Abstract:
The purposes of this research were to study the importance level of differentiation strategy and competitive advantage of small and medium enterprises in Uttaradit Province and to explore relationship between differentiation strategy and competitive advantage of small and medium enterprises. The population of this research was 1,136 small and medium enterprises in Uttaradit Province. The sample selected by stratified sampling method was 355 small and medium enterprises. The instruments used was a questionnaire. The frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and multiple regression analysis were the parameters used for statistical analysis. The results revealed that the importance level of differentiation strategy of small and medium enterprises in Uttaradit Province was overall at a high level (mean=4.05). When considering each aspect, every aspect was at a high level with personnel ranked at the highest, followed by service and image respectively. Moreover, the importance level of competitive advantage of small and medium enterprises in Uttaradit Province was at a high level (mean=4.21), and overall aspects were also ranked at a high level. When considering each aspect, efficiency was ranked at the highest, followed by responsiveness and innovation respectively. Hypothesis testing of differentiation strategy in product, service, personnel, channel and image impacted competitive advantage of small and medium enterprises in Uttaradit Province significantly at the 0.05 level. The prediction from all 5 independent variables on competitive advantage of small and medium enterprises in Uttaradit Province was 55.30 %, while the other 44.70 % was impacted by other factors (R2 = 0.553), and was ranked by multiple regression from the highest to the lowest personnel, product and service respectively.