ABSTRACT
In modern economies, knowledge as resource and innovation as both a capability and an output are key sources for firm’s sustained competitive advantage. Under this rationale, a small but emergent research stream argues that competitive success is significantly related to innovation built on novel ideas and new knowledge. But, how can low-tech firms manage knowledge as a valuable resource for innovation? On the basis of a knowledge management perspective and using three information rich low-tech cases, the chapter explores “how” innovative knowledge-based concepts are created, suggesting that they are results of knowledge generation processes. The chapter introduces the Transcendental Capability (TC) as a purely dynamic entrepreneurial capability that implies the development of transcendental conditions and transcendental synthesis. TC draws from Kant’s theory of knowledge generation (Kant, 1781) and regards the process of intangible assets’ creation, which constitute the new, hard to “build” and difficult to manage “resources” (Teece, 2011). The fruits of TC seem to be able to permit newcomers to be accepted in seemingly saturated markets, entice customers and persuade them to pay for value.
