Ludmila Kozubíková

Personal Characteristics of Entrepreneurs in the Context of Perception and Management of Business Risk in the Sme Segment

Abstract. The issue of business in the segment of small and medium-sized companies is a very actual area of scientific research today. Currently, great importance is given to research of personal and knowledge preconditions of people for doing business. The 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 differences 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 differences in the attitudes of these two categories of entrepreneurs in approaching credit risk, where it was found out that the defined categories of business have different approaches to knowledge of credit conditions of commercial banks. The results of our study have showed a high degree of confidence of individual groups of entrepreneurs when evaluating their ability to manage financial risks in the company and the high intensity of entrepreneurial optimism regardless of the personal characteristics of entrepreneurs.Keywords: small and medium enterprises, personal characteristics of entrepreneurs, financial risk, credit riskJEL classification: L26, O16, G21IntroductionSmall and medium-sized enterprises play an important role in the economic system of any developed country.In this context, it is clear that the issue of entrepreneurship in the small and medium-sized companies is very topical area of scientific research. Currently, great importance is given to research of personal and knowledge characteristics of people for business because many of the results that are mentioned below show the fact that to be an entrepreneur does not fit all the people and the business needs a specific properties. These properties may affect the approach to the assessment and management of business risks that significantly influence the success in business.Theoretical backgroundThe business environment is determined by personality characteristics and motives of individual entrepreneurs. Business situations are often unique in their unpredictability, complexity and changing requirements during the business process. Entrepreneurs must be capable to have the features of several personalities at once and as one person to demonstrate the ability to act as investors, inventors, accountants, dispute investigators, leaders, technologists, marketing specialists and top sellers. For this reason, the more knowledge and skills the entrepreneur is capable to demonstrate the better. (Frese, Gielnik, 2014)According to Deakova, Drazovska, Grznarik and Kondasova (2010) the most important personal qualities for an entrepreneur are: courage, self-reliance, responsibility, determination, perseverance, proactive approach, creativity and scholarship in a particular area, where this businessman intends to do business. The entrepreneurs have a tendency to choose themselves an area of business that has a consistency between their personal characteristics and requirements for success. In addition, they tend to manage their business by using their strong and specific qualities. (Sidik, 2012)Kvietok (2013) states, that decision to take on the business risk is symptomatic of a certain type of people. (According to Hvide and Panos, 2014 the individuals who are more risk tolerant are more likely to start up firms.) A significant part of the motivation to take risks in business follows from the success motivation. To achieve the set goals, successful people are willing to take on reasonable risks associated with feedback about the level of achieved results. …

Entrepreneur‘s attitude towards innovativeness and competitive aggressiveness: The case study of Czech micro-enterprises

Th e aim of this article is to evaluate the diff erences in the attitude of microenterprises ́entrepreneurs to the selected constructs of entrepreneurial orientation (EO), specifi cally to innovativeness and competitive aggressiveness according to the selected socio-demographic factors (gender, education and duration of doing business by the fi rm).Th e research was conducted in the Czech Republic in 2015. On the sample of 740 micro-enterprises, we attempt to fi nd out diff erences in owners’ approaches to innovation and competitive aggressiveness between men and women, entrepreneurs, university educated and other education (secondary school with and without graduation) and “older” (active in the market for more than 10 years) and younger micro-enterprises. More than 50% of the micro-enterprises surveyed regularly develop new products and services in their companies, but only 30 % of them support their activities also with suffi cient amount of fi nances. 66 % of micro-enterprises try to exploit anticipated changes in their target market and 58 % take the initiative to get ahead of competition. We found out, that the factor that caused statistically signifi cant diff erences between the determined groups was the time of operating in the market.

Entrepreneurial Orientation In The Segment Of Micro-Enterprises: Evidence From Czech Republic

Abstract The objective of this comprehensive research is to identify and explore the dissimilarities of gender and education level of entrepreneurs and enterprises’ age with regards to entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in the segment of micro enterprises. All of the dimensions of EO are included such as innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness and autonomy for our analysis. The data that we have used for this study, was collected by a structured questionnaire during 2015 in Czech Republic, and consists of 1141 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and 740 of them are defined as micro enterprises by using the definition of European Commission. The empirical results of our study indicates a that university educated micro-entrepreneurs are more innovative and autonomous comparing with lower educated micro-entrepreneurs and also younger micro firms are more innovative, risk taker and proactive than the older micro firms. However, our results do not show any significant differences between men and women in relation to the all components of EO. Our result can be explained by having higher percentage of university educated women micro entrepreneurs comparing with their men counterparts and education may have a substitution effect on the gender based differences in the segment of micro firms.

Attitude toward innovativeness based on personality traits in the SME sector. Czech Republic case study

Abstract The research of personality characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) entrepreneurs in relation to EO constructs is an important part of the research of the whole entrepreneurial environment of small and medium-sized enterprises. The aim of this paper is to search for a relationship between personality traits and the attitude toward innovativeness as a construct of EO of SME entrepreneurs in the Czech Republic based on their sociodemographic factors (gender, education, and age). Results from a questionnaire-based survey of the entrepreneurial environment of SME in the Czech Republic showed that the attitude toward innovativeness differed for entrepreneurs considering perseverance and responsibility to be important for entrepreneurship based on their education level. Entrepreneurs with secondary education or secondary educated with graduation were more confident about the reputation of their business as an innovator than university educated entrepreneurs.