Forecasting Failure
In the 1890s, pressure began to build for a move towards forms of credit analysis that would make possible ways of forecasting failure, calculating its likelihood rather than assessing it on the basis of personal intuition and rumour. The birth of the ‘credit man’ was central to this shift, which went hand in hand with the emergence of the large multi-unit corporation. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, large manufacturers and wholesalers in almost all industries began to employ ‘credit men’, individuals whose only responsibility was to assess the credit-worthiness of existing and prospective customers. This began the process of separating rating and narrating, and the transforming of uncertainty into calculated risk. As one proponent of the new ‘profession’ of credit men claimed: ‘That credit man excels who, taking what looks like a long chance, by such mental means and systematic methods as he possesses shortens the chance and brings it to the point of safety’ (cited in Olegario, 2006, p. 175).