Transformations  in
Business & Economics

PERCEPTION OF THE RISK OF STARTING UP BUSINESS AND PERSONAL ATTITUDE TO RISK
Tomasz Bernat, Aleksandra Gasior, Jaroslaw Korpysa, Marta Lakomy-Zinowik, Rafal Nagaj, Piotr Szkudlarek

ABSTRACT.Decisions taken by people are burdened with the risk of failure. Decisions concerning starting a company are of particular importance in this context. Business entities, due to their nature, are risky. Therefore, making a decision on creating them is inherently risky. One of the factors influencing the perception of this risk is the decision-maker's attitude to this process. The concept of this paper created against this background. The main goal of the paper, which has been set, is the analysis of the decision concerning starting up business within the context of attitude towards risk. A following hypothesis was formulated: people of high risk acceptance level perceive starting business as moderately risky. The verification of the hypothesis required accepting research methodology consisting of two tools. Firstly, the very willingness to start a business assessed using the analysis of the survey results. The second part: attitude towards risk was studied by means of an economic experiment. A group of 275 students was involved in the survey and experimental study. As a result of the methodology devised in such a way the research hypothesis has been verified. However, the conclusions from the studies are of informative character, due to the unrepresentative size of the respondent group. The biggest part of the studied respondents, having high tendency for risk, determined by the economic experiment, perceives starting a business as a decision of low degree of risk. Simultaneously, interesting conclusions may be reached, comparing two analyzed subgroups of students: studying economics and students of non-economic studies

KEYWORDS: entrepreneurship, risk, decision, set up business, risk attitude, Poland.

JEL classification: C91, D03, D81, L26.