THE SUPPORT OF TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT IN IMPERFECT COMPETITION (SELECTED ASPECTS FOCUSED ON SMEs IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC)

The phenomenon of globalization affects a lot the reality of imperfect competition and it influences its forms. The imperfect competition includes two extreme forms and each from them is connected with specific problems. An enterprise generally disposes of reasonable resources for an implementation of technology development in the monopoly position but practically it does not have any motivation to implement it. The monopolistic competition, represented by SMEs, is motivated to implement technology development. However, financial resources are usually missing. In this situation, the role of state or “supra-state” (the EU) support can be considered as irreplaceable. The support of SMEs in the Czech Republic reflects the EU-framework. In the period 2007-2013, the most of the finances from public resources, affecting SME competitiveness, flow into the Czech Republic from the EU structural funds, namely through relevant published operational programmes. The platform of “technology centres” was made in the previous period and it was allocated in separate regions. Their significant role is the support of technology development and innovation focused on SMEs. Research results show that these technology centres differentiate by founder, as well as by their capital power and operational performance. As a result, it presents a different rate of the fulfillment of their main role: to support innovation trends of SMEs effectively. Simultaneously, the research presents – in the framework of the analysed problem – a connection between the support of technology development and indicators of wealth in regional context.