How Has Smart Technology Adoption Been Empirically Studied in Smart City and Territorial Contexts? A Systematic Review of Models, Determinants, Outcomes, and Evidence Quality

Smart and digital technologies increasingly shape public services, mobility, sustainability, and territorial transformation, yet their public and territorial value depends on how actors adopt, use, sustain engagement with, or resist them. This systematic review examines how empirical research has conceptualized and evaluated adoption, acceptance, use, and continuance in smart city and territorial contexts. Following PRISMA guidelines, the review screened 1502 unique records, advanced 313 reports to full-text eligibility assessment, and included 196 reports representing 192 study families. Research concentrated on smart mobility and digital governance, largely within voluntary, citizen-facing, and city-centered settings. Although theoretical labels varied, the most frequently coded determinant families included utility and performance, ease and usability, technology-specific and innovation attributes, social and normative influence, value, quality, satisfaction, and confirmation, demographic and background factors, and trust. Across non-mutually exclusive outcome families, adoption intention or willingness was examined in 80 of the 192 study families (41.7%) and acceptance or attitude in 66 (34.4%), compared with actual use in 24 (12.5%) and continuance intention in 12 (6.2%). No study family met the operational criterion for measured sustained or continued use. Existing evidence is therefore better suited to mapping evidence coverage and reported associations than to establishing causal, population-level, or long-term effects. These findings support a shift from intention-centered, city-focused model testing towards verified actual use, continuance, resistance, public value, and context-sensitive longitudinal evidence across diverse territorial and organizational settings.