This master thesis is concerned with the emerging concept of open data and how it functions as an enabler of sustainable smart city solutions. We borrow the concept of maturity from the field of Enterprise Architecture (EA) to describe the level of willingness among smart city actors to open up data and the level of their open data understanding. We want to find out how to create a conceptual model for assessing open data mindset maturity of a smart city ecosystem, which normatively can function as a guideline for relevant actors. A grounded theory methodology is used to incrementally construct knowledge and end up with verified theory.

Empirical data is gathered from interviews with experts in the fields of smart cities, open data, and sustainability and it is analysed by means of systems theory, ecosystems theory, institutional design theory, and open innovation theory.

The findings from the analysis are assembled into a normative model, which we call the Open Governance Maturity Matrix. The maturity matrix aligns the open data willingness and mindsets of relevant actors in a specific open data project and provides guidelines to further action towards successful long-term project realization. It com-bines (1) three important subjects of open data in a smart city context with (2) specific questions for relevant actors and (3) the identification of maturity stages into three dimensions. We show that it is possible to systematically create a model that prescribes or relates to the norm for how to behave in an open data smart city context, and we outline it in an initial, conceptual form. This is an important finding that contributes to contemporary smart city and open data research.
The research yields grounded theory concerning the categorization of open data maturity and suggests a taxonomy outlining five different aspects of maturity in an open data, smart city context. This is a useful tool for understanding and discussing open data among actors. The research concludes that (Theorem 1) sustainability and sustainable development must be fostered from a bottom-up approach in a complex system such as a smart city. Finally we contribute to the smart city discourse by defining a smart city as (Theorem 2) a complex purposive system consisting of ideal-seeking subsystems that are in a continuous process of evolving and integrating with other subsystems and in which actors are in a continuous process of breaking down business silos.