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Trading Firms in Colonial India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2014

Tirthankar Roy
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Abstract

The aim of this article is to develop a general narrative of the firms that led the growth of trade in nineteenth-century India, and thus to supply a missing piece in modern Indian business history. The trading firms had several features in common with trading firms globally, especially, a high degree of mobility, institutional adaptation, and occasionally, diversification into banking and manufacturing. But certain aspects of the process were specific to the regions where they operated, such as differences between the ports and the interior trading orders, between cities, and between expatriate and indigenous firms. The article reconsiders these features.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 88 , Issue 1: Business, Networks, and the State in India , Spring 2014 , pp. 9 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2014 

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