## 2 Methodology  
This study employed a quantitative method with cross-country comparisons. As Malaysia is undergoing the implementation stage of nationwide smart cities development, researching the governance directions for smart societies' value propositions in a timely manner. Thus, Malaysia was selected as the main case for this study and compared to Indonesia and another eight countries worldwide. The country comparisons were dissected according to the geographical location, majority religion, and economic status (Table 1).  
Both Malaysia and Indonesia have similar backgrounds, as they are located in South-East Asia, Islam is the official religion possessed by the majority, and the economic status is upper-middle-income. For Malaysia, the gross national income (GNI) per capita was USD 11,230 in 2019 and its aim is to achieve high-income status by 2030 [26]. Meanwhile, Indonesia just celebrated its milestone of moving into the group of upper-middle-income countries from its previous lower-middle-income status. Its GNI per capita reached USD 4050 in 2019, slightly above the USD 4046 threshold for the category [27]. The countries of Iran, Pakistan, and Nigeria represented samples from Islamic countries located outside South-East Asia. On the other hand, Brazil, the United States, Germany, and Australia represented Christian majority countries in different parts of the world. As for China, it has the world's greatest population, an irreligious population, and a 'world share' that influences the global economy [28; 29]. Although China's society has deep religious traditions, decades of Communist rule have installed widespread atheistic materialism [30].  
This study did not conduct an on-site survey. Instead, the country samples were derived from the raw data files from the World Values Survey 2017-2020 [31]. In order to address the research questions, the sample size of the World Values Survey for each country was large enough to represent a confidence level of 99% and a margin of error of 3.5% [32] (Table 2).  
The method of data collection randomly covered the major areas, ethics, and religious groups of each country. Details were openly accessed through the World Values Survey website [31]. Since its inception in the year 1981 and conducted globally every five years, the World Values Survey has currently come to the seventh wave covering 120 countries representing 94.5% of the world population. To date, there are over 30,000 publications and researches to use World Values Survey--value orientations to explain important political phenomena [31; 33]. Examples of these include [34; 35; 36; 37; 38]. Especially [39] selected 40 countries from the World Values Survey based on the criteria of those countries covering both established and new democracies. In contrast, this study has set 10 countries based on geographical, religious, and economic status for comparison purposes.  
From the 290 questions asked in the World Values Survey, the authors selected suitable items to answer the research questions. Table 3 shows the selected items and scales.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline
**Country** & **Geographical Location** & **Majority Religion** & **Economic Status** \\ \hline Indonesia & South-East Asia & Islam & Upper-middle income \\ Malaysia & South-East Asia & Islam & Upper-middle income \\ Iran & Middle East & Islam & Upper-middle income \\ Pakistan & South Asia & Islam & Lower-middle income \\ Nigeria & Africa & Islam & Lower-middle income \\ Brazil & Latin America & Christians (Catholics and Protestants) & Upper-middle income \\ China & East Asia & Chinese Buddhism and Folk Religions & Upper-middle income \\ United States & North America & Christians (Protestants and Catholics) & High-income \\ Germany & Europe & Christians (Protestants and Catholics) & High-income \\ Australia & Asia Pacific & Christians (Catholic and others) & High-income \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 1: Studied countries. Source: [26].