In this paper, we explore sustainability in the context of strategic management of cities. The paper advances understanding about the conceptualization of sustainability and how sustainability discourses might matter for the formulation and implementation of city strategies. The research question directing our study is: How is the concept of sustainability understood in the strategic management of cities and what kinds of implications this might have for sustainability transition?

Despite the crucial role of local government, and public administration, in the sustainability transition, previous research on sustainability in PM, PA and local government studies is limited and has not yet become a key research focus (Fiorino 2010, Zeemering 2018). However, promoting sustainability is fundamentally an issue of management and governance (Dinica 2018; Zeemering 2018).

Our article builds on the idea highlighted in previous research on strategic management that what truly matters in succeeding to achieve strategic goals, is how strategies are formulated (George et al. 2020). In addition, we build on the notion of the special nature of public sector as a context of strategic management emphasizing the role of politicians and the public in strategic management (Joyce 2015).

We address sustainability as a strategic management issue for cities by combining two conceptual approaches. First, we open up sustainability as a challenge for cities and their management (e.g., Hawkins et al. 2021). Second, we examine city strategies as policy documents, discursive governance devices and management tools. Building on the thinking of Kornberger (2012), we consider city strategies as socio-political practices that shape cities and societies. Furthermore, in our research, city strategies are seen as management tools and practices that can be used to address sustainability concerns (Kornberger & Carter 2010), as well as performative devices that aim at transforming their objects (Kornberger & Clegg 2011).

The empirical part of the article consists of a document analysis of the city strategies of the 21 biggest cities of Finland (all the Finnish cities with more than 50 000 inhabitants). Employing frame analysis, we identify how sustainability is framed in the strategies and assess how does the concept potentially steer the cities in sustainability transition.

The article contributes to the still scarce research literature on strategic management of sustainability in cities by providing new information and broadening the understanding of sustainability as a strategic management issue in cities. Our study extends previous research by shedding light on city strategies as tools for sustainability management. The article aims to advance our understanding of the use and dimensions of the concept of sustainability in the strategic management of cities. It also contributes to the understanding of how different interpretations of sustainability guide the formulation of city strategies and, consequently the management. In addition, the knowledge generated by our article helps city officials and elected representatives to understand the role, opportunities and challenges of city strategies in promoting sustainable development.

The recent developments of several user-friendly tools using weak artificial intelligence (AI) sparkled several debates about the consequences of widespread use of this technology.

In the VUCA methodology this is a Volatile situation, in which the environment changes faster than the organizations can adapt to it, and therefore this requires a Vision on how to incorporate and to transform the challenge into opportunities.

This article explores some of the challenges on how this wave of creative destruction will create millions of jobs requiring new skills and new tools which aren’t ready for the average user yet to master. This challenge is similar to what happened forty years ago when microcomputers were introduced.

Also this technological revolution will be full of dilemmas summarized by the FATES acronym. This means that widespread use of AI will bring problems and challenges in terms of Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, Ethics and Safety/Security.

Although those challenges aren’t easy to solve, on the other hand a widespread use of AI can benefit public management with the coming of age for Public organizations, Smart cities, Smart governments, and Hybrid Intelligence management.

In this sense public policies can be improve by a faster and more efficient cycle of competitive intelligence, that is, data collection, analysis, decision support and cybersecurity. In order for this cycle to reach its maximum potential new predictive and prescriptive models need to be developed in healthcare, education, city management, public security, transportation, environmental management and other public policies.

Public services can be widespread through the use of smartphones and tablets. Since their use is reaching nearly all the population this can create a capillarity that physical agencies cannot reach. This can reduce costs at the same time that improves security.

Financials services provided either by central banks, governmental banks or private banks can facilitate access to credit in order to reduce inequality, and improve small scale entrepreneurship. Some tools for that include CBDC (Central Bank Digital Coins),non-bank payment services, and P2P lending. All those tools can be extremely improved by weak AI.

Strategic Public Management will have to focus on how to solve those dilemmas and to maximize the speed of incorporation. Instead of resisting this revolution Public management must catalyze it and regulate it.

To address global crises such as global warming there is an urge for common policies at the European Union level, which affects the member states actions. The new EU regulations force the latest ideas into the agenda of the policy of member states. The need for implementation of a policy creates pressure on both the national, regional, and local levels.

The transition of the EU regulations from the national to the local level is conducted by the regional government, which creates regional development strategies. These documents determine the directions of activities for local government units. The key question concerns the issue of how this process of dissemination and adaptation to a new idea takes place.

The aim of the research is to figure out the ways of implementing EU recommendations – on the example of the implementation of the circular economy (CE) idea – to the strategies of the regions. We use institutional isomorphism as the theoretical framework to name and interpret actions taken by local governments as part of the implementation of CE development in regions. We chose Poland because regional development strategies (2020-2021) have recently been adopted and CE is one of the main narratives in the new economic policy and the EU's way of mitigating the climate crisis. We analyzed sixteen regional strategies using codes (categories) derived from coercive, mimetic, and normative mechanisms explaining institutional isomorphism (Arranz et al., 2022). The findings prove that there is great variation in the types of isomorphisms present and their manifestations. The dominant one is a normative isomorphism, but it does not occur in its pure form but in combination with coercive and mimetic isomorphisms. Thus, the pressure to incorporate an idea developed by the EU into strategic action is not only due to identification with this idea by the incorporating actor. Often this is due to the recognition of the legitimacy of the lobbyist (EU pressure) or the desire to follow good examples. The research further fills a gap in the method of using isomorphism to study regional administration adaptation.

Cluj-Napoca is the second biggest municipality in Romania (after Bucharest, the capital) and one of the European cities with the fastest economic development. This rise, increasingly evident in the last 10 years, was underpinned by the two strategy development plans (2007-2013 and 2014-2020) coordinated by the College of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences.

The IT sector in the city is one of the main drivers of this economic growth. One of the two IT clusters in Cluj-Napoca estimates that 1 in 11 employees in the city works in a company that can be defined as part of the” knowledge based economy” (KBE). Thus, it is no surprise that digitalization is one of the chief concerns of both the local government and the businesses in Cluj. The need for a comprehensive plan for the digital transformation of the community became more evident in the last 5 years.