Reconceptualizing sports tourism destination competitiveness through the knowledge-based view: evidence from Iran

Sports tourism destination competitiveness has been theorized predominantly through static, asset-based frameworks that privilege physical infrastructure and promotional capacity, yet these accounts offer limited purchase in knowledge-intensive, innovation-driven tourism systems. This study advances a dynamic alternative, drawing on the Knowledge-Based View to reconceptualize competitiveness as an ecosystem-level process rooted in the collective mobilization and transformation of knowledge. Employing a qualitative abductive design informed by the Gioia methodology, the research analyses 19 in-depth interviews and two focus groups with public, private, and community stakeholders in Iran. The findings yield an innovation-oriented framework structured around knowledge resources, transformation processes, innovation mechanisms, and competitive outcomes, revealing that competitiveness flows not from static endowments but from systemic capacity to absorb, integrate, and reconfigure tacit and explicit knowledge under institutional constraint. Boundary conditions of trust, alignment, and absorptive capacity are specified. The study extends the Knowledge-Based View from the firm to the destination ecosystem, offering a theoretically grounded and empirically substantiated account of innovation-led competitiveness emerging from necessity, bricolage, and social capital in resource-constrained environments.