Success and Failure Factors: American Merchants in Foreign Trade in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries*

Stuart Bruchey

Business History Review, 1958, vol. 32, issue 3, 272-292

Abstract: No definitive comparison of factors contributing to success and failure in business is possible. Yet a look at some of those factors, operative in a number of similar circumstances, helps sharpen the customary vague generalizations. An examination of the elements of prudence, diligence, housekeeping habits, intelligence, foresight, use of agents, degree of control, and teamwork suggests that in commerce of the period luck was probably of less influence than commonly supposed. A by-product of this broad inquiry is a specific and highly illuminating comparative picture of mercantile business practice.

Date: 1958
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