Urban entrepreneurship and sustainable businesses in smart cities: Exploring the role of digital technologies

The entrance of sustainable and digital technologies into urban entrepreneurship is a new approach that provides a fertile ground for innovation in businesses. Hence, businesses use new models and methods of entrepreneurship in the context of smart cities to increase their capability and become more sustainable, which leads to their development and expansion. This research aims to investigate the effects of urban entrepreneurship on sustainable businesses in smart cities considering the role of digital technologies. The statistical population of this study is all active technology-based firms located in Tehran in 2022. Then, according to Cochran's formula, 315 firms were selected randomly as the sample. This research is an applied and descriptive-survey research and is quantitative in terms of the type of collected data. The data were analysed using Smart PLS 3 software, structural equation modelling (SEM), and the partial least squares methods. As a result, research findings show that urban entrepreneurship creates and develops the studied firms in both quantitative and qualitative aspects by using and benefiting from digital technologies considering the new needs of cities and achieving business sustainability in smart cities.