The Role of Inter-organizational Knowledge Transfer on the Sustainable Development of the Coastal Tourism Industry: A Preliminary Study from Sri Lanka

Abstract

This preliminary research aims to examine the impacts of actively using knowledge transfer among inter-organizations related to the coastal tourism industry to promote sustainable development implementation. This research project is an exploratory, qualitative study focusing on knowledge transfer practices from an inter-organisational perspective in the context of sustainable coastal tourism in Sri Lanka. Moreover, a qualitative approach is used in this research. Participants chose from academic, government, industry, and coastal community clusters. The researcher chose industrial and coastal community participants from the Hikkaduwa district. Hikkaduwa was chosen because it was one of the primary coastal tourism destinations in this island nation, and overdevelopment, environmental degradation, and civil war threaten this once vibrant and robust coastal ecosystem and tourism-dependent economy. Data was collected via online and in-person interviews. This study uses a reflexive thematic analysis approach to analyze the data from the coastal-related stakeholders’ views, opinions, knowledge, and experiences. Further, it addresses the lack of prior exploratory research in knowledge transfer, the interorganizational perspective of the Sri Lanka coastal tourism industry and the need for theories, and strategies implications in this area, which has been a lack of focus by academics. Further, this research develops a conceptual framework based on the quintuple helix model. This model demonstrates the importance of healthy interaction and calls for collective interaction and knowledge transfer through education systems, political systems, economic systems, social systems, and the natural environment (Hartanto et al, 2021). Hence, the research contributes to both practice and theory in different ways.