| Abstract: | The relation between information systems, innovation and business performance is a critical question
for both researchers and practitioners. This paper provides an empirical investigation of this issue in the
tourism sector by conducting an analysis of the relations between: I) the exploitation level of two widely
adopted types of IS, namely internal and e-sales systems (first level); II) the extent of business
innovation and benefits from ICT (second level); and III) business performance (third level). This study
has been based on firm-level data from 2665 European tourism firms, which have been used for
constructing a structural equation model (SEM) and estimating the interrelationship amongst these
constructs. The model provided evidence of a positive impact of the exploitation level of both IS
(internal and e-sales) on innovation, with the former being a stronger driver of innovation than the
latter. The exploitation levels of the internal and e-sales IS were also found to have both a positive
impact on the business benefits that the tourism firms achieve from their ICT infrastructures, which
impact is also mediated by innovation; internal IS were found to have a higher impact on ICT business
benefits than the e-sales IS. Furthermore, these ICT benefits and innovation (both directly and indirectly
through the ICT benefits) were found to have an ultimate positive impact on business performance.
Consequently, the findings suggest that tourism firms should combine the development of internal ICT
and e-sales IS with innovation if they wish to get more IS driven business benefits and ultimately
increase their business performance. |
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Greek