## 2 Background and Hypotheses
### Technological-Oriented KM, Innovation, and Smart City Performance
According to [PERSON] and [PERSON] [50], different kinds of innovation demand different resources and a unique knowledge management strategy, such as technology-oriented knowledge management. They examined the impact of knowledge management on three different kinds of innovation. As per their observations, diverse KM initiatives are significant for different innovations. Consequently, we believe that different knowledge management will influence different aspects of innovation success, as well as the velocity, reliability, and magnitude of innovation success. Hence, we propose:  
**Hypothesis 2**. : _Higher the AI-based technology-oriented knowledge management, the higher the likelihood that a smart city will have more innovation success._  
Innovation is a modern concept, discipline, or artifact that a person or entity perceives as novel. When an innovation emanates, diffusion occurs, which implies interacting or distributing the innovation reports to the intended group [51]. According to the theory of diffusion of innovations, diffusion of innovation emerges when potential consumers become informed of the innovation, analyze its significance, and decide, based on their assessment, to incorporate or reject the innovation and demand evidence of the deployment or disapproproval decision [51]. These mechanisms eventually occur through a platform among citizens (consumers). Diffusion of innovation considers individual and societal elements that influence an adoption decision or abandon a particular innovation. [PERSON] contends that cognitive and social factors, as well as environmental and contextual aspects, may influence the diffusion of innovation. Service innovation, defined as \"new developments in service processes involved in delivering core products and services\" [52], can be defined as a group of enhanced efficiency for delivering existing services or products [53]. E-service innovation focuses on services that are provided mostly through digitized network connectivity, demonstrating the types of companies that employ internet technologies to optimize service delivery and adapt the services that suit the client's demands. E-service innovation improves value by facilitating service providers to leverage digital strategies for improving customer-healthy relationships and reducing service output uncertainty [54]. External data can be consolidated with digital knowledge acquired through the internet and other useful information to maximize the effectiveness of service delivery [55]. E-service innovation can be investigated by identifying the qualities that distinguish it from all other innovations for improved service delivery [56]. Consequently, e-service innovations can encourage organizations to provide enhanced customer value while improving e-service delivery. Another relationship that is investigated in this study is the link between innovation and smart city performance, which is a city's capacity to provide e-service delivery. Previous research established a significant positive association between innovation and performance [57; 58; 37]. Hence, we proposed the following hypotheses on this basis:  
**Hypothesis 3**. : _Higher the innovation, the higher the likelihood that a smart city will provide e-service delivery._  
**Hypothesis 4**. : _Innovation mediates the relationship between AI-based technology-oriented knowledge management and e-service delivery._