Significant determinants of the competitive environment for SMEs in the context of financial and credit risks

Abstract

The aim of the article is to compare significant determinants of the competitive environment for small and medium-sized enterprises in the context of financial and credit risk in Czech Republic and Slovakia. The survey on the quality of business environment was carried out in 2015 through a questionnaire on the sample of 1,141 respondents in Czech Republic. The total number of 438 questionnaires was collected during the research in Slovakia. Based on our own model, we quantified the index of perception of financial and credit risk (IFCR) for Czech Republic and for Slovakia. We compared the approach to risk by gender and education of the businessmen and company’s age through Pearson statistics at the significance level of 5%. Our research has shown that business environment in both countries is characterized by relatively low level of competitiveness in the researched area. The value of the resulted index in Czech and Slovak business environments is less than the median interval value. We also determined that the value of IFCR is significantly higher in Slovakia. Our research indicates there are significant differences in the assessment of business environment quality through IFCR in both countries, depending on gender and education of entrepreneurs and depending on company’s age. That index in Czech Republic is significantly higher in case of women as compared to men and in Slovakia it is the opposite. We have also found that businessmen with lower level of education have higher IFCR in both countries. Older firms showed better conditions for doing business in both countries because of their higher value of IFCR in both Czech Republic and Slovakia. © Foundation of International Studies, 2016.