The Perfume of Traditions: Cultural Entrepreneurship and the Resurrection of Extinct Societal Traditions

Management research has begun to explore how cultural entrepreneurs use established or declining societal traditions create distinctive new ventures and products. In this study, we propose an alternative pathway for creating entrepreneurial opportunities, that is, through leveraging extinct traditions. Extinct yield opportunities highly products ventures, yet their entails substantial challenges. To understand can successfully leverage traditions, investigate the case of The Merchant Venice, Italian venture in 2013 produces luxury perfumes based on perfume-making tradition flourished Venice between sixteenth seventeenth centuries disappeared afterwards. Our study illuminates by (a) exhuming lost knowledge practices, (b) validating them as authentic appreciable a given community territory, (c) elevating meaningfulness core place identity. contributes literature entrepreneurship revealing distinct challenges resurrecting entail, enriching understanding types, goals, processes entrepreneurship, widening current roles custodians.