| The research of enterprise's competitive advantage unremittingly remains hot in the realm of business strategic management. Such researches at home and abroad have undergone an evolution from internal theory to external theory, and then to integration theory. In the present academic community, mainstream views on enterprise's competitive advantage and its source have primarily come into being, i.e. such core elements as resources, capabilities and knowledge of the firm, together with the external environment - via its interactions with these elements - exert crucial influences on enterprise's competitive advantage. Moreover, as researches deepen, the effects of regional soft environment as a vital constituent of external environment on firm competitive advantage are attracting increasingly strong attention in the academic world. On top of that, the status and features of Chinese soft environment, and the limitations of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in terms of their size, strength, markets share, and the like, make SMEs' obtainment and sustainment of competitive advantage relate with regional soft environment greatly. In Zhejiang, a Chinese province where small and medium-sized manufacturers dominate its business typology, the effects of regional soft environment on SMEs' competitive advantage are abundantly conspicuous. Therefore, this paper, taking the manufacturing industry of Zhejiang province as an example and focusing on functionalities of regional soft environment on elements of SMEs' competitive advantage, is of both theoretical value and practical guidance.The study in this paper has experienced three major stages including literature review, modeling, and empirical analysis. In the stage of literature review, theories on enterprise's competitive advantage, regional soft environment and other related fields prevailing at home and abroad and progresses in empirical research in theses fields are summarized systematically so as to lay a theoretic foundation for the proceeding of this research and to learn from existing experience. In the stage of modeling, based on thorough kickoff screening, analysis and distilment, the paper sets up a theoretic system for elements of SMEs' competitive advantage and regional soft environment, and further defines and analyzes each specific element. Through induction and deduction as well as logical reasoning, the possible approaches of the regional soft environment as functional element on SMEs' competitive advantage are analyzed systematically, based on which a theoretical model of functionalities is established -and corresponding hypotheses are proposed. In the stage of empirical analysis, the paper first works out some measuring indicators for all the variables in the research and corresponding questionnaire, which are amended and consummated via interviews with specialists, scholars and entrepreneurs and small-sample pre-surveying before the cross-section data for study of 170 small and medium-sized manufacturers in 7 prefecture-level and city-level administrative regions in Zhejiang province are obtained through large-scale questionnaires. Based on the foregoing, the paper checks out the reliability and validity of different systems of elements and their measuring indicators through EFA and CFA, preliminarily verifies the hypotheses of causal relationship between the factors through regression analysis, conducts tests of fitting of and makes necessary corrections to the model as well as tests all the hypothesis through SEM, and finally establishes the model of functionalities of regional soft environment as functional element on SMEs' competitive advantage through in-depth probe into the results of the empirical analyses.By thorough and in-depth theoretical and empirical analyses, the following conclusions are drawn through study in this paper: 1) The system of elements for SMEs' competitive advantage is composed of eight concrete-sources including human resource, financial resource, relationship resource, administrative capability, manufacturing capacity, technological innovation capacity, marketing capability, and entrepreneur competence. 2) The system of elements for regional soft environment is composed of six concrete elements including governmental service environment, socio-cultural environment, legal environment of commerce, market environment, educational and technological environments, and financial service environment. 3) Regional governmental service environment has considerable positive effects on SMEs' financial resources and technological innovation capacity. 4) Regional socio-cultural environment has considerable positive effects on SMEs' administrative and marketing capabilities. 5) Regional legal environment of commerce have considerable positive effects on SMEs' relationship resource. 6) Regional market environment has considerable positive effects on SMEs' relationship resource and administrative capability. 7) Regional educational and technological environments have considerable positive effects on SMEs' human resources, manufacturing capacity, technological innovation capacity, and entrepreneur competence. And 8) Regional financial service environment has considerable positive effects on SMEs' financial resource.The theoretic value and innovativeness of this paper are mostly embodied in the following three aspects: 1) It offers a fresh perspective of regional soft environment to study SMEs' competitive advantage. Expanding the influences of external environment on enterprise's competitive advantage from environment of competition (or task environment) to regional soft environment, and giving full consideration to SMEs' characteristics in size, that perspective constitutes effective supplementation to the existing theories on enterprise's competitive advantage and external environment. 2) It fabricates the system of elements of regional soft environment influential to SMEs' competitive advantage. Based on the systematic summarization and analytical distilment of the author's own research findings and effectively backed by empirical analyses as well as taking into full account the dependence on circumstances of the Chinese context peculiar to regional soft environment, this fabrication has served as a weighty contribution to bringing the study of regional soft environment into a complete and scientific theoretical system. And 3) It establishes a theoretical model of regional soft environment as functional element on SMEs' competitive advantage. Having systematically analyzed and depicted the intensity, significance and specific manifestation, and the like, of the effects of regional soft environment on the elements for SMEs' competitive advantage, and fully verified their scientificalness and effectiveness by means of empirical analyses, this model gives impetus to further study of the relationship between regional soft environment and enterprise's competitive advantage.The systematic expatiation of this paper proceeds in six parts. Chapter One, the introductory part, puts forward the question for study in this paper, and makes clear related research background, purpose and significance, subject matter, research content, methodology, technical approaches, and framework of this paper. Chapter Two, literature review, is a systematic summarization of the research findings available of the predecessors on enterprise's competitive advantage, regional soft environment, and other related fields. Chapter Three, modeling and hypothesizing, constructs a theoretical model of regional soft environment as functional element on SMEs' competitive advantage through induction, deduction and logical reasoning, and brings forward corresponding hypotheses for the study. Chapter Four, questionnaire design and data obtainment, explains and analyzes the process and primary structure of questionnaire design, specific measuring methods for variables, selection of samples, collection of data, and general status and data quality of the research samples. Chapter Five, empirical analysis of the model, tests the reliability and validity of the measures, the fitting of the model, and the hypotheses for the study mainly through EFA, CFA and SEM, etc., establishes the ultimate theoretic model by multiple-step corrections. Finally, Chapter Six, research conclusion and prospect, mainly formulates the conclusion of the study, and expounds on the theoretical value, innovations and practical significance, as well as limitations of the study and prospect of further study.
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