From Digital Infrastructure to Teacher Competence: The Mediating Roles of Information Competence and Knowledge Sharing in AI-Era Schools

Teacher competence is increasingly understood as an organisational achievement, a framing made critical as schools navigate rapid technological change and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI). Set against Hong Kong’s 2026 Blueprint for Digital Education Development in Primary and Secondary Schools, this study tested a mediated ecological model examining how teachers’ perceptions of school organisational conditions translate into individual professional capabilities. Drawing on 1382 Hong Kong teachers, exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modelling assessed how four organisational conditions, KM Leadership, IT Infrastructure, Managerial Control, and Structure and Coordination, shape teachers’ Information Competence and Knowledge Sharing, and subsequently enhance Teacher Competence. IT Infrastructure emerged as the strongest antecedent, exerting the largest effect on Information Competence, while KM Leadership and Structure and Coordination consistently enabled both capabilities. Most notably, Information Competence was the pivotal mechanism and strongest direct contributor to Teacher Competence, with Knowledge Sharing making a significant but weaker contribution, whereas Managerial Control proved largely peripheral. The findings offer theoretical contributions and actionable policy implications, indicating that realising “AI + Education” and effective Generative AI use is likely to depend on robust technological provision, teachers’ critical information competence, and a collaborative knowledge-sharing culture, rather than on formal structure or top-down control.