Leveraging the intangible cultural heritage: novelty and innovation through exaptation

The paper aims to investigate theoretically and illustrate empirically the process of creativity by knowledge re-use, which might lead to novelties and innovations in creative and science based industries through exaptation. This work maintains that exaptation processes can be favored by the fruitful combination of different knowledge bases: synthetic, analytical and symbolic. Moreover, it distinguishes exaptation processes by their nature: technology-based and use-based. This work contributes to the present understanding of the processes leading to novelties and innovation by identifying four types of exaptation: intra-domain technology-based; inter-domain technology-based; intra-domain use-based; and inter-domain use-based. Following the emergent debate on the creative capacity of culture, this paper offers some initial elements to look at innovation through new lenses, introducing the concept of exaptation as a possible way to create economic value from leveraging intangible culture heritage. Accordingly, four illustrations of inter-domain exaptations where the intangible cultural heritage plays a role are provided.