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This work focuses on small and medium entrepreneurship. Its aim is to analyse the Czech entrepreneur environment based on legislative and on the activity of relevant institutions and to compare Czech conditions to foreign ones, in general and focusing on Germany. The work provides overview of entrepreneur environment in the Czech Republic, follows its development and gives issues of business forms in the Czech Republic, in Germany and on the European Union level. The international indexes and results of my business questionnaire are applied to comparison.

The more certain and clear working scope the more serious price competition of industrial tender, since the clients who released the tenders have became wiser with learned experiences and available information of industry year-by-year. Such facts of tender not only cripple the bidding advantage but also shrink the profit expectation of stakeholders for scale companies which structured with huge organization and indirect cost burden, and impact the further business operation. Whatever the cut of won tender price, the project team which in charge of project realization usually chanceless to involve the marketing activities in advance under structure process. However, as the information receiver from the client during realization practically, the project team shall forward any above information and cope with the marketing team to break through current passive tendering procedure and construct better solution to the industrial clients. A ¡§project marketing¡¨ based procedure according to the characters of project team which merged project management with marketing activities has been proposed and suggests project team shall planning appropriate marketing strategies and activities before certain and clear requirements releasing by client to enhance the marketing effectiveness and achieve the opportunities. Such a procedure is initiated by identifying the impacted KPI with causes of project team and gathering the related information from clients, then find out the competitive markets and establish suitable marketing strategies. It is helpful for the project team to break away the traditional marketing predicament with systematic response to the opportunity changes of target markets.

Presented work analyses business environment of Colombia. It focuses on political and security situation in the country, cultural and social differences, economic situation with regard to market opportunities for Czech companies in Colombia. It further evaluates mutual commercial relations between the Czech Republic and Colombia and addresses experience of particular Czech companies with business activities in Colombia. Based on the analysis of socio-economic environment and experience of Czech companies, a SWOT analysis of the Colombian market from the perspective of a Czech company is created.

Oil is an important part of the Saudi economy. With the volatility of oil prices and the pressing needs of economic growth and development, the Saudi Arabian government has planned to diversify its sources of income. To this end, the majority of effort has focused on developing the non-oil export sectors, particularly in manufacturing. Despite government efforts to enhance the ratio of non-oil export to total exports, it remains weak, amounting to 15 per cent of total exports in 2010 (which compares unfavourably with the average for other Middle East and North Africa countries (MENA) which stood between 30-46 per cent in 2010). This research aims to provide a comprehensive assessment of non-oil exports and their financing in Saudi Arabia. This study uses unique, primary data, collected through a custom designed questionnaire and a unique sample of Saudi exports. There is currently no comparable database for Saudi firms, or for other MENA countries trying to engage in export diversification strategies. This dissertation comprises three main empirical parts which are; ownership structure and operations, finance, and business climate, respectively (chapters 3, 4 and 5). In the first, the econometric analysis shows multiple factors have a significant positive impact on export intensity, including: whether the firm is shareholding, the age of the firm, internationally and locally recognised quality certificate, length of export experience, supplies of domestic origin, independent retail stores, TV or radio advertising, a foreign language website and finally an export marketing plan. Regarding the impact of financial factors on exports at firm level, the econometric analysis showed that younger firms are more likely to be credit-constrained than older firms. Finally, this dissertation provides evidence of the relationship between the business environment, competition and firm’s exports. The main findings show that firm performance, measured as intensity of exports, is boosted by an increase in experience of export and hindered by a high level of labour, competition, custom and trade regulation, and the informal sector.

The theme of this thesis is to describe the business environment of Italy and to give readers a comprehensive overview of this country and the conditions of entry to this market for potentially interested enterperneurs. The thesis is divided into four chapters.In the first part the reader can get familiarized with the general characteristics of the target country both in terms of geography, as well as demographic and political information. The second chapter focuses on a closer economic characteristics of the country. The third chapter is devoted to the cultural specificities of Italy and specifications of doing business in this country. The fourth chapter is devoted to the business environment from a practical standpoint, the most common forms of business, labor market, tax, investment climate in the country and more.

This diploma thesis analyses the business environment in Macedonia and its specialties compared to the world, economies of the European Union and Czech Republic, especially the factors, that influence either the decision making of a foreign investor when he is considering to enter the market or the actions of the business partners of macedonian companies.

Before the Velvet Revolution, Mongolia was a very important trading partner of the former Czechoslovakia. The aim of my thesis is to present Mongolia as a potential business partner for today's Czech exporters and investors and see if it is possible to develop mutual economic relations. The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter focuses on the general characteristics of Mongolia, for example geographic and demographic data, administrative structure and history. Another chapter is devoted to analysis of the Mongolian market, thus characterizes the political, legal, social and technological environment. The third chapter is focused on the economic characteristics of the country, follows the development of macroeconomic indicators and provides detailed information on foreign trade and analyzes the investment climate. The fourth chapter is about the Mongolian culture, its differences and etiquette of business meetings. The final chapter follows the existing trade relations between the Czech Republic and Mongolia, deals with the specifics of entry of Czech entities and based on information from companies already doing business in Mongolia, the chapter analyzes the suitable fields and possibilities of entry of Czech companies to Mongolia.

Today's business environment is characterised by organisational dependence on information and communication technology. At the same time, this reliance on information technology and systems (IT/IS, hereafter IT) has given rise to concerns about how to evaluate IT investment initiatives. Issues such as the popular 'productivity paradox' and the broader 'value for IT money' (e.g., Brynjolfsson and Hitt 1998; Davern and Kauffman 2000) debate have further fuelled the extensive research in the area of IT investment and assessment. However, a review of current literature reveals a number of differences between IT investment assessment literature and traditional capital budgeting literature, particularly in the way that the entire decision making process is rarely discussed in IT investment decision making research. Instead, much attention has been focused on project justification or evaluation alone. Thus, it was argued for this research that an emphasis on the entire decision making process - from IT planning and analysis to post-implementation evaluation - is important, as potential organisational and other contextual variables that may not be apparent at the evaluation stage, can be better identified and appreciated. Another theme that this research seeks to investigate is the applicability and practicability of current IT decision making theories and evaluation methods discussed in the literature. Considering the breadth and depth of existing research in this area, IT investment decision making is, however, still seen as problematic today (e.g., Mahmood and Mann 2000). In particular, the literature reports a polarisation of empirical evidence towards the use of either over-optimistic or over-pessimistic forecasts of IT performance and return on investment (e.g., Irani et al. 1997). Thus, the usefulness of these theoretical models and techniques cannot be seen as clearly established. As a result, no single theory or technique can be said to be unequivocally successful in helping firms to evaluate IT investment opportunities and to identify where IT value lies. This discrepancy between the desired and the actual outcomes of IT investment decision making highlights a possible gap between what is offered in theory by researchers and what is used by practitioners. Gaining an understanding of the underlying issues associated with this gap is important, as its existence raises questions about the veracity of recent theoretical developments in IT investment decision making methodology. Hence, the research problem investigated in this research is: What is the level of applicability and practicability of the current theories and techniques relevant to IT investment decision making and evaluation, as observed in large Australian companies? To address the research question, this research was conducted by two studies. The first study adopted a survey methodology to establish the specific decision making content and process involved in IT investment. The collected data from this part of the research were used for both descriptive and inferential statistics analysis purposes. The second study consisted of three convergent interviews, which examined the significant institutional contexts that might influence the decision outcome, further adding meaning to the findings of the first study. The key findings of the research are that the planning, evaluation, and post-implementation evaluation activities for IT investments have not been performed widely and consistently. Although sophisticated evaluation methods have been developed over the years, they do not appear to have provided a satisfactory answer to improve IT decision making practice. It appears that the underlying problem with IT investment decision making cannot be explained by the inadequacy of the adopted evaluation techniques alone, and answers must also lie elsewhere. Two potential problem areas were found to be organisations' unenthusiastic attitude towards IT, and a general lack of applicability and practicability of current decision making and evaluation theories. The unenthusiastic attitude towards IT is explained by several factors as identified in this research. Particularly, they were related to: (1) difficulty with forecasting future business needs, (2) lack of time for sufficient IT planning, (3) performance of past IT investments leading to IT conservatism, (4) IT being generally seen as operating costs, (5) budgetary constraint, (6) competitors' imitation leading to undifferentiated or similar technology/process, (7) technologies fast becoming obsolete, and (8) organisation complexity, power structure, and existing policy and procedures all making change difficult. It was suggested that without fundamentally changing the way technology is perceived and treated by the business community, the value of IT will continue to be questioned and IT investment decision making will continue to be difficult. The lack of applicability and practicability of contemporary decision making and evaluation theories was also found to be significant, with very few organisations considering them to be useful. Four key factors impeding adequate system planning and evaluation were also uncovered: (1) business necessity remains a main IT driver, (2) IT is accepted as a cost of being in business, (3) users' IT needs must be met responsively, and (4) IT is inherently difficult to evaluate with any accuracy. As a result, organisations were often found to adopt the following evaluation strategies: (1) situational, rather than systematic evaluation, (2) a cost-management approach to evaluation, often resulting in the use of an excessive discount rate or cost of capital, (3) waiting for the technology in question to mature before investing. The contribution of this research is that it has both theoretical and practical significance. The theoretical significance of this research arises from insights into the existing body of theory and further, from theorising about the decision making practices as adopted by large Australian companies. At the same time, this research also serves as a practical reference for the development of decision making practice and policy. Only with a clear understanding of the important aspects involved in IT investment decision making, can organisations define and approach their investment tasks more successfully.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore what factors in the Zambian national business environment that influences the international entrepreneur, describe how Swedish entrepreneurs adapt to the uncertainties that may come with the national business environment in Zambia, and explain the opportunities and threats that come with investing in the country. In order for us to reach our purpose of the thesis, a case study of two Swedish firms has been conducted by interviews. The theoretical framework consists of the business environment, international entrepreneurship, the concept of psychic distance, the PEST analysis model, threats and opportunities, and five uncertainty management strategies. All of these theories are relevant for the study and the research questions. The empirical findings include the case businesses view on the national business environment regarding both threats and opportunities, and how to manage the uncertainties in the best way. In the analysis the theoretical framework is allied to the empirical findings. The analysis consist of an discussion about the Zambian national environment, and an analysis of the strategies that would be most suitable for an international entrepreneur to use when coping with uncertainties, threats and opportunities in Zambia. The conclusion of the thesis shows that the economic and political factors in Zambia create opportunities, while the technological and socio-cultural factors pose threats to the international entrepreneur.