Perception of non-financial risk determinants in SMEs in Visegrad countries

Abstract

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.

Entrepreneurial orientation and SME performance: The mediating role of learning orientation

“…Additionally, the majority of the past studies, except a few such as Isichei et al (2020), Shah et al, (2019), and Hughes and Morgan (2007), have measured EO as a whole and did not consider the effects of its individual constructs on firm performance. The performance of SMEs will improve if they properly invest internal resources, respond proactively to market stimuli, seek opportunities and take the risk to implement new ideas (Virglerova et al 2020). Furthermore, Linton's and Kask's (2017) qualitative study demonstrates that business strategies improve firms' performance if used in combination with proactiveness and innovativeness.…”

Perception of selected strategic management factors of SME in V4 countries

“…At this point, the authors agree with Wang et al (2007), who claim that strategic planning is sufficiently implemented only in growth-oriented companies, where growth is a priority of owners and managers. Interesting findings are presented by Virglerova et al (2020) in the context of nonfinancial risks of small and medium-sized enterprises, out of which some might be strategic risks, or by Dvorský et al (2019), who analysed the business risk of SMEs in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.…”

DIFFERENCES IN BUSINESS RISK EFFECTS ON THE FUTURE OF SMEs DUE TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

“…Frequent changes in legislation contribute to the instability of the business environment. Virglerova et al (2020) stated that more than 25% of the addressed SMEs from Visegrad Group (research covered 1781 SMEs) perceive the legislative changes as too frequent. These changes can lead to the legal risk of the companies and to the mistrust in national policy.…”