Risk management is one of the most important internal process, not only in large companies but also in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). To identify the source of risk can be crucial in all companies. The primary objective of this study is to analyze and compare the economic and financial risk sources in SMEs of the V4 (Visegrad Group: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) and Serbia, in the context of the business environment of the countries analyzed. To achieve this goal, a questionnaire-based survey was carried out involving 2110 SMEs from Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Serbia. The questionnaire included questions about the importance of risks and the concept of risk management in the company. To test the formulated hypotheses, the following statistical tools were used: contingency tables, a Z-value, and a general non-hierarchical log-linear model with three categorical variables and a continuous covariate. Finally, the differences among V4 countries and Serbia were identified. Serbia is more vulnerable to the financial risk sources studied than the V4 countries. The result of the research shows that insufficient profit is more hazardous compared to the other risk sources and all countries are more vulnerable in in this issue. The article concludes with a discussion and a comparison with previous international researches.

Risks are a very important part of the business environment. If risks are managed well, they can provide a higher level of competitiveness and sustainability advantages for a company. The first step towards successful risk management is an identification of risks. The aim of this article is to create a risk profile for (small and medium-sized enterprises) SMEs in V4 countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary), compare them to each other and then compare the results with those for Serbia. The data were collected during an extensive research project organized by Tomas Bata University in Zlín in 2017 and 2018. In total 2110 answers of SMEs were analyzed. For the verification of hypotheses, a 5-point Likert scale, Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) and Multiple Factors Analysis (MFA) and ANOVA were used. The level of legal, security, personnel and operational risks is statistically higher in Serbia than in V4 countries, and the lowest level is in Slovakia. Some significant differences among the exposure to risk according to economic sectors were identified.

One of the prerequisites for a favourable business environment is a stable legislative context and law enforcement. In particular, for SMEs, that do not have the financial resources for stable legal assistance, legal risk is becoming one of the most important business risks. The aim of this paper is to enrich the current scientific knowledge with a comparison of the impact of legal risk on SMEs in selected countries. The empirical research was conducted by Tomas Bata University in Zlín during 2019-2020. In total, 1935 SMEs completed the questionnaire and their responses were examined to fulfil the purpose of the paper. The four statistical hypotheses were analysed through statistical methods such as Z-score and Chi-square tests, with IBM SPSS Statistics 23.0 used for data evaluation. Findings highlight that more than 50% of SMEs consider the management of legal risk as appropriate. Only 39% of SMEs consider the business environment as over-regulated. Almost 50% of entrepreneurs agree that their business is affected by frequent legislative changes but with no negative impact. There are statistically significant differences in consideration of legal risk between SMEs from the Czech Republic and the rest of the selected countries (Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Ukraine).

The aim of every healthy economy is to reduce differences between regions in economic life, living standards and employment. It is a difficult task for most countries and especially in the Slovak Republic, because of the hard-pressed situation in decreasing regional differences. Paper's aim was to determine whether from a regional perspective, exist differences between entrepreneurs' opinion in obtaining loans in Slovak banks. In this context; we focused on the perception of bank involvement with SMEs, the transparency of bank lending, the information gap in bank loan terms and perception of the contemporary loan terms compared with the past ones. We conducted the survey on the sample of 541 respondents, in 2016. We found that more than one-half of them did not believe in bank transparency and about the same number considered information gap as significant. Approximately 60% of entrepreneurs thought that credit conditions are more acceptable than the past ones.

Research background: The identification of risks and their management is a key task of strategic management. The right and early identification of risk sources can help companies to survive not only during a crisis period. However, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) underestimate the necessity to analyze risks and implement the enterprise risk management (ERM). Purpose of the article: The primary aim of the contribution is to identify the most important non-financial risks and their causes in the V4 countries and to analyze the perception of these risks by SME owners. Methods: The results are based on the survey conducted in 2018. The valid questionnaire of 1781 owners of SMEs from four countries was evaluated and analyzed to fulfil the main objective. The statistical hypotheses were con-firmed through statistical methods such as Z-score and Chi-square test. The SPSS Statistics was used for data evaluation. Findings & Value added: The results can be interesting not only for research organizations investigating the development of SMEs, but also for state institutions or private agencies seeking to adapt national support for SMEs. It was discovered that the entrepreneur’s country is the most important factor for the perception of the sources of safety risk, legal risk, and other business risks. There are differences in managers’ perception in case of other risk sources (corruption and clientelism) between entrepreneurs from the Czech Republic and other countries of the Visegrad Group. The SMEs’ country of origin is an important factor for the evaluation of the source of non-financial risks (safety risk, legal risk and other business risks). Differences in the perception of safe-ty risk sources between entrepreneurs from the Czech Republic and Poland were confirmed. More than 25% of SMEs in the Visegrad Group perceive frequent changes of the legal regulation as a legal risk.

The business environment is determined by various obstacles the business owners have to deal with in the course of their work. This article aims to create a model of the quality of business environment, defi ne the key determinants of this model, and quantify the correlations among the individual determinants in the area of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Czech Republic. Partial results of a survey carried out at the Tomas Bata University in Zlín in 2015 were used for the analysis. On the basis of previous surveys, four determinants were set that infl uence the quality of business environment (State, Public perception, Financial markets and banks, Business risks). From these four areas, questions were selected and asked to business owners in the Czech Republic in the abovementioned survey. Links were identifi ed among selected questions asked to the owners. These links led to adjusting the business environment to four determinants: State and public perception, Banks and their approach to business, Knowledge of rules and principles, and fi nancial risks and their increase in post-crisis time. Subsequently, correlations were identifi ed among these determinants. It was ascertained that the knowledge of the conditions of the fi nancial system leads to a positive perception of the banks' approach in terms of external fi nance. Moreover, a positive infl uence of the banking sector on how the business owners perceive fi nancial risks was identifi ed. Another important result of the survey is the fact that business owners who have the necessary knowledge of the fi nancial market perceive fi nancial risks as less intense compared to those lacking such knowledge of the fi nancial market.

ABSTRACT. The aim of this article is to find out how SME owners in Czech Republic perceive the role of the state and whether this perception differs according to their level of education. In the course of this project managers or owners of small and medium enterprises were asked to answer the questions about business environment. The following three variables influencing business environment had been chosen: conditions for starting a business, state financial support for business, improving conditions for business in a longer-term pespective. For each of the answers, ordinal mean values were searched for, and discrete ordinal variances were calculated. In order to test for the dependencies, Pearson's Chi-squared test was applied. It was found that the lower education the businesspersons have, the higher is their satisfaction with the role of the state in the business environment of Czech Republic. Better-educated businesspersons are more aware of administrative obstructions when starting a business. Majority of SMEs were not satisfied with the financial support for businesses provided the state. JEL Classification: H70, L26, M13, M21

The aim of this article is to analyze risk management and the influence of selected factors on approaches to financial risk management in the small and medium-sized enterprises in Czech Republic. For this analysis there were used the results of the research conducted at Tomas Bata University in Zlin in 2015. As part of the research there were addressed entrepreneurs of SMEs in individual regions of the Czech Republic by a form of a questionnaire survey. Research covered a survey of the business environment in the Czech Republic, where for this article there were used questions regarding the perception of financial risks' influence, their importance, the ability to manage financial risks and the use of instruments for their elimination. As part of the survey a total of 1,141 respondents from all regions of the Czech Republic have answered our questions. It was found out that more than 75% of the surveyed entrepreneurs perceive the effect of financial risks in the business environment, but only 28.5% of businessmen believe that entrepreneurs have the ability to manage these risks. With the use of creation of reserves as a tool to eliminate the negative impact of financial risks has agreed only 45% of the interviewed entrepreneurs. It was also found that opinions on the ability to manage financial risks and the increasing importance of financial risk in times of crisis vary according to the age of the entrepreneur and the age of his company.