The Effect of Entrepreneurial Environment on Resource Use: A Czech-Austrian Comparison of Family and Non-family Businesses in Historical Context

Abstract

Our study examines the view of the comparison of family and non-family businesses in countries that are in close proximity and share the same border at several levels. The first level is the historical context, the next is the territorial/national context, and the last is the management context of the enterprise. Results display that within the history and ideology context in cross-border comparison we can find fundamental differences in human and process capital and that Czech companies lag far behind Austrian companies in using their strengths about the competition. The difference between Czech and Austrian businesses within the context of management lies in the incorporation and utilization of tangible and intangible resources.

Keywords:

• Environment
• family business
• historic development
• resources

Notes

1 In 1993 Czechoslovakia divided into two successor states—the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Therefore, the development of the Czech Republic and Slovakia has been significantly different, including in private enterprise. Slovakia has not been included in this research. As Slovakia has a much smaller border with Austria than the Czech Republic, it is assumed here that the characteristics of private enterprise in Slovakia will be similar to Hungary, with whom Slovakia shares a much larger border than Austria.

Additional information

Funding

This paper received financial support from the project “The development of small and medium-sized businesses in cross-border areas” M00200 EU INTEREG grant. Lenka Komárková’s work was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (GA ČR) under the grant 18-01159S.