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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]

Human resource management is a crucial factor that determines the success of small and medium-sized enterprises in the market and its competitiveness. Small and medium-sized enterprises in the Czech Republic form a significant group of employers in the Czech Republic since they employ two thirds of employees out of the total number of the work force and represent over 99% of the overall number of active business entities. The main objective of the article is to evaluate the level of human resource management in small and medium-sized enterprises in the Czech Republic. Partial objectives of the article are to define a human resource management profile of small and medium-sized enterprises in the Czech Republic and to test dependencies between selected qualitative features. The data (n = 499) was collected by means of a questionnaire technique. The results of the survey confirmed important human resource management internal factors (the size of the enterprise, the position of the HR manager in top management and the existence of the HR department) and helped to define the human resource management profile of small and medium-sized enterprises in the Czech Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]