The influence of SME owners' education on their perception of business environment in Czech Republic

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.Project RO FaME: Podnikatel'ske prostredie MSP: determinanty kvality a podnikatel'ske rizik

The perception of governmental support in the context of competitiveness of SMEs in the Czech Republic

Whether or not an entrepreneur develops the enterprise successfully and increases competitiveness depends on many factors. All businesses, however, are inherently connected with the business environment which significantly influences their performance. In this regard, the state is among the most important factors. It also performs many other roles through which it may be either helpful or harmful in the eyes of a business owner, e.g. it determines the legislative framework of entrepreneurship, sets conditions for starting a business and regulates competition. The way the role of the state is perceived by small and medium-sized enterprises was researched in 2015 as a part of a project at Tomas Bata University in Zlin. The research analysed data from 1,141 respondents from all regions of the Czech Republic and included, among others, the question of the state's role in the business environment. The presented paper covers three selected areas of the state's influence on the business environment: creating favourable conditions for the business environment, governmental financial support of entrepreneurs, and administrative burden on entrepreneurs. These areas were also examined with the emphasis on the analysis of differences between the perception of entrepreneurs from different industries and entrepreneurs with different sizes of their businesses. It was revealed that entrepreneurs were very critical to the state's role in the business environment; in particular, 60% of respondents disagree with the fact that the state creates favourable conditions for business in the Czech Republic. It was proved that the line of business of enterprises correlates with perception of the state's role within the business environment. The research into perception of a governmental financial support was proved to be dependent on a company size which may signal the support of certain company sizes and influencing their competitiveness.Project RO FaME: Podnikatelske prostredie MSP: determinanty kvality a podnikatelske rizik

GDP rate in the European Union: Simulations based on panel data models

The objective of this paper is to provide more details regarding the evolution of real GDP growth in the countries of the European Union (EU-28) in the period from 2004 to 2015 based on a panel data approach. According to the estimations based on some dynamic panel data models, an any increase in the real GDP rate in the previous period by one percentage point, the real GDP rate in the current period will increase by 0.3 percentage points up to 0.5 percentage points. According to the Fixed Effects Model with time and individual effects, the real GDP growth is explained by the employment. According to simulations for 2016 and 2017 based on Dynamic Model and the Fixed Effects Model, the last model predicting higher GDP rates with respect to dynamic models. The result of this study is the estimation of the real GDP rates in EU-28 countries, which are based on presented econometrics models. The annual average of employment as the main factor of GDP growth is taken into account. © Foundation of International Studies, 2016

Determinants of economic growth in V4 countries and Romania

The middle and long-term slowdown in growth dynamics could bring serious social and political problems for V4 countries (Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Hungary, Poland) and Romania. It would threaten reaching benefits from potential of convergence process with the developed countries of the European Union. As a result, the V4 economies and Romania should find solutions to achieving a sustainable growth that is associated with an improvement of their international competitiveness. This paper provides an empirical analysis of factors that might determine a stable economic growth in the five mentioned countries. The empirical analysis conducted for the period of 2003-2016 employed Bayesian generalized ridge regression. The main results indicated that the FDI promoted economic growth in all countries, except the Slovak Republic. Only in the Czech Republic, the expenditure on education generated economic growth, while the expenditure on R&D had positive effects in Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic.New National Excellence Program of the Ministry of Human Capacitie

The Czech labour market: Adaptation of young people to the advent of INDUSTRY 4.0

The focus of the paper was to conduct an analysis of the selected qualitative and quantitative aspects of the labour market and the potential ability of the young generation to adapt to the new conditions of their prospective employment. The primary data were obtained in the form of a questionnaire survey. The total of 2,817 respondents were contacted via email containing a research hyperlink. The respondents were secondary school students studying in the Czech Republic. The obtained data were collected in Excel and further processed by statistical methods, the Pearson test using χ quadrate. The option of choosing several occupations was evaluated by means of the so-called professional specialisation index. Secondary data were used to determine the development of trends on the Czech labour market in the current conditions of the Industry 4.0 onset. The respondents most often chose occupations in the fields of technology, industry and construction out of the eleven occupational areas offered. More than a quarter of respondents chose their preferred profession in this area. This is a positive finding in terms of the focus of the economy on Industry 4.0. © 2021 University of Pardubice. All rights reserved

The perception of the state’s influence on its business environment in the SMEs from Czech Republic

The state plays a very important role within its business environment. Through its legislative environment, the state can be helpful to entrepreneurs in their activities or it can burden them. This article aims to find out how entrepreneurs of small and medium enterprises (SME) in the Czech Republic perceive the role of the state and its influence on business. The basis for the article were results of a project conducted at Tomas Bata University in Zlín in 2015. The project addressed 1,141 respondents from all regions of the Czech Republic to answer questions about the business environment. The research also considered the period during which the questioned entrepreneur was active in the market. Companies active in the market from 1st to 5th year represented 21%, companies active from the beginning of the 5th to the beginning of the 10th year represented 17%, and companies active for more than 10 years represented 62% of the researched sample. The structure of the researched sample according to the size of companies was as follows: 65% were micro enterprises (<10 employees), 27% were small enterprises (10-50 employees), and 8% were medium-sized enterprises (50-250 employees). This structure reflects the distribution of enterprises in the economy. Three areas of the state’s influence on the business environment were selected: the state’s help with esntrepreneurship, administrative burdens related to entrepreneurship, and corruption and clientelism. These areas were moreover examined in terms of the length of business and company size. It was found out that SMEs perceive the help of the state more than micro businesses. More than 53% of entrepreneurs encountered clientelism. Furthermore, the results confirm that the problem of corruption increases with company size. Encountering corruption and clientelism may be significantly more influenced by the length of entrepreneurship than by company size. © 2016, Academy of Economic Studies from Bucharest. All rights reserved

Debt as a financial risk factor in SMEs in the Czech Republic

Research Background: The approach is based on theoretical sources and completed studies on business debt, debt level and repayment awareness and how this issue relates to SMEs in the Czech Republic. Purpose of the article: The main purpose of this paper is to examine the attitude of SMEs towards the issue of company debt and its position within the economy. This attitude is an inherent part of the company's risk management. Methods: Three researched issues (How strongly is company debt perceived as a financial risk factor; Does the company consider debt to be a serious matter in their business; What measures does the company take to reduce risk) supported by hypotheses, which verified the thesis, were statistically tested. Finding & Value added: Practical implications confirm the thesis that there is a belief that SMEs do not consider debt to be a critical factor of business risk and do not associate it directly with the major risk of business failure. SMEs do not view debt negatively and do not directly link debt to the risk of failure. Consequently, companies consider the risk of indebtedness as relatively insignificant. Their approach to indebtedness is therefore generally passive and they also believe that it will not jeopardize their business, and they will always somehow manage to solve it through insurance, risk avoidance and through creation of financial reserves

The state of demand management in Czech enterprises

The article is based on systems of demand management in conditions of Czech enterprises. Market knowledge and operative planning are two phenomena which appear to be more and more interlinked and the changes in planning should reflect the future events on the free market. Estimating future demand is a necessary prerequisite for satisfying customers' needs in a more efficient way. It allows companies to focus on more economical resources and cut overheads in the pursuit for rationalization. The article presents the results of a research conducted in 2011 among 271 enterprises in the Czech Republic. The research was focused on analyzing the current state of implementation of demand management in domestic companies and also how this concept of management is perceived in these companies. The research has shown that companies take a very narrow approach to the term demand management seeing it solely as a process of demand forecasting. As a result of this, the companies are limited in gaining potential benefits which the concept of demand management can bring

An analysis of a selected factor of supply in the Czech Republic's labor market

A labor market is characterized by a labor supply of potential employees and a labor demand by companies. There have been significant disproportions between the supply and demand in the labor market in the Czech Republic. These disproportions lead to unemployment. The labor supply often does not reflect demanded professions required by individual companies. The requirement for experience in a given field occurs more frequently. This experience can lead to the lack of interest to work again in the field in the future. A research performed at Tomas Bata University studies both how current students' experiences influence their preferences concerning their future employment and whether students want to be employed or prefer their own business to employment. The research results can provide an insight into the emerging trend in the labor market in the Czech Republic

Career aspirations of young people in the Czech labour market

The labour market demonstrates neoliberal failure toward markets. Supply and demand are affected by exogenous factors outside of the vaguely-defined market. The economic crisis of 2008 has only served to accentuate students' career aspirations, which may be considered important in levelling or conversely deepening structural problems in the labour market. The research was conducted in 2011 by the Faculty of Management and Economics, Tomas Bata University in Zlín, and aimed at the Czech Republic's secondary schools. The sample consisted of 1,628 students. In recent years, the Czech labour market has faced structural unemployment and increased secondary-schoolgraduate unemployment. For the purposes of the study, Roe's classification of occupations and theoretical conclusions was utilized, and the data was processed and subsequently compared to the unemployment structure in the Czech Republic. The research confirmed the career focus of Czech young people differs radically from the composition of unemployment in general. At the same time, students were found to have no concise direction in their professional development, resulting in financial losses in education as well as slower turnover in the labour market. Students prefer areas focusing on work with people on the fringes of selected classifications and are less interested in central areas, namely technology- and nature-oriented (industry, construction, logistics, agriculture etc.) areas. These, however, constitute the Czech economy's foundation and primarily contribute to its GDP. © Common Ground, Bishnupriya Dasgupta, Sreejata Mitra, All Rights Reserved