Collaborative ecosystems for Smart City development: the case of B-Smart Famalicão

Public–private and multi-actor collaboration has become increasingly relevant to Smart City development, particularly where municipalities seek to combine public capabilities with external knowledge, technological expertise, and resources. This study examines the collaborative configuration of a Smart City initiative through an exploratory qualitative case study of B-Smart Famalicão, Portugal. The study draws on documentary analysis and a semi-structured interview with a key informant from the Municipality of Vila Nova de Famalicão. The findings identify a collaborative ecosystem involving the municipality and a range of private, associative, technological, and institutional actors, although the perspectives of these actors are not directly captured through interviews. The evidence suggests that collaboration in B-Smart combines contractual, relational, and network-based forms of coordination rather than corresponding exclusively to a conventional contractual public–private partnership. The case also indicates, based on the municipal account and supporting documentation, a prominent coordinating role for the municipality in connecting actors, facilitating experimentation, and aligning external contributions with public objectives. The findings further highlight the relevance of local embeddedness, stakeholder complementarity, knowledge sharing, and public control over strategically relevant resources and data. Rather than establishing a general model of hybrid governance, the study illustrates how different modes of collaboration may coexist within a Smart City initiative and identifies associated challenges concerning accountability, data governance, coordination, and the balance between collaborative flexibility and public responsibility. The study contributes to the literature by providing an empirically grounded illustration of multi-actor collaboration in Smart City development and by identifying governance mechanisms that warrant further investigation through comparative and multi-stakeholder research.