISO 37120, 37122, and 37123), revealing key divergences in governance priorities between local managers, who emphasized technical knowledge and resource availability, and experts, who prioritized transparency and participatory processes. These divergences illustrate how conflicting priorities shape decision-making processes, often resulting in fragmented governance arrangements. The results also indicated a lack of integrated monitoring systems and dashboard tools to track governance metrics effectively, constraining collaborative decision-making. Governance practices were found to be heavily reliant on intuition and lacking institutionalized mechanisms for stakeholder engagement. The findings contribute to advancing theoretical and practical understanding of innovation governance in urban contexts, particularly in the Global South, offering strategic insights for municipalities aiming to align with international Smart City standards. • Reveals diverging governance priorities between local public managers and ISO experts in Brazil's Smart City innovation. • Identifies a critical absence of integrated monitoring tools and data-driven practices, leading to fragmented decision-making. • Highlights how local contexts create an “implementation-expectation gap” for international governance standards. • Offers practical and theoretical insights for urban innovation governance in emerging economies.