Innovation in the Age of the Fuggers

The Fugger firm was one of the most diversified international, not to say global, players in the early modern era. The firms’ success was based on a number of inventions, product novelties and social innovations, improvements in logistics. The Augsburg firm demonstrated an outstanding capability to combine different operating areas such as production, trade, logistics, services and banking. As a result, the Fuggers could secure competitive advantages in some new markets. A high degree of internationality, a dense network of agents and well-trained personnel, a most efficient logistics system and close personal contacts to the European courts and to curia and pope were some of the key elements of success of the Fugger company. Excellent human capital, which had often been educated in the core centers of the world economy such as Venice, Seville and Antwerp, was another core factor of the outstanding competitiveness of the firm. Large parts of the monetary capital of the Fuggers were transformed to cultural and social capital. This becomes evident by the existence of “social innovations” such as the Fuggerei in Augsburg.