aCCSC: Technology-Enabled Citizen-Centric Smart City Framework

In current citizen-centric smart city research, citizen participation and responsibility are emphasised, yet the role of technological elements remains theoretically under-specified. This study develops an adapted Citizen-Centric Smart City (aCCSC) framework by integrating technology enablement from the Social-Ecological-Technological Systems (SETS) perspective into the CCSC framework (Lim & Malek, 2022). Using Ipoh City Council (MBI) as the case study, data were collected via a structured questionnaire administered to 397 respondents. Descriptive analysis and SEM-PLS were employed to examine the effects of Citizen Participation (i.e., Participation Level, Participation Literacy, and Participation Cycle), Citizen Responsibility (i.e., Citizen Role, and Civic Attitude), and Technology Enablement (i.e., Digital Infrastructure, IoT, and Online Platform) on aCCSC. The results show that Participation Level (β = 0.299, p < 0.001), Participation Literacy (β = 0.268, p < 0.001), Civic Attitude (β = 0.179, p = 0.004), and Citizen Role (β = 0.143, p = 0.026) significantly influence aCCSC. In contrast, Participation Cycle, Digital Infrastructure, IoT, and Online Platform are not statistically significant as direct predictors of aCCSC. The model explains 46.4% of the variance in aCCSC (R² = 0.464). These findings reposition technology not as a primary driver, but as an enabling condition that supports and amplifies citizen-centric processes. The study contributes a rebalanced smart city framework that prioritises citizen-driven governance while systematically positioning technology as an enabling domain.