Ludmila Kozubíková,

Faculty of Management and Economics,

Tomas Bata University in Zlin,

Czech Republic

email: kozubikova@fame.utb.cz

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ENTREPRENEURS IN THE CONTEXT OF PERCEPTION AND MANAGEMENT OF BUSINESS RISK

IN THE SME SEGMENT

Jaroslav Belás,

Faculty of Management and Economics,

Tomas Bata University in Zlin,

Czech Republic

email: belas111@gmail.com

Yuriy Bilan,

Faculty of Economics Science and Management,

University of Szczecin, Poland,

email: yuriy_bilan@yahoo.co.uk

Přemysl Bartoš,

Faculty of Management and Economics,

Tomas Bata University in Zlin,

Czech Republic

email: bartos@fame.utb.cz

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.

Received: October, 2014

1st Revision: January, 2015 Accepted: March, 2015

DOI:10.14254/2071- 789X.2015/8-1/4

JEL Classification: L26, O16, G21

Keywords: small and medium enterprises, personal characteristics of entrepreneurs, financial risk, credit risk