Abstract. Th e issue of business in the segment of small and medium-sized companies is a very actual area of scientifi c research today. Currently, great importance is given to research of personal and knowledge preconditions of people for doing business. Th e aim of this article was to examine the relationship between personality characteristics and approach to the perception and management of business risks. Based on the preferred personality qualities and knowledge the entrepreneurs have been included into two categories, namely they are artist-entrepreneurs and businessmen-laborers, also the diff erences in their entrepreneurial attitudes have been examined. Both groups of entrepreneurs in our research rate market risk as the most important risk, which was demonstrated by a decline in performance of companies during the crisis. Our results showed that there are significant diff erences in the attitudes of these two categories of entrepreneurs in approaching credit risk, where it was found out that the defi ned categories of business have diff erent approaches to knowledge of credit conditions of commercial banks. Th e results of our study have showed a high degree of confi dence of individual groups of entrepreneurs when evaluating their ability to manage fi nancial risks in the company and the high intensity of entrepreneurial optimism regardless of the personal characteristics of entrepreneurs.
The aim of this article is to define and compare current trends within business risks among small and medium enterprises in selected regions of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the context of entrepreneurial optimism. In 2013, the research on entrepreneurs' opinions in the Zlín Region (Czech Republic) and Žilina Region (Slovakia) was conducted. These regions have similar economic parameters and are separated by only a few miles. According to our research, it can be stated that during the period of financial crisis, the situation in the SME business deteriorated significantly with declining performance and profitability of Czech and Slovak small and medium enterprises. The most important business risk is still market risk, followed by financial and eventually personal risk. Our research showed that the profitability of Czech and Slovak small and medium enterprises decreased by 15%. Despite these facts, the level of entrepreneurial optimism among SME in the selected regions of the Czech Republic and Slovakia is very high.
ABSTRACT. The issue of business environment for small and medium-sized enterprises is a very actual area of scientific research. Currently, the great importance is given to research people's personal and knowledge preconditions for conducting business. The aim of this article was to examine the relationship between education of entrepreneurs and several aspects of entrepreneurship in the SME segment. Our own research was conducted in the selected regions of the Czech Republic and Slovakia through a questionnaire survey. A total of 449 owners of small and medium-sized companies have been reached. The sample of respondents was divided into two groups: entrepreneurs with and without a university degree. To reach an above mentioned aim, Pearson statistics for a data count, series of 5000 Monte Carlo replication as well as tools of descriptive statistics have been used. Our results have showed that there are significant differences in the attitudes of these two categories of entrepreneurs in their motives for starting business and the knowledge of the lending criteria of commercial banks. On the other hand, the differences in other fields, such as the evaluation of the commercial banks approach, the change of their companies´ profitability, the ability to manage financial risks and the assessment of the academic knowledge usefulness were not confirmed by our research.
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