The aim of this article is to find out how SME owners in Czech Republic perceive the role of the state and whether this perception differs according to their level of education. In the course of this project managers or owners of small and medium enterprises were asked to answer the questions about business environment. The following three variables influencing business environment had been chosen: conditions for starting a business, state financial support for business, improving conditions

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... business in a longer-term pespective. For each of the answers, ordinal mean values were searched for, and discrete ordinal variances were calculated. In order to test for the dependencies, Pearson's Chi-squared test was applied. It was found that the lower education the businesspersons have, the higher is their satisfaction with the role of the state in the business environment of Czech Republic. Better-educated businesspersons are more aware of administrative obstructions when starting a business. Majority of SMEs were not satisfied with the financial support for businesses provided the state.