How does an entrepreneur manage to steer his enterprise through times of change and growing competition, even crises, to react to them, and ultimately to keep an existing enterprise alive? In addition to the four classical components of entrepreneurial activity — the discovery of opportunities, the implementation of innovations, the development of resources and the assumption of risks — this aspect of long-term preservation of the business is becoming increasingly relevant for responsible sustainability of business management in the wake of the current global changes. However, this development is not an exclusively contemporary phenomenon, but can also be detected in certain key epochs of economic history, which are characterized by the vehement proliferation of the market and an economy-centred logic of action — henceforth referred to as commercialization. The often long-lasting commercialization processes primarily have an effect within existing economic structures and only secondarily radiate into non-economic, social areas, and at the end of such a commercialization process there is always a significantly more 'commercialized' world. In particular, the "long" sixteenth century — the period of investigation chosen here between the economic crises of the late Middle Ages and the seventeenth century — became the epoch of such commercialization ensuing the European Expansion in large parts of Western and Central Europe. The long-term improvement of the general conditions and the resulting opportunities could, of course, also entail increased transaction costs and risks. How did enterprises deal with this?

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