Urban Development Management and Islamic Financial Engineering as Predictors of Smart City Resilience: PLS-SEM Evidence from Saudi Arabia

<title>Abstract</title> <p>This study examines the direct predictive roles of urban development management (UDM) and Islamic financial engineering (IFE) in explaining the resilience of smart cities (RSC) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where large-scale urban transformation under Vision 2030 has made resilience a governance and financing concern rather than a purely technological one. Responding to fragmented treatment of governance and Shariah-compliant development finance in smart city research, the study integrates both within a single empirical model. A quantitative cross-sectional survey of specialized professionals in urban development, planning, engineering, finance, Islamic finance, technology and policy yielded 121 usable responses; after removing five straight-lining cases, 116 valid cases were analyzed. SPSS supported data screening, reliability, common-method-bias diagnostics and preliminary correlations, while SmartPLS 4 estimated the reflective measurement model and structural paths. The two-predictor model explained 49.1% of the variance in RSC. UDM exerted a strong positive effect (β = 0.575, t = 8.491, p &lt; .001) and IFE a smaller but significant positive effect (β = 0.199, t = 2.580, p = .010). Smart city resilience in Saudi Arabia is thus associated primarily with integrated urban development management, with Islamic financial engineering providing a complementary resilience-enabling contribution. Weak convergent validity and several low RSC loadings require cautious interpretation. The study contributes a context-specific model linking urban governance capability and ethical development finance to resilience-oriented urban transformation.</p>