KNOWLEDGE-INTENSIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND LOW-TECH SECTORS: QUESTIONING THE SUCCESSFUL CREATION OF LOW-TECH BUT KNOWLEDGE-INTENSIVE VENTURES

The starting point of this paper is the ongoing discussion on knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship (KIE). Since recently the phenomenon had been assigned to high-tech sectors which are R&D and science-dominated. However, a new small but increasing stream of relevant literature argues that KIE is relevant if not pervasive in traditional, low-tech industries as well. Literature has offered a significant amount of insights related to the basic building blocks of low-tech (LT) KIE, i.e. knowledge, its sources and ways of exploitation, knowledge-intensive innovation and mechanisms and capabilities of reaching it, as well as types of LT-KIE ventures, among others. Furthermore, there is a plethora of skills, entrepreneurial characteristics and other antecedents and factors used as input, KIE management and output in KIE processes. However, there is a gap in the understanding of how low-tech but knowledge-intensive ventures are created, survive and grow within their mature and highly saturated business ecosystems. Therefore, thee numerous valuable constructs of existing literature can assist the further exploration of the topic called low-tech knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship in order to understand how LT-KI entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial teams recognize or create opportunities and transform them into successful knowledge-intensive business capable to survive the stagnancy of traditional mature markets. The paper purports to start this discussion by posing the relevant research questions maintaining mainly an entrepreneurial approach of the LT-KIE phenomenon.