Every large or small enterprise needs to have financial liquidity and to be able to generate profits to develop. It is not important in which sector it operates, whether it is a private or public one, but profits and safety are two elements every enterprise is not able to function without. The low performance of these two measures can cause a number of difficulties for managers. To avoid this, leading companies, especially the smallest ones, should optimize the trade credit management policy. Most often, SMEs’ (small and medium-sized enterprises) owners try to work together as part of a group purchasing organization, which positively affects trade credit management. The aim of the paper is to present the trade credit management strategy in Polish group purchasing organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study uses data on the construction sector because it is one of the most important segments of the Polish economy, which is financed to a large extent with trade credit. The paper indicates the mechanisms whose applications allowed SMEs operating in purchasing groups to change trade credit management strategies in such a way that these units could operate calmly and safely in the market. These changes could be observed in purchasing goods with a large reserve, strictly controlling all receivables, switching to cash sales or limiting sales on long-term trade credit. The analysis showed that enterprises changed trade credit management strategies from moderately conservative to highly conservative.

Research background: The risk management process is a key element in running a business. Moreover, it is basically one of the basic and most important internal processes in any company, regardless of its size. However, due to the extremely important role played by small and medium-sized enterprises in the economy, the problem of proper management of endogenous and exogenous risks becomes particularly important. Purpose of the article: The article aims to show the importance of risk management in the operations of modern enterprises in the SMEs sector and the attitudes of entrepreneurs towards key business risks. Methods: The research was based on data on 332 enterprises from the SMEs sector operating in Poland. The data was collected using the CSAQ method in the period from 12 of November 2019 to 9 of March 2020. The distribution of risk assessment in the studies was analysed using Tau Kendall statistics, while the risk management index was created by examining the attitudes of entrepreneurs towards individual risk factors. Findings & Value added: The results of the survey showed that three-quarters of enterprises did not manage risk in a formalized way and that decision-makers in enterprises often paid too little attention to the issues related to managing different types of risk. The article should, therefore, draw the attention of managers to the need to build appropriate procedures to enable effective risk management that creates opportunities for the safe operation of the enterprise. The added value of the work is a detailed analysis of the management of individual types of endogenous and exogenous risks, as well as an indication of what features of enterprises affect the effectiveness of actions taken in the field of controlling these risks. Research is valuable because of the small amount of studies that links managers' approaches to risk management with actual risk management effectiveness.

Bankruptcy risk is always a constant threat to the SMEs, which determines how long the firms will survive. Since its identification, management, and control vested in the hands of the entrepreneurs and managers. A lot depends on their interpretations and beliefs. Therefore, to investigate this phenomenon, the present study aimed to investigate the attitude of the managers and entrepreneurs towards bankruptcy risk and to draw the conclusion on how the entrepreneurs’ attitude differs among the Czech Republic and Slovak republic entrepreneurs as well. The study was conducted among 822 small and medium-sized companies from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Chi-square and z-score test methods were used to test for the existence of a statistically significant difference between bankruptcy attitudes among Czech and Slovak entrepreneurs. Slovak entrepreneurs are more likely to regard bankruptcy as a natural part of the business, and they are less likely to identify an entrepreneur’s mistake as the cause of bankruptcy. An important conclusion is that the experience of bankruptcy for entrepreneurs of both countries is assessed as a vital experience gained, which, however, negatively affects the self-esteem of an entrepreneur. This study contributes to the literature by offering insights over the attitude of SMEs’ owners and entrepreneurs about bankruptcy risk in the context of the Czech Republic and the Slovak republic. From the policymakers’ viewpoint, it is imperative to understand the attitude of SMEs’ owners and entrepreneurs to design effective policies aiming to improve entrepreneurs with adequate skills, ability, and state support. The Originality of the paper deals with the entrepreneur’s perception, behaviour, and attitude towards bankruptcy risk in SMEs.

The desire and ability to apply the concept of social responsibility is directly proportional to a culture that is formed due to the relevant knowledge, skills and qualifications. It is believed that university education is able to interest future owners, experts and clients of insurance companies in running socially responsible activities.The purpose of the study is to determine the role of universities in disseminating the social responsibility practices in the insurance sector.The main method of research is the survey conducted among 536 full-time students-financiers at domestic universities in September and October 2018. This method allowed to identify peculiarities of students’ perception of the social responsibility concept in the insurance sector of Ukraine. The case study method was also applied to reflect the social responsibility practices used by domestic insurance companies.As a result of the combination of the methods proposed, the low level of students’ knowledge of social responsibility in the insurance sector and the low interest of insurance companies as compared to foreign insurance companies have been shown. That is why, in the process of training, it is important for universities to focus on the proper world-view positions and value orientations, dialog and ethical cooperation that will enhance the professional training of students and develop modern professional competence among them that will meet international practices and requirements.

We investigated 34 empirical studies aimed at examining the capital structure determinants in firms operating in Poland to test to what degree the financing patterns were steady during the observed period (2001-2012). Specifically, in conducting the survey we were motivated by the following research questions which constitute the objectives of the article: (1) which factors - country or firm-specific - are more relevant in explaining leverage in Poland, (2) which theory - trade-off or pecking order - gains greater support in Poland, and (3) what is the significance of the optimal capital structure notion in Poland. Our results show that financing patterns changed importantly during the last 20 years, which manifests itself mainly in gradual increase in debt ratios with a dominant role of short-term debt, along with the decrease in the importance of country-specific factors (especially in large-sized, listed firms). The signs of the associations between leverage and the key firm-specific factors remained relatively stable during the investigated period, with the exception concerning tangibility. These signs provide greater support for pecking order theory, with at most a moderate role of the target capital structure.

The phenomenon of company bankruptcy is in fact an inherent element of market economy functioning which is due, among other things, to the high level of competition on the market. Considering the fact that the vast majority of companies conduct their activities with the use of trade credit, there is a significant risk of financial problems when creditors fail to pay their receivables in a timely manner. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the phenomenon of bankruptcy in Poland, and to identify the relationship between the scale of bankruptcy and the cost of securing receivables with the use of trade credit insurance. The research that enabled to achieve the set purpose was conducted on a sample of 8223 entities operating in Poland in various sectors of economy. The study was carried out in two stages by means of basic descriptive statistics, and the results were analyzed by means of the Kruskal Wallis ANOVA test and Spearman's rank correlation. The research has shown that there was a high level of dependence between the change in the amount of gross written premium on trade credit insurance and the number of bankruptcies in the construction sector.

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