Smart Economy Implementation in Supporting SMEs Growth: Case Study in Indonesia & Malaysia Smart Cities

Implementing Sustainable Smart Cities (SSC) has garnered significant attention to enhance urban development. Numerous studies have taken technical and non-technical characteristics into account to better control smart cities' growth. There is numerous research about smart city indicators (critical success factor and constraint factor) and smart economy key performance indicators, but still a lack of research about the implementation of Smart Economy to support SMEs' growth. To address this issue, this study aims to fill this gap by employing structural equation modelling (SEM) to identify the characteristics of a smart economy, the constraints on implementing a smart economy, and the critical success factors (CSFs) for implementing a smart economy to support SME's growth). In correlation analysis between smart economy policies' implementation of SMEs growth stated that the hypothesis testing results show that competitive industrial ecosystem, competitiveness, regional business branding, innovation, and welfare on SME's growth is accepted. Meanwhile, the significant moderating effect of SME's participation and smart economy socialisation in the relationship of smart economy components on SME growth is also accepted.