Critical success factors, knowledge management, organizational learning, and financial performance in tourism SMEs

This study investigates which critical success factors enable knowledge management activities in tourism SMEs and how organizational learning mediates the knowledge management-financial performance relationship. Using an online survey of tourism SME managers (n = 100, predominantly Finnish), we found that organizational learning fully mediates the relationship between knowledge management activities and financial performance, with no direct effect observed. Human resource management emerged as the most influential critical success factor, followed by strategy, resources, and information technology, while management leadership, culture, and measurement showed no significant effects. These findings extend the knowledge-based view of the firm by establishing organizational learning as the essential mechanism through which knowledge management generates financial returns in tourism SMEs, revealing contextual specificity in critical success factors within the tourism SME context and demonstrating that simplified linear models assuming direct knowledge-performance linkages may not apply universally.