Abstract
Smart tourism organisations have significantly boosted investments in smart technologies, yet there is limited empirical evidence that illustrates how the different ones of these technologies have become (or not) a part of the knowledge application process, particularly in developing economies.. Drawing on the Knowledge-Based View (KBV) and Dynamic Capabilities Theory, this study examines the influence of three intelligent enablers—intelligent trust, intelligent infrastructure and intelligent capability—on knowledge application, and the mediating role of knowledge sharing in this relationship within Jordan’s smart tourism sector. A cross sectional quantitative design was used. A total of 285 staff members from various luxury hotels, travel agencies, online tourism platforms and tourism technology providers in Jordan were surveyed. The models were tested by partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM); bootstrapping (5,000 resamples) was used for mediation analysis. The three intelligent enablers all have significant positive impacts on knowledge sharing, with intelligent capability (β = 0.405) having the biggest impact, followed by intelligent infrastructure (β = 0.306) and intelligent trust (β = 0.300). As a mediating variable, knowledge sharing has strong positive influence with knowledge application (β = 0.568) and partially mediates between every intelligent enabler with knowledge application. The model explained 64.2% of variance in knowledge sharing, and 73.9% of variance in knowledge application. For tourism organisations looking to translate investments in intelligent technology into tangible knowledge outcomes, they should focus on developing employees' intelligent capabilities via specific digital training and enhance and reinforce the intelligent infrastructure and create a ‘psychological safety' by making the data-governance process transparent. This study is one of the first to combine three different types of intelligent enablers in one single model within the context of mediation and knowledge-based approach, and to prove it in the context of smart tourism in a developing economy. It shows that intelligent resources have only a limited impact on knowledge application by mechanisms of knowledge-sharing rather than directly through the use of technology.