Vybrané aspekty investičního rozhodování (poznatky z empirických výzkumů)

The paper is based on results of studies related to capital budgeting practices used in the Czech Republic and abroad. First these studies based on questionnaire responses are briefly described. The rest of the paper covers two important areas of investment decision making process. First area concerns investment decision techniques (including profitability measures, payback period, net present value, internal rate of return etc.) used for project appraisal and their implementation rate. The results of own research realized on a sample of 252 companies from the Czech Republic are described. Testing of dependencies using the criteria of investment decisions on selected characteristics of the respondents led to the conclusion that the choice of these criteria affects the size of the undertaking but does not depend on the type of ownership (domestic or foreign). For comparison, the results of other Czech and foreign surveys are described too.Comparison with the results of several foreign researches has demonstrated a significantly higher rate of application of dynamic criteria than in the Czech Republic. Second area compares several ways, in which risk and uncertainty in project appraisal and selection are included. In both of these areas of investment decision making various hypotheses of dependencies of project appraisal and risk analysis techniques on selected parameters of surveyed enterprises are tested. Research has shown a preference for applying verbal riskcharacteristics, but the frequent use of numerical characteristics was rather surprising. There is no evidence regarding the hypothesis of dependencies of using numerical risk characteristics to company size, strategy formulation, form of ownership etc. Comparison with the results of the foreign research has demonstrated a higher use of sensitivity analysis, scenarios and simulation techniques than in the Czech Republic.