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This paper deals with small and medium enterprises in relation to the attitudes perceived by business owners in their immediate neighbourhood, society, in relation to banks and the government. The key question is the difference between entrepreneurs who started their businesses voluntarily and those who entered the business out of necessity. The majority of governmental policies, including Czech policies, focus more on the questions of financial support, however the support of entrepreneurs can be broader and may include the efforts to influence perception of an individual and the society so that they have a more positive attitude towards entrepreneurial activities. The attitudes in the Czech Republic are so far rather negative and such a change may be positively reflected in the level of the entrepreneurial activity which strongly affects economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing literature has made great achievements in technology sharing (licensing patents) contracts, which has defects in the selection of oligopoly models, the setting of innovation subjects, the consideration of product heterogeneity, and production costs. This paper aims to reveal the competitiveness strategies of leaders and followers for innovation, technology sharing, and sharing fees in a Stackelberg market. The three-stage sequential game method is used to achieve the objective. The results are as follows. First, whether an enterprise uses innovation or shares technology is related to the fixed cost of innovation, the return on innovation, and product differentiation. It will hinder innovation activities if the fixed cost of innovation is too high, the return on innovation is too low, or the products are too homogeneous. A relatively low return on innovation makes it possible for the two enterprises to engage in sharing. However, with a relatively high return on innovation, only a high level of product differentiation can ensure technology sharing. Second, the optimal sharing fee is dynamic, showing an upward and then downward trend as the return on innovation grows. Product differentiation has an uncertain impact on the cost. Third, either the leader or the follower is likely to be the optimal bearer of social responsibility depending on the returns on innovation and product differentiation. This study has theoretical significance for optimizing technology-sharing decisions, improving competitiveness for enterprises, and formulating effective industrial policy for the government. And it provides some practical guidance for competition and cooperation between enterprises with technological innovation behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The previous economic crisis has increased the attention of government to focus their activities more on economic stability. The development of government subsidies requires an analytically based analysis, one which would identify problematic areas of regional development more precisely. However, to monitor market changes in a highly dynamic market is time consuming and inefficient. Without proper market monitoring, the level of competitiveness within regions might decrease in the long run. Thus, the goal of the article is to establish the framework of a market trend monitoring system. To achieve this goal, the research methodology consists of a scientific literature analysis, an analysis of available data infrastructure for market trend analysis, and a statistical analysis together with a machine learning approach. The authors of the publication propose a market monitoring framework which would provide an infrastructure for evidencebased policy recommendations for government institutes and might provide guidelines of how to increase their competitiveness. A case study of real estate data and macroeconomic indicators of Lithuania was conducted, during which a clustering algorithm was applied to identify groups in Lithuania. The 60 municipalities of Lithuania were grouped into 4 clusters in terms of noteworthy relationships between industrial development and population size. In 3 of the clusters, the relationship of industrial growth and population was direct. In cluster 4, however, the relationship was opposite, a result which requires a further analysis of infrastructure and industrial sectors to provide more precise policy recommendations. The theoretical contribution and findings from the case study provides grounding to develop the market monitoring system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]