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

Abstract

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.