Smart City Construction and Knowledge Co-creation Among Companies in Different Industries—Based on the Example of Panasonic’s Fujisawa SST Project

The influx of population into cities is a global trend, and as a result, cities face a variety of challenges. This means problems such as deteriorating public safety, chronic traffic congestion, increased carbon dioxide emissions, and lack of community. Smart cities are next-generation cities that take on these challenges through the use of ICT and aim to be sustainable cities. These construction projects are currently underway in many parts of the world. This paper focuses on a smart city project being promoted by Panasonic, a major Japanese electronics manufacturer, analyzes the actual situation of co-creation by participating companies from various industries, and presents an original model of the knowledge creation process through co-creation. This model represents the knowledge creation process in seven stages: exploration, fluctuation, synchronization, concentration and distribution, fusion, trajectory, and convergence. Furthermore, this paper shows that for such a knowledge creation process to function, it is important that the institutional design of the co-creation between companies in different industries entails it implicit relationships.