The Role of Place and Intellectual Capital in Achieving Competitive Advantage and Improving Performance of Clothing Small Businesses

Today, achieving competitive advantage is considered as one of the most important initial steps for companies to enter the markets and expand their activities and success in these markets. On the other hand, with increasing competitiveness among companies, attention to competitive advantage has increased, especially in small businesses. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of place on competitive advantage through the mediating role of intellectual capital (human, structural and communication capital) among small clothing businesses. The research is applied in terms of purpose and is descriptive - survey in terms of the method of research and the method of data collection. The statistical population consisted of small scale clothing businesses that 400 standard questionnaire, used for its validity of formal validity as well as Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used for its reliability, and it was distributed among the companies using the available sampling method, of which only 363 questionnaires were analyzed A covariance-based structural equation modeling approach has been used to test the hypotheses and validate the conceptual model of the research. The results show that Place has a significant positive effect on human capital, structural; communication and competitive advantage, as well as intellectual capital dimensions have a significant positive effect on competitive advantage.