A Study on the Relationship Between Small Business Owners’ Personal Characteristics and Regional Satisfaction and Place Attachment, and the Mediating Effect of Community Consciousness

This study empirically examines the structural relationships among small business owners (personal experience, managerial capability, and psychological traits), local community consciousness, local satisfaction, and local attachment.In particular, it seeks to identify an integrated causal mechanism linking these variables.To achieve this purpose, a survey was conducted among small business owners in Busan and Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea, and the collected data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM).The results indicate that personal experience, managerial capability, and psychological traits all have significant positive effects on local community consciousness.Managerial capability had the strongest influence, suggesting that managerial competence plays a key role in facilitating interaction and participation within local communities.In addition, local community consciousness had significant positive effects on both local satisfaction and local attachment.Local satisfaction was also identified as a significant predictor of local attachment.These findings suggest a sequential process in which community experiences shape cognitive perceptions of the local environment, which then lead to satisfaction and emotional attachment.The mediation analysis revealed that personal characteristics indirectly influence local satisfaction and local attachment through local community consciousness.At the same time, their direct effects were not statistically significant, indicating full mediation.In contrast, local community consciousness demonstrated both a direct effect on local attachment and an indirect effect through local satisfaction, confirming a partial mediation structure.Overall, these findings suggest that small business owners' personal characteristics do not directly determine local satisfaction or attachment, but instead operate through local community consciousness as a key mediating mechanism.Furthermore, local community consciousness is central to forming psychological and emotional bonds within the local community.