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Volume 4,Issue 5

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26 April 2026

Mediating Test of Enterprise Assistance in Industrial Upgrade under Firm-sponsored Rural Revitalization

Jyh-Harng Shyng1*
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1 Life Sciences College, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing 526000, Guangdong, China
LNE 2026 , 4(4), 73–78; https://doi.org/10.18063/LNE.v4i4.1954
© 2026 by the Author. Licensee: Bio-Byword Scientific Publishing Pty Ltd, Australia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

This study investigates the transmission mechanism of firm resource input, enterprise assistance effort, and industrial-driven performance under China’s “Thousand Enterprises Help Thousand Towns” initiative. Using a PLS-SEM approach with 170 valid questionnaires collected from nine districts and counties in Zhaoqing, the study empirically tests direct effects, indirect effects, and mediating effects in a unified framework. Results show that: (1) Firm resource input significantly and positively improves enterprise assistance effort; (2) Enterprise assistance effort significantly promotes industrial-driven benefits; (3) Enterprise assistance effort does not play a significant mediating role between resource input and industrial performance; (4) Firm resource input directly drives industrial upgrading more effectively and stably. These findings enrich the theoretical framework of “government-enterprise-village” coordinated governance and provide empirical implications for rural industrial revitalization in China and similar regions worldwide.

Keywords
Thousand Enterprises Help Thousand Towns
Firm-assisted revitalization
Industrial upgrading
PLS-SEM
Mediating effect
Funding
This study was supported by the Zhaoqing Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Key Project (Project No.: 25ZD-04).
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