Vzájemné postoje malých podniků a úřadů místní správy z pohledu relationship marketingu (výsledky empirického výzkumu)

Small enterprises, as the results of studies aimed at finding out the level of marketing implementation in the practice of this type of enterprises show, still use marketing techniques to a small degree. This is caused by the fact that the instruments provided by traditional transaction marketing are not cost-effective and also of little use for them. On the other hand, relationship marketing as an attitude based on purposeful establishment and maintaining of relationships with customers and other stakeholders represents an instrument which does not demand any high investments and yet it can substantially help small enterprises to gain and secure their stability in the market. Authorities of local government can also be included in the list of the relatively significant stakeholders for small enterprises. The paper presents the results of the research carried out within the framework of the international project “Relationship Marketing of Micro and Small Enterprises along with Local Authorities – Comparative Research” in which employees of the Karol Adamiecki University of Economics Katowice, Matej Bel University in Banska Bystrica, Faculty of Economics and Administration of Masaryk University Brno and Faculty of Business and Management of Brno University of Technology cooperated. The project aimed to explore the degree to which relationship marketing is implemented in small enterprises and authorities of local government in the examined countries. This paper presents partial results concerning the mutual attitudes of small enterprises and authorities of local government in the Czech Republic. The research results show that the views of small enterprise representatives and local government authority representatives about their relationships quite considerably reflect their differing positions determined by the character and the sources of their interdependence and the different level of their interest in establishing and maintaining the relationship. Due to the different position in the relationship and also the varying level to which the expectations of both entities are met the quality of the relationship is assessed in a different way and also the emotions connected with the relationship are of a different character. To sum up, on the one hand the results reveal potential, but on the other hand also obstacles to establishing relationships between these two entities.