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Research background:Immigrant entrepreneurship remains a key issue for researchers, politicians, and policymakers. It has been widely discussed from different angles among various researchers in recent studies — particularly in Europe. However, there is a lack of studies to present the motivation of the causal relationship between immigrant entrepreneurs. Purpose of the article: This study aims to fill the gap and analyze the causal relationship between the motivations of Asian immigrant entrepreneurs in Germany. Methods: The study was conducted through a face-to-face interview using a predesigned questionnaire from Asian business owners in Germany and the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) approach was applied to analyze the data. Findings & value added: The results show that capital acquisition, employment, financial problems in the family, and existence opportunities in the market are the factors that have higher priority, and may highly impact the Asian immigrant entrepreneurial decision. On the other hand, relatives or social networks remain the lowest priority factor that encourages Asian immigrants towards self-employment. The study has also found that entrepreneurship in the family, the state support policy for immigrants, low level of education, unfamiliarity with the local language, and dissatisfaction with the previous job belong to the cause group. However, some of the motivating factors relate to the effect group, such as capital acquisition, opportunity in the market, immigrant community ties or social networks, unemployment, and financial problems in the family. The most affected factor among the effect group is unem-ployment, while immigrant community ties or social network is the least affected factor. This study includes a novel interpretation of the DEMATEL approach that researchers have not yet addressed; therefore, it is highly relevant for policymakers, especially those interested in migration studies. Finding out the main driving forces behind Asian immigrant entrepreneurs in a developed European nation like Germany and how these drivers affect cause-and-effect interactions between them are the contributions that add value to the field. © Instytut Badań Gospodarczych / Institute of Economic Research (Poland).

Research background: Export activities are crucial for SMEs' growth and income since they enable businesses to expand abroad. However, SMEs encounter some export impediments, including legislative, tax-related, and cultural-linguistic differences, which increase their export risk. Moreover, since different legislative, tax-related, and cultural conditions affect SMEs' export activities, SMEs' perceptions regarding export obstacles might also differ. Purpose of the article: This paper aims to determine whether the SMEs' perceptions of export barriers in selected Visegrad countries differ. Methods: The researchers employ a random sampling method to create the research sample and create an Internet-mediated questionnaire to collect the re-search data, including 408 SMEs from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. The researchers ran ANOVA analyses with the Gabriel Post Hoc test to find differences between those SMEs. Findings & value added: The results reveal that the perceptions of Czech and Slovak SMEs differ regarding legislative and tax-related export barriers. On the other hand, the perceptions of SMEs from various countries do not differ concerning cultural-linguistic export barriers. Unfortunately, there is a lack of studies comparing the perceptions of SMEs from Visegrad countries regarding legislative, tax-related, and cultural barriers. Thus, evaluating this topic from an international perspective brings novel findings and fills this research gap. Therefore, policymakers, SMEs, governments, public institutions, and academicians might gain benefits from the results of this unique research.

Purpose Retaining critical knowledge is relevant for all organizations, knowledge-intensive ones in particular. Failure to do so can, in the worst case, lead to an organization being unable to act. Acknowledging the role of context in this regard, the purpose of this paper is to examine knowledge retention (KR) in the banking sector of a developing country. A particular focus is placed on exploring various contextual factors that influence the retention of critical knowledge taking into consideration the setting. Design/methodology/approach Following a qualitative research design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior managers from private and public banks in Pakistan. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Findings The findings suggest that the existence of a collectivist society, gender differences, few job opportunities, power distance and the late IT Boom are vital factors to be considered regarding KR in the setting studied. The findings are summarized in a conceptual framework that highlights critical factors of KR to be studied in a broader context and which are viewed as relevant for informing future research in this underdeveloped area of knowledge management (KM). Research limitations/implications The data were collected from a small number of individuals working in different banks in only one country. Future studies should consider research designs across multiple organizations involving more people representing different roles, functions and age groups. Originality/value Existing KM research has emphasized the role of context while research on KR is underdeveloped in this regard. By exploring different contextual factors this study advances current understanding in the KM domain.

Since Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in iron and mining industries are significant contributors not only for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and labour creation of countries but also export volumes of nations, they have also crucial roles to reduce unemployment rates, and increase amount of exports. But comparing to their larger counterparts, SMEs encounter more financing obstacles that might make them to become non-competitive. Within this context, their usage of social media platforms might increase their competitiveness because these digital marketing channels provide less costly solutions for their activities. But depending on their characteristics, their willingness and propensity to implement social media channels in their marketing operations can show differences. In this regard, this paper intends to examine whether the usage of social media channels by SMEs in iron and mining industries differ depending on their size and length of doing business. To hit this target, the researchers have created a questionnaire survey and have directed it to the randomly selected respondents from Cribis database. 702 SMEs that operate iron and mining industries of Slovakia and Hungary have fulfilled the survey. Independent Sample T test is applied to explore differences in the selected variables. While the usage of social media platforms by smaller and larger SMEs does not differ, older SMEs apply social media channels more than younger SMEs. These results are consistent for both Slovak and Hungarian SMEs. The reason of similarities in both nations’ SMEs might be related with similar social-economic conditions of these nations, education level and experience of firm executives. The cooperation of policymakers with SMEs, universities, industrial zones, and unions to encourage the effective usage of social media channels might increase SMEs operating in mining and iron industries and their executives’ competencies and competitive postures to contest with their larger-sized counterparts.

Research background: SMEs encounter more survival impediments than larger businesses. Innovativeness is a crucial attribute for smaller firms to overcome these barriers since it positively influences their performance, competitiveness, and capability to operate in the long term. However, depending on firm characteristics, the innovativeness of SMEs might differ. Purpose of the article: This research investigates whether the innovativeness of family-owned SMEs differs depending on their size, sector, area of activity, and succession on the sample of 350 family-owned SMEs that operate in Czechia. Methods: The data collected in the Czech Republic in 2020 through the structured self-administered questionnaire were analyzed using Skewness-Kurtosis and Levene's normality tests and Independent Sample T-test to find the differences in SMEs innovativeness depending on their selected characteristics. Findings & value added: According to the results, SMEs' innovativeness differs depending on their size, industry, and area activity. On the other hand, the analyses confirmed the nonexistence of the differences in SMEs' innovative-ness concerning succession involvement. The region of SMEs' operation, the scope of their activities, and firms' executives' age might be crucial arguments to explain the differences and similarities in these enterprises' innovativeness. Even though the research focuses only on the SMEs located in Czechia, the similarity of the issues all SMEs face when competing with the larger firms worldwide, especially if we take into consideration the countries with a similar level of development and overall institutional business conditions, allows for generalizing our results and might draw readers' attention to this paper. Policymakers, universities, international institutions, and financial institutions might cooperate to create industrial zones, encourage research centers, and provide education and financial support to stimulate SMEs' innovative activities.

The usage of digital currencies and digital payments such as cryptocurrencies and card payments have been rapidly increased during Covid-19 pandemic because of providing contactless payments and keeping social distance between individuals. The number of contactless payments users was 440 million before the Covid-19 period, then the number of users increased rapidly and reached around 760 million in 2020 (Statista, 2021). In this regard, this paper investigates the perspectives of businesses regarding the usage of a local digital currency and its payment methods. Moreover, this paper investigates the incentives or supports that businesses might provide for their workers or customers to increase the usage of this currency. The researchers adopted a case study and performed structured interviews with the experts. Moreover, they also applied a non-probability sampling method, purposive sampling since this method is applied by researchers when aiming to explore a specific issue and intentionally selecting the extreme examples. In this regard, the researchers deliberately chose 25 businesses that operate in a disadvantaged region, namely, Cieszyn Silesia where a prospective local currency implementation can be applied by practitioners to overcome the negative economic outcomes of Covid-19. Since digital local currencies make significant contributions on economic conditions of disadvantaged regions, selecting respondents that have minimum 10 years experiences in businesses of a disadvantaged region makes this paper to fulfil the research aims. The researchers have also prior knowledge about this topic, and this is another reason of employing this sampling method. The researchers collected both qualitative and quantitative data and this paper is a kind of descriptive research. The researchers just indicated the result by accumulating the responses in Microsoft Excel and stating the responses that the survey participants answered for open-ended questions. According to the results, all businesses are prone to use digital currencies and are interested in accepting digital payments with these currencies. Regarding supports, businesses have willingness to provide bonuses and incentives to their employees, and customers to increase the usage of these currencies. These results might provide strong evidences to implement a digital local currency under the conditions of Covid-19 pandemic in a disadvantaged region. © 2021, Czestochowa University of Technology. All rights reserved.

Research background: Comparing to larger businesses, SMEs encounter more problems in their operations. Since innovativeness enables SMEs to be more competitive against their rivals, having more innovative activities might make SMEs overcome these issues. Nevertheless, depending on businesses-founders/owners' characteristics, SMEs' innovativeness in organizational, local, and global extents might differ. Purpose of the article: This research explores differences in family-owned SMEs' innovativeness regarding the age of their founders/entrepreneurs, legal form, and succession of these businesses. Methods: The researchers used a questionnaire survey. Data collection process was completed in 2020. The research sample includes 343 family-owned SMEs that operate in Czechia. The normality test result directs the authors to perform an Independent sample T-test to find differences between selected variables. Findings & value added: According to the obtained results, global innovativeness does not differ depending on firms-owners/entrepreneurs' characteristics. However, limited liability firms perform better in local innovativeness than other firms structured in different legal forms. Moreover, the organizational innovativeness of SMEs with successors is greater than firms without successors. While organizational innovativeness does not differ depending on entrepreneurs/founders' age and legal structure of businesses, local innovativeness does not differ depending on entrepreneurs/founders' age and successors' existence in these businesses. The educational level of entrepreneurs/founders, sector, and SMEs' location might be reasons for similarities and differences between SMEs' innovativeness. From the policy perspective, based on the obtained results, the authors suggest creating industrial zones. Furthermore, policymakers' collaborations with other essential players in the market might stimulate innovative attitudes among businesses. This paper's main contribution to the existing literature is to fill the gap regarding organizational, local, and global innovativeness of family-owned SMEs by providing detailed and empirical results about entrepreneurs' and firms' characteristics. Thus, this paper might draw businesses, policymakers, academicians, and international readers' attention concerning family-owned SMEs' innovativeness.

В останні роки спостерігається стрімке поширення принципів шеренгової економіки у бізнес-діяльність, особливо в туристичному секторі. Це обумовлює трансформацію функціонуючих бізнес-моделей, а також появу нових видів економічної діяльності та можливостей для їх розвитку. У рамках дослідження авторами узагальнено аргументи наукової дискусії щодо переваг та недоліків розвитку бізнес-моделей шеренгової економіки. Проаналізовано особливості розвитку шеренгової економіки у туристичному секторі. Авторами відмічено, що наявні наукові напрацювання переважно присвячені дослідженню загальних питань розвитку шеренгової економіки, тоді як актуальність даної роботи полягає в аналізі особливостей шеренгової економіки в туристичному секторі, для якого характерними є значна кількість зацікавлених сторін та швидкий розвиток. Методологічною основою даного дослідження є вторинний аналіз даних. Авторами зазначено, що основними рушійними силами розвитку шеренгової економіки у туристичному секторі є Інтернет та інноваційні технології, циклічність економіки, зміна суспільних цінностей та екологічність. Авторами здійснено порівняльний аналіз шеренгової платформи «Airbnb» та найбільш популярними готелями. Крім того, визначено, що популярність оренди апартаментів через шеренгові платформи з кожним роком зростає у порівнянні з традиційними готелями. У дослідженні емпірично підтверджено та теоретично доведено, що шеренгова економіка сприяє стрімкому розвитку туристичного сектору, приваблює більше туристів до країни та перевершує традиційні бізнес-моделі. Отримані результати можуть бути використані для подальшого дослідження найбільш сприятливих умов для розроблення нових бізнес-моделей, аналізу реакції учасників ринку, просування нових бізнес-ініціатив у туристичному секторі, дослідження шеренгової економіки за суб’єктами туристичної діяльності (транспорт, розважальні та туристично-інформаційні платформи). The sharing economy is rapidly gaining popularity, especially in the tourism sector. The sharing economy transforms functioning business models, giving businesses new economic activities and development opportunities. However, while sharing economy-based models are spreading in the world, not only the advantages but also the disadvantages are seen. This paper summarizes the arguments within the scientific discussion on the economic characteristics of sharing economy. It identifies the actions determining the development of sharing economy in the tourism sector. Since it is known that the sharing economy is developing rapidly, the development of the sharing economy is usually analyzed as a whole, regardless of the different sectors. However, the development of the sharing economy in the tourism sector is found to be the fastest. Besides, there is the largest number of stakeholders. Systematization of scientific treatises and approaches concerning the investigated issue indicated that the main drivers for the sharing economy development in the tourism sector are the Internet and technology among tourists, the cyclical nature of the economy, the change of societal values, and environmental friendliness. The methodological base of this research was secondary data analysis. The research empirically confirmed and theoretically proved that the sharing economy in the tourism sector develops rapidly, attracts more and more consumers in the tourism sector, and outpaces traditional business models. The obtained results could be used for analyzing the most favorable conditions to develop new business models in the market, analyze the response of market participants (consumers and traditional business model), promote new business initiatives in the tourism sector, research the sharing economy phenomenon in narrower tourism (transport, entertainment, and tourist information platforms).

Research background: The existence of new technologies and increase in the extensive usage of the internet by individuals, forces governments, local authorities and practitioners to create alternative payment methods such as digital currencies. However, some of the individuals are concerned about trusting these currencies since they negatively perceive their security. Moreover, some people with low income have the willingness to use these currencies in case of receiving some financial benefits. In this regard, security and benefits have been used as tools to increase the trustworthiness of digital currencies. Purpose of the article: The goal of this study is to investigate and to examine the influences of security and benefits of a local digital currency on potential users’ trust in this currency. This paper also considers the age and work experience of prospective users and investigate these variables’ effects on stated relationships. Methods: This paper is based on a case study that includes 413 respondents who are workers of a large company in Cieszyn Silesia region of the Czech Republic. A questionnaire survey was employed by researchers to determine the perceptions of potential local currency users. Binary logistic regression analyses were performed to examine the relationships between selected variables. Calculations were made using SPSS Statistics software. Findings & Value added: The results of this paper confirm the positive influences of security and provided benefits on the trust of a digital currency. Regarding characteristics of potential users, perceptions of younger and less experienced users regarding the security and financial benefits are more positive to trust this currency comparing to older and more experienced respondents. Trade freedom of a country, long term orientation and individualistic characteristics of potential users might be reasons for the positive relation-ships between security, benefits and trust in a local digital currency. On the other hand, the income of prospective users, new technology curiosity, and experience of users might be mounting pieces of evidence to explain the differences in the perceptions of potential users regarding security, benefits and trust to a local digital currency. This paper also proposes some policy implementations to users, practitioners, local authorities and governments to make them cope with the security and trust issues of these currencies.

Research background: Because of enabling a greater amount of money circulation and addressing the needs of individuals in specific regions, local and digital currencies have become more important for local economic and sustainable development, especially in last decade. However, their awareness by potential users have become one of major constraints to their extensive usage. In this regard, discount have been used to increase the awareness of individuals. Purpose of the article: As discount is used as an effective promotional tool. This study pays regard to this indicator and aims to investigate whether the discount rate is positively associated with local and digital currency awareness of potential users. Moreover, this research also includes job positions and age of the respondents into the analyses due to potential existence of differences in the awareness of people regarding their characteristics. Methods: The research employs a questionnaire survey and acquires data from 407 workers of a local business in Cieszyn Silesia region of the Czech Republic. The researchers run Binary Logistic Regression analyses in IBM SPSS Software to examine the relationship between these specified variables. Findings & Value added: The research substantiates the fact that potential users who demand more discount rates are more likely to be aware of local and digital currencies. Moreover, potential users who work in lower job positions and demand more discounts are more acquainted with these currencies. Although the existence of a relationship between age and local currency awareness is not proved, older people who demand discounts with higher percentages are more informed about digital currencies than younger individuals. Higher elasticity in discount demand, mutual interactions and relations, such as social media and internet usage of potential users, might be the reasons of these results. This study makes significant contributions to the literature by confirming the significance of individuals’ ages and occupational statuses in the awareness of local and digital currencies and the positive relationship between their discount propensity and awareness.

This article aims to define and analyze important factors of the introduction of a local currency. The research was carried out in the Cieszyn Silesia region. A questionnaire was prepared and distributed among the employees of both public and private companies in the region and filled in by 422 respondents. Advanced data analysis methods were used to evaluate the questionnaire: contingency tables, absolute and relative species abundance, the Pearson's chi-squared test, along with a standard score (Z-score). Respondents' attitudes towards introducing the local currency led to some interesting results. Most respondents know the term "local currency," but only one third of them are able to interpret this term correctly. 65% of the respondents are familiar with the term "digital currency," but only 11% of them have trust in the concept. According to the received answers, the credibility of digital currency can be increased by it being ensured by trustworthy subjects. Three out of four respondents predict that the introduction of digital currency would significantly support regional producers and service providers. These results are used as the information base for assessments regarding the types of employee benefits on offer by major employers in the region along with cooperating institutions of the public non-profit sector, as well as for an academic discussion on the suitability of the local currency in the Czech Republic and its impact., TACR project [TL02000562]

Research background: The executives of SMEs that have higher innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness and autonomy dynamize the strategic posture of SMEs, thus, those firms can reach better financial and economic conditions. However, existence of many differences among countries, such as cultural values and market conditions, can cause variations in EO of these executives. Therefore, this fact can be one of the reasons why the performance and financial power of SMEs differ in various countries. Purpose of the article: This study aspires to find out the differences in entrepreneurial orientation (EO) of younger and older, female and male, and more and less educated executives of SMEs from various countries. Methods: 1141 Czech and 479 Turkish executives were analyzed separately by the Mann-Whitney U test, to find out the differences in EO. The researcher ran the analyzes by SPSS Statistical Software. Findings & Value added: The results indicate that risk-taking and competitive aggressiveness of the executives differ regarding their gender, while innovativeness, proactiveness and autonomy do not. While there are significant differences between proactiveness, autonomy and innovativeness of older and younger executives, no differences exist in risk-taking and competitive aggressiveness. Regarding educational status, more educated executives perform better in innovativeness, proactiveness and autonomy, while less educated executives have higher propensities in risk taking and competitive aggressiveness. Masculinity, fear of failure, perception of obstacles, motivation of SMEs’ executives and location of businesses might be the reasons of these results. By including the survey respondents from different countries and all dimensions of EO into the analyses, this study finds similarities and differences in gender, age and education levels and of SMEs’ executives and their EO. This research also suggests some policies for governments and institutions to close the gap between EO of the executives. These facts not only make this research to unique, but also constitute a valuable addition to the literature.

Local currencies have been used to achieve local economic, social and environmental goals that are not attained by national currencies. Thus, they can also be applied as a mean of the regional development focused on the development of the local tourism. However, trustworthiness and costs of local currencies have been some of the main impediments in their widely usage. Therefore, discount rates that practitioners (including municipal authorities and governments) of local currencies present for potential users might play a key role to deal with these issues. Within this context, this research intends to assess the relationship between discount rates that potential users demand to use local currencies (a paper-based and a digital) and their trust to these currencies. To hit this target, a questionnaire survey was directed to 407 employees of a regional business in Cieszyn Silesia region and the responses were analyzed by binary logistic regression test in SPSS Statistical Software. The results confirm that potential users with more trust to local currencies have more tendencies to demand higher discount rates. Cultural values, occupational status, age, income levels of respondents and potential roles of governments and local authorities in local currency implementations might be the reasons of these findings.

While the consecutive metamorphoses in the world economy changes the paradigm of doing business, the sources of success of almost every type of business transfer from tangible to intangible assets, and the information and its value becomes more and more significant, especially in the segment of small and medium sized enterprises. The aim of this paper was to identify the factors of success of information security management in segment of SMEs in Slovakia. Based on the literature research we identified 4 main factors of success of information security management, including the Compliance of information security management with the company's business activities, Support of top management, Security controls and Organizational awareness. To identify the importance and interconnections of the specified factors we have addressed senior IT security experts from SMEs in Slovakia. The experts evaluated the significance and relationships the factors of success of information security management and the results of the expert evaluation were processed using the DEMATEL technique. The results of the research show that the Security Controls and Supportive top management are the most important factors in general, while the factor of organizational awareness is the most obvious and important in the short-term period. Our results imply that SMEs should promote organizational awareness in information security management in line with implementation of the security controls at the first line of the defense.

Protecting the environment and maintaining the EU’s competitiveness must be inextricably linked. From this perspective, the scope of present article may be seen as quite timely. Air pollution is the main environmental risk factor contributing to deterioration of the health of the population, and consequently influences the economic development of the state. The usage of hard fuels for the heating of local dwellings is one of the most important sources of local air pollution. The aim of this paper is to identify the relationship between the pollution caused by heating and the health of the population. The health status of the population was assessed using the potential years of life lost per 100,000 inhabitants. Data on the energy sources used for heating were taken from a survey of all dwellings in the Slovak Republic from the 2011 census of inhabitants, homes and apartments. To create clusters of similar municipalities in terms of the variables considered, we used the fuzzy cluster analysis for individual size-standard groups of municipalities. The map view of the fuzzy cluster analysis results confirmed the division of the Slovak Republic into two regions – the north, which showed more favorable results and the south, which showed negative findings. The membership function values of the first cluster indicate a significant positive spatial autocorrelation as measured by Moran’s coefficient. A local Moran cluster map identified the areas of interest investigated below.

Favorable business environment including political, technological, economic, social and other determinants is one of the crucial factors influencing the decision to start a business. The aim of this paper is to define and quantify significant political factors which determine the perception of the quality of business environment (QBE) of small and medium-sized enterprises for starting a new business in Czech Republic and Slovakia. Data of an extensive research conducted at Tomas Bata University in Zlin in 2018 was processed by means of regression analysis. The results show that QBE in both countries is mostly affected by state regulation and state support of business activities, followed by legal environment. The factor supposed to be the third one differed in each country. While QBE is also determined by the quality of education in Czech Republic, this factor is not statistically significant in Slovakia, and the state bureaucracy is. Therefore, governments of both countries should continue facilitating start-ups' development by reducing and eliminating administrative barriers, improving access to finance, and by adapting educational programs involving entrepreneurial education at different educational levels., Project - Important attributes of the quality of SMEs business environment: mutual contexts, relationships and priorities [RO/2018/02]; Project - Insolvency and failing circumstances in the environment of young entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises [GAAA/16/2018]

Research background: Demand forecasting helps companies to anticipate purchases and plan the delivery or production. In order to face this complex problem, many statistical methods, artificial intelligence-based methods, and hybrid methods are currently being developed. However, all these methods have similar problematic issues, including the complexity, long computing time, and the need for high computing performance of the IT infrastructure. Purpose of the article: This study aims to verify and evaluate the possibility of using Google Trends data for poetry book demand forecasting and compare the results of the application of the statistical methods, neural networks, and a hybrid model versus the alternative possibility of using technical analysis methods to achieve immediate and accessible forecasting. Specifically, it aims to verify the possibility of immediate demand forecasting based on an alternative approach using Pbands technical indicator for poetry books in the European Quartet countries. Methods: The study performs the demand forecasting based on the technical analysis of the Google Trends data search in case of the keyword poetry in the European Quartet countries by several statistical methods, including the commonly used ETS statistical methods, ARIMA method, ARFIMA method, BATS method based on the combination of the Cox-Box transformation model and ARMA, artificial neural networks, the Theta model, a hybrid model, and an alternative approach of forecasting using Pbands indicator. The study uses MAPE and RMSE approaches to measure the accuracy. Findings & value added: Although most currently available demand prediction models are either slow or complex, the entrepreneurial practice requires fast, simple, and accurate ones. The study results show that the alternative Pbands approach is easily applicable and can predict short-term demand changes. Due to its simplicity, the Pbands method is suitable and convenient to monitor short-term data describing the demand. Demand prediction methods based on technical indicators represent a new approach for demand forecasting. The application of these technical indicators could be a further forecasting models research direction. The future of theoretical research in forecasting should be devoted mainly to simplifying and speeding up. Creating an automated model based on primary data parameters and easily interpretable results is a challenge for further research.

Метою статті є аналіз інноваційної діяльності в туристичному маркетингу та шеринговій економіці на прикладі Airbnb в Празі. Авторами систематизовано аргументи та контраргументи у рамках наукової дискусії щодо ухилення від сплати податків, а також підвищення ставок на орендну оплату для житлових приміщень, що пропонують шерингові платформи. У статті проаналізовано та систематизовано потенційні проблеми, що виникають на ринку оренди житла. Систематизація результатів аналізу наукових джерел дозволила визначити низку перевагта недоліків функціонування платформ шерингової економіки. Детерміновану вибірку даних сформовано на основі методу веб-аналізу даних із офіційного сайту AirBnB. У статті проаналізовано 13918 пропозицій житла, які були орендовані 6768 клієнтами AirBnB з квітня 2016 року по березень 2017. При цьому практичну реалізацію етапів дослідження здійснено з використанням програми Microsoft Excel 2016, а також економетричної моделі, розробленої автором. Результати проведеного емпіричного дослідження свідчать про те, що регулювання податкових ставок в залежності від кількості орендованих ночей призведе до зниження податкових надходжень від оренди житла на 0,98%. Визначено, що при встановленні схеми оподаткування при якій клієнт сплачує податки за оренду, зниження податкових надходжень становитиме 6,40%. Авторами доведено, що зміна системи оподаткування призведе до відкритості довгострокового ринку житла, що обумовить зростання пропозиції житла для оренди на 16832 одиниць. У статті обгрунтовано, що при розрахунку суми податків за оренду житла в розрізі їх власників забезпечує меншу суму податкових надходжень, аніж при розрахунку податку за кожне орендоване житло. Авторами емпірично підтверджено та теоретично доведено, що введення гнучкої системи оподаткування в залежності від тривалості оренди є більш вигідними з точки зору витрат, пропозиції та попиту на оренду приміщень. Результати дослідження мають практичне значення і можуть бути корисними державним органам, науковцям, які зацікавлені в дослідженні питань туристичного маркетингу, компаніям житлової галузі, які впроваджують маркетингові інновації, а також суб’єктам ринку житлових послуг, таких як орендодавці та орендатори, у короткостроковій та довгостроковій перспективі. This research summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on the issue of potential tax evasions and increased rental rates that one of innovative home-sharing platforms might causes. The study aims to find possible tax evasion that each property and each host can cause by considering creative activities in tourism marketing and a sharing economy platform, Airbnb in Prague. Besides, the authors identified the potential problems in the rental accommodation market. Systematization literary sources and approaches for solving the problem of sharing economy platforms indicate that although these platforms benefit for some economic, social and environmental issues, they pose some troubles in various markets. Regarding methodological tools of the research method, this paper used a web scraping technique to gain data from the Airbnb website. The authors analysed 13918 accommodations that were rented by 6768 Airbnb users between April 2016 and March 2017. In the study, the authors used the Microsoft Excel 2016 program and a model created by researchers to make calculations. The paper presented the results of an empirical analysis showing that in case the sensitive regulation of the number of nights will apply the potential tax incomes will lower only on 0.98% when considering accommodations and on 6.40% when considering users. In this case, 16832 rental units will appear in the long-term housing market. Moreover, tax evasion becomes more when considering each dwelling instead of each host because some users rented more than one rental accommodation. The research also empirically confirms and theoretically proves that that extended limits for overnight stays yield benefits for costs, supply and demand of rental housing. Those findings can be useful for governments, academicians that are interested in tourism marketing, firms in the accommodation industry that look for new marketing innovations and short or long-term housing market participants such as lessor and lessees.

Although SMEs make significant contributions to socio-economic conditions of countries, they face many financial, organizational and mercantile obstacles in their operations. In this regard, having more innovative, risk-taking and proactive activities (EO) increases SMEs’ performance, financial conditions and help them to survive in the long term. Therefore, finding regional, national and international differences in EO of SMEs can enable policymakers, financing institutions, SMEs, and entrepreneurs to create more opportunities for SMEs to overcome those problems. In this regard, this research seeks to explore the differences between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) of SMEs that operate in different regions of countries with various cultural values, income levels, economic, political and legal risks. Moreover, age and size of firms are also considered to find differences among SMEs in national and international contexts. In line with these objectives, the current study examines two different countries that have cultural differences and have different economic, legal and political risks. To achieve the objectives, 1620 Czech and Turkish SMEs were analyzed by performing the Mann-Whitney U and Moran’s I spatial autocorrelation tests. According to the results of Moran’s I autocorrelation test, this research does not find any differences between the low and high-income regions of the selected countries regarding EO of SMEs. Experience and age of the respondents might be the reason for these results. Significant results in the national context are that EO of SMEs does not differ across the age categories, while there are differences between firm size and their EO. In the international context, the main findings are that Czech SMEs are more proactive than Turkish ones in all age and size categories, while Turkish SMEs are more innovative in all age categories and only in small size segment. However, this research has not revealed any differences within the risk-taking behaviour of SMEs from different countries considering their size and age. The significant differences and similarities in EO of SMEs from different countries might stem from the educational status of the respondents, a considerable number of operating firms in a market, agility, flexibility, R&D activities and sector of firms. Financial, educational, administrative and legislative support needs to be given by policymakers to close the gap between EO of SMEs of different age, size, regions and countries. © 2020, Kauno Technologijos Universitetas. All rights reserved., KEGA Project [005SPU-4/2019]

The article aims to determine the difference in the perception of selected business risks and their impact on the future of business concerning the entrepreneur's experience with business bankruptcy. The case study involved 73 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with experience of business bankruptcy and 381 SMEs without the experience of business bankruptcy from the Czech Republic (CR). Linear regression models were used to verify statistically significant causal relationships between selected indicators of the most significant business risks and respondents' perceptions of the future of business. The results brought interesting findings. The attitudes of entrepreneurs show that personnel, market, and financial risk are among the three most significant business risks. Experience with business failure is not a significant factor in determining the impact of market indicators on the business's perceived future. The adequacy of sales of services and products has the greatest impact. The experience of the bankruptcy of SMEs is important in financial risk attitudes. According to entrepreneurs who have no experience with bankruptcy, the perception of financial performance has the greatest direct impact on the future of business. Conversely, for entrepreneurs who have experienced bankruptcy, the ability to properly manage financial risk on the company's future has the greatest direct impact. © 2020 LLC CPC Business Perspectives. All rights reserved.

У статті висвітлено особливості та проблеми впровадження місцевих валют у обраних географічних регіонах. Авторами зазначено, що підвищення рівня обізнаності та довіри серед потенційних користувачів сприяє популяризації місцевих валют. Головною метою дослідження є визначення відмінностей між довірою та знаннями потенційних користувачів про місцеві валюти в залежності від гендерного фактору та досвіду роботи. Детерміновану вибірку даних сформовано на основі результатів опитування 413 респондентів, які працюють в Чешині Сілезького регіону. Методологію дослідження засновано на статистичному тесті Хі-квадрат та стандартизованій Z-оцінці. У ході практичної реалізації дослідження застосовано програмне забезпечення SPSS для визначення статистично значущої різниці між визначальними змінними. За результатами встановлено відсутність статистично значущого впливу гендерного фактору та досвіду роботи на рівень знань потенційних користувачів про місцеві валюти. До того, більшість респондентів продемонстрували високий рівень освіченості в досліджуваному питанні. Авторами припущено, що реклама та поширеність місцевих валют, а також тісна взаємодія між співробітниками обумовлюють високий рівень обізнаності потенційних користувачів про місцеві валюти. Окрім цього, отримані результати дослідження засвідчили, що гендерний фактор та досвід роботи мають вплив на рівень довіри до місцевих валют. Таким чином, респоденти чоловічої статі та працівники з більшим досвідом роботи мають нижчий рівень довіри до місцевих валют. У статті авторами доведено, що причинами таких відмінностей можуть бути різний рівень освіти, рівні сприйняття та прийняття, інстинкти та особисті інтереси потенційних користувачів у місцевих валютах. Результати дослідження мають практичне значення для установ, організацій, уряду та спеціалістів та можуть бути розглянуті при поширенні місцевих валют в цілях підвищення рівня конкурентоспроможності менш розвинених регіонів. Carrying local currencies into practice in limited geographical regions has become a major obstacle to overcome due to awareness and trust of potential users. In this context, the purpose of this research is to explore and examine how trust and knowledge of potential users about local currencies differ between their genders and working experiences. In line with this target, the researchers gained data from 413 workers in Cieszyn Silesia region by using questionnaire surveys. Chi-Square and Z-score tests were calculated by SPSS statistical software to get statistically significant differences between the determining variables. The analyses corroborated nonexistence of statistically significant differences between genders and work experiences in the local currency knowledge of potential users. Most of the respondents in the analyzed region were aware of local currencies. Publicity and prevalence of local currencies and mutual interactions between employees might be the reasons for the similarities in the knowledge of potential users. Furthermore, this study confirms that trust of workers differs regarding their gender and work experience. Comparing to men and more experienced potential users, the propensity of women and less experienced employees to trust local currencies is higher. The reasons for these differences in gender and work experiences might stem from the education levels, perceptions, adoptions, instincts and interests of potential users regarding these currencies. These results can be mounting evidence to consider for institutions, organizations, governments and practitioners when implementing local currencies to increase the competitiveness of less developed regions. This study is only limited to a region, and the respondents are only employees. Other limitations are that this research examines two obstacles of the implementations of local currencies and two characteristics of respondents, namely, age and work experience.

Small and medium-sized enterprises are facing many types of business risks, almost unknown or unimportant for the large companies, where the funding risk plays an essential role due to the importance of the need of the external financial sources for their growth. This paper investigates the impact of a size of the company and an age of the owner on the perception of the funding risk in the segment of small and medium-sized enterprises in Slovakia in response to the restraints in their access to credit finance. The results of the research specify the importance of these factors in determining the scope of the funding risk exposure on Slovak SMEs. The paper is based on the data from the scientific research carried out in 2016 in Slovakia among 438 companies. The data were analyzed by Pearson´s chi-square statistics, which allowed to confirm the existence of the statistically significant dependencies between the chosen factors and the perception of the funding risk. The presented statistical evidence confirms that the size of the company and the age of the owner are significant in relation to the funding risk of a company from the segment of SMEs. Smaller companies do perceive the funding risk more intensively than larger ones. The statistically significant impact of the selected factors on the frequency of bank loans rejection was confirmed only in case of the age of the owner, but not in case of the size of the company, when the entrepreneurs of the age between 36 and 45 declared the highest rejection rate of the loan applications. A surprising finding is that younger entrepreneurs are significantly more self-confident in case of the potentially negative influence of the funding risk on their companies than their older colleagues. The results of the research also confirm the existence of the statistically significant dependence between the selected factors and the reasons for the rejection of bank loans applications. We can declare that a credit rejection is most common in case of younger business owners but is not typical for the smaller companies. In the group of entrepreneurs aged between 36 and 45 years the most frequent reason was related to the negative values of the financial indicators, and in case of the oldest entrepreneurs the most often reasons of the rejection of the loan application were the lack of collateral, poor business plan and negative values of the financial indicators. Функціонування малих та середніх підприємств супроводжується низкою фінансових ризиків, які не характерні для великих компаній. При цьому, фінансові ризики виступають головним стримуючим фактором збільшення обсягу залучення зовнішніх інвестицій для фінансування зростання підприємства у майбутньому. У статті авторами визначено вплив розміру компанії та вік її власника на сприйняття фінансових ризиків в умовах обмеженості кредитних ресурсів. Результати дослідження підтверджують вагомий вплив зазначених факторів на рівень фінансових ризиків малих та середніх підприємств Словаччини. У статті об’єктом дослідження було обрано 438 малих та середніх підприємств Словаччини, період проведення дослідження – 2016 рік. Результати тесту Пірсона Хі-квадрат підтверджують гіпотезу про наявність статистично значимої залежності між обраними факторами та сприйняттям фінансових ризиків. Так, розмір компанії та вік її власника є статистично значимими по відношенню до фінансових ризиків малих та середніх підприємств. Авторами встановлено, що менші за розміром компанії є чутливішими до фінансових ризиків, аніж великі корпорації. З іншої сторони, результати дослідження підтверджують статистично значимий вплив вибраних факторів на частоту відмови від банківських кредитів лише за фактором – вік власника. Так, підприємці віком від 36 до 45 років отримують найбільшу кількість відмов у отриманні кредиту. Автори наголошують, що молоді підприємці більш самовпевнені та рішучіші у випадку настання можливих фінансових ризиків, аніж їх старші колеги. Результати дослідження також підтверджують наявність статистично значущої залежності між обраними факторами та причинами відмови у отриманні банківських кредитів. У роботі підтверджено гіпотезу, що відмова у кредитуванні найчастіше зустрічається серед молодих підприємців, але це не є характерним для невеликих компаній. Для підприємців віком від 36 до 45 років головною причиною у відмові кредитування є негативні значення основних фінансових показників. При цьому для іншої аналізованої категорії підприємців (старші за віком) головними причинами відмови у кредитуванні стали: відсутність застави, низька якість бізнес-плану та негативні значення основних фінансових показників.

Worldwide scientific researches present the entrepreneurs have to declare specific characteristic traits to be successful in the business. This paper is focused on the comparison of the specific character traits between potential young entrepreneurs and other young people. The aim is to compare the three chosen character traits differences between these two focus groups by using the statistical method of Pearson's chi-square and bring the answers on the questions why some people incline to becoming the entrepreneurs more intensively than others, and what are the differences between them in relation to the character traits and their personality characteristics. The research was conducted among 1233 young people in all regions of Slovakia in 2012. The results show, that young people who plan to become an entrepreneur, are more creative, willing to face the risk, more confident in the solvation of complicated problems and difficult tasks with the opposite group of respondents.

The export orientation of small and medium enterprises represents an important attribute of the enterprises' competitive ability. In this context, the area of export financing becomes a very important field of company management. The aim of this study is to define and quantify relevant approaches of entrepreneurs to the export activities and export financing, with regard to the impact of the selected socio-economic factors (gender, level of education and age). The study is based on the research of Slovak business environment carried out in 2016, which was evaluated by the tools of descriptive statistics, including percentages and averages, pivot tables, the methods of comparison and deduction, Pearson's chi-square statistics at 5% significance level. Our results suggest that Slovak entrepreneurs primarily supply their products and services on the domestic market, while their export potential is limited. The assessment of the state support of export activities is rather negative. An alarming finding is that Slovak entrepreneurs in the SME segment do not use even basic tools of financial risk reduction to a higher extent, and that the usage of services of the state export bank Eximbank is negligible.