Citizen empowerment and satisfaction with smart city app: Findings from Jakarta

Abstract Despite the significant strides we have made in smart city research, two questions remain untackled. First, what is the role of smart city App in supporting citizen empowerment? Second, if smart city app empowers citizens, what specific features or characteristics of the App are critical drivers of empowerment and the subsequent satisfaction? To answer these two questions, we develop a theoretical framework based on empowerment theory. We argue that smart city app artifacts are linked to citizens’ psychological, social, and political empowerment, and empowerment, in turn, shapes citizens' satisfaction with both the smart city technology and government. Using Jakarta's smart city app Qlue as the research context, we explore how Qlue enhances citizens' empowerment based on survey data from 358 users. The results verified that the app's IT artifacts, especially external properties such as addressability, sensibility, communicability, and associability, play a crucial role in citizen empowerment, leading to higher psychological, social, and political empowerment. Internal properties are related to psychological empowerment only, giving citizens more feelings of control with its programmability, traceability, and memorability features. Empowered citizens, in turn, are generally more satisfied with both the App and the government.