Leadership and trust as key pillars in “smart governance” for inclusive growth in the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR): Evidence from South Africa

Abstract

∗The fourth industrial revolution (4IR) has brought many socioeconomic opportunities and challenges that demand that leadership in business, civil society and government develop innovative ways to leverage the opportunities while addressing the challenges. The 4IR demands that developing countries like South Africa strengthen “smart governance” to leverage these opportunities. Smart governance is key in unlocking the success of the 4IR. This interpretive case study of South Africa’s 4IR journey uses documents as the primary sources of data and explores the role smart governance can play in South Africa’s digital transformation in support of the goals of inclusive growth and transformation. In South Africa, leadership challenges, institutional weaknesses, loss of trust in government and poor collaboration has compromised initiatives aimed at stimulating socio-economic growth. The study proposes a model for smart governance in 4IR. The model identifies four pillars of smart governance in 4IR namely, (i) leadership and governance, (ii) integration, interoperability, and collaboration, (iii) trust and (iv) digital technologies and infrastructure. Of the four pillars, leadership and trust are identified as the main key pillars in smart governance in 4IR.