Some aspects of criminal environment impact on sustainable entrepreneurship activities

Abstract

In the Republic of Latvia there are sufficient conditions for engaging representatives of different layers of society in doing business and entrepreneurship activities. At the same time, some businessmen lack legal behaviour skills on the market and underdeveloped legal culture and low legal awareness have often led and still lead to violation of Latvian legislation including the criminal one. This undoubtedly contributes to the increase in crime in business sphere. The aim of the given article is to examine several aspects of criminal environment impact on business activity. In the article two major problems will be dealt with – the shadow economy and corruption, which from the author’s point of view exert direct influence on business activity and reveal the connections of some of its parts with criminal environment. The problems of the shadow economy and corruption are topical both within the Republic of Latvia and internationally. A number of international researches are being conducted to evaluate the scale of these phenomena and to devise effective methods to fight them, which once more proves the topicality and urgency of the analysed theme.