The Impact of Employees’ Absorptive Capacity on Digital Transformation of Tourism and Travel Services: Evidence from the Egyptian Travel Agencies

Digital transformation of businesses imposed changes in the organizational culture and structures where existing and future employees are invited to develop their digital skills through absorbing digital technologies and new forms of automation in their fields of specialization which is considered significant challenge facing human resources to become the business digital workforce according to (Colbert et al., Acad Manag J 59(3):731–739, 2016; Yeow et al., J Strat Inform Syst 27(1):43–58, 2017; Neumeier et al., Wirtschaftsinformatik conference, 2017). This study assesses the effect of employees’ absorptive capacity on the Egyptian travel agencies’ digital transformation. The researcher used the quantitative method and a simple random sampling technique to collect a sample of 278 from 1008 Egyptian travel agencies class A, and a semi-structured questionnaire was distributed. Furthermore, the researcher examined the literature on employee absorptive capacity and the digital transformation of tourism and travel services. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed for the quantitative data analysis. According to the study’s findings, employees’ absorptive capacity especially (the exploitation dimension) has a positive effect on Egyptian travel agencies’ digital transformation. Thus travel agencies need to improve their employees’ absorptive capacity to absorb outside technological knowledge as a prerequisite for the digital transformation of their travel services. Based on the study findings, practical implications for enhancing employee absorptive capacity and promoting the digital transformation of Egyptian travel agencies in Egypt were proposed.