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1.0 Introduction介绍
1.1 Research background研究背景
随着中国政府实施多元化经济政策，近几十年来，中国中小企业迅速发展壮大（Chung和Tan，2017年），统计报告显示，截至2016年12月，99%的本土企业为中小企业，其中占国内生产总值65%以上和税收50%以上的部分对国民经济的贡献（张等，2016；李，T.，穆尼尔和卡里姆，2017）。此外，中小企业在为居民创造就业机会方面具有巨大潜力。因此，很明显，中国的中小企业在促进国家繁荣与稳定所依赖的平衡和可持续增长方面具有重大意义（张等，2016；郑和谭，2017）。With the implementation of diversified economic policies by Chinese government, China’s SMEs has been grown and expanded rapidly in recent decades (Chung and Tan, 2017) The statistical report indicates that 99% of the local companies are small and medium-size enterprises as of December 2016, with the contribution of more than 65% of total GDP and 50% of tax revenue to the national economic (Zhang et al., 2016; Li, T., Munir and Karim, 2017). In addition, SMEs have significant potential in creating of employment opportunities for residents. Hence, it is obviously that China’s SMEs have great significance in contributing towards balanced and sustainable growth upon which national prosperity and stability depends (Zhang et al., 2016; Chung and Tan, 2017).
然而，由于国内经济放缓、经济结构调整进一步深化和经济结构调整的共同作用，中小企业面临原材料成本和劳动力成本快速增长、出口竞争力下降、订单需求下降等问题（张等，2016）。中央银行推动的货币政策。因此，融资难已成为制约我国中小企业进一步发展的瓶颈（张、X、P、谢，2010；尹，2009）。However, numbers of SMEs are suffered from the problems of rapidly increased raw material costs and labor costs, weakened export competitiveness and reduced demand for order (Zhang et al., 2016), as a result of the joint effect of domestic slowdown, further deepening of economic restructuring and tight monetary policy promoted by the central bank. Therefore, financing difficulty has become the bottleneck which hindered the further development of China’s SMEs (Zhang, X. P. and Xie, 2010; Yin, 2009).
目前，中小企业很难通过直接融资获得资金支持，而银行贷款等间接融资仍然是中小企业融资的主要渠道（何雪，2008）。实证结果表明，银行在传统融资模式下提供贷款时，倾向于从客户的信用评级状况、抵押资产估值、经营状况和偿债能力等方面对客户进行评估。但由于受经营规模的限制，我国中小企业普遍缺乏以抵押方式取得银行贷款的房地产（夏、金，2011年）。其资产主要包括存货、应收账款和设备，不能满足银行的要求。此外，与其他信贷业务相比，中小企业通常不是金融机构的首选客户（张谢，2010；尹，2009）。
因此，帮助中小企业满足融资需求对开发融资工具越来越重要。At present, it is hard for SMEs to obtain the fund support through direct financing, and indirect financing such as bank loan still occupies a leading position as the major channel for SMEs to raise capital (He and Xue, 2008). The empirical result points out that the bank, when they offer loans in the traditional financing model, tends to assess the customer from the perspective of its credit rating condition, mortgage assets valuation, operational condition and debt paying ability. But lack of real estate available for collateral purpose to obtain bank loan, becomes the common characteristic of most SMEs in China, which may due to the restriction of their operation scales (Xia and Jin, 2011). Their assets mainly consist of inventories, accounts receivables and equipment, which could not meet bank’s requirement. In addition, with its scrupulously balanced analysis of risks and benefits, it is a fact that SMEs are usually not the preferred customers of financial institutions due to their poor information transparency, high transaction costs and low default costs, as compared to other credit business (Zhang and Xie, 2010; Yin, 2009).
Therefore, it is becoming increasingly crucial for the development of a financing tool to help SMEs to meet their financing needs.
It is in this context that Supply-chain Finance has been innovated and developed gradually to provide a viable solution in relieving the financing problem of SMEs (Julian, 2011). As compared with the traditional bank credit, the focus of its credit evaluation is not limited to a single enterprise isolated, but to the entire product supply chain as a whole (Guillen and Badell, 2006). In short, supply chain finance refers to a series of financing processes based on technology that combines a large-scale core enterprise with its upstream and downstream firms in a transaction, to provide a flexible financial service at lower cost (Guillen and Badell, 2006). The main concept of this financing model is to integrate the suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers and consumers effectively, while funds serve as the lubricant, helping the whole process to be more efficiency and quickly (Julian, 2011; Guillen and Badell, 2006).
1.2 Rational
Compared with other financing modes, supply chain finance focuses on the trade background and cooperative relations, and it dilutes the traditional risk control methods based on corporate financial ratio and collateral, which widens the financing way of SMEs (Xia and Jin, 2011). For banks, supply chain finance in its development takes supply chain as a starting point, which can bring more customers to banks to enhance the competitiveness of banks and create new profit growth point (Zhang, X. P. and Xie,). However, the domestic development of supply chain finance in China is not yet mature, due to economic fundamentals, laws, systems and other reasons, more mature business model in the West fails to develop perfectly in China, through research on supply chain finance, it can combine Western experience with China’s domestic reality to help banks to create more supply chain financial products which are in line with domestic characteristics (Yin, 2009). In addition, supply chain finance as a financial innovation model faces the same risk as traditional credit model faces, but it also has its own distinctive characteristics. Supply chain finance has the form of accounts receivable, inventory pledge mode, confirming storage mode and other modes of operation, the operational risk and risk control methods are different (Zhang and Xie, 2010); in carrying out credit risk assessment on SMEs, supply chain finance emphasizes trade background and supply chain operation relation, the credit evaluation method should be different from the traditional method (Zhang and Xie, 2010); and the market risk caused by price fluctuation will make the collateral value not enough to lead to the moral hazard of SMEs, through a certain way to transfer or circumvent the market risk should also be concerned about (Yin, 2009). Therefore, to know the risk of supply chain finance and to control it reasonably is necessary for ensuring the smooth implementation of business.
1.3 Research aim & research objectives
The research aims to discuss how supply chain finance can help China's SMEs to deal with issues of financing in development process. Based on this, it has developed the following research objectives:
Research objective 1: to discuss what the financing needs that SMEs have in China's current economic situation;
Research objective 2: to understand what the current operation model of supply chain finance of SMEs in China is;
Research objective 3: to explore whether China's supply chain finance meets the financing needs of SMEs and to understand what new and old risks in current implementation of supply chain finance are;
Research objective 4: to recommend on China's future development of supply chain finance for SMEs.
1.4 Research questions
On the basis of the above research aim and research objectives, the author develops the following research questions.
Research question 1: What are the changes in China's SME financing compared to the past in China's new economy? Considering from the financing channels, the cost of financing, the flexibility of borrowing, financial information disclosure, financing and other aspects, what do contemporary SMEs need for financing?
Research question 2: How does the supply chain finance of Chinese SMEs operate? What are the respective roles that core enterprises, banks, SMEs play in the supply chain finance?
Research question 3: Considering from the aspects of financing channels, the cost of financing, the flexibility of borrowing, financial information disclosure and financing methods, in what aspect does contemporary Chinese supply chain finance fail to match the financing needs of SMEs. And judging from China's economic policy, financial policy, the characteristics of SMEs, what are reasons leading to the inconformity? What are new and old risks in current implementation of China’s supply chain finance?
Research question 4: In terms of the financing channels, the cost of financing, the flexibility of borrowing, financial information disclosure, financing methods and other aspects of China's SMEs, what should the supply chain finance model be improved in the future? From the perspective of improving the financial management level, improving the accounting system, strengthening the professional and technical level of financial personnel and strengthening the financial management consciousness of SMEs, how SMEs can benefit more from the supply chain finance?
2.0 Literature review#p#分页标题#e#
2.1 Importance of supply chain finance to SMEs
Tang and Ren (2010), Yang (2013), Xia and Jin (2011) figured that supply chain finance can alleviate the financing problems of SMEs, on the one hand because of the intervention of banks, it make cooperation of enterprises of a supply chain be more closely, and close cooperation strengthens the trust between both parties, so that the downstream enterprises obtain goods by virtue of their own commercial credit, ultimately the downstream enterprises reduce the amount of financing (Tang and Ren, 2010; Yang 2013); on the other hand, Considering supply chain finance services and risk, commercial banks are more concerned about the overall trade risk of a supply chain (Tang and Ren, 2010; Xia and Jin, 2011), even if a single enterprise can not reach some of the risks control standards of the banks, as long as the business between the enterprise and its core enterprises is stabile, the banks can credit the business and contribute to the realization of the entire transaction, rather than completely dependent on the risk evaluation on the financial standing of the enterprise, like what traditional credit usually does (Tang and Ren, 2010; Xia and Jin, 2011).
2.2 China's supply chain finance model
He and Tang (2012), Zhang and Xie (2010), Yin (2009) believed that, after ten years of development, China's supply chain finance is basically solidified into three models: first, banks are based on record of transactions between core enterprises and their upstream, downstream enterprises to provide online financing support for SMEs, making use of bank credit to enhance business credit, which facilitates the effective development of corporate finance and commercial transactions (He and Tang, 2012; Xia and Jin, 2011). Second, third-party trading platforms are through providing upstream and downstream enterprises of supply chain logistics warehousing and other services to grasp the transactions, logistics, cash flow and other related data of the enterprises, according to the assessment results to provide supply chain financial services (He and Tang, 2012; Zhang and Xie, 2010; Yin, 2009). Third, core enterprises of a certain industry chain have strong industrial chain control ability and high bank credit lines. In this context, core enterprises grasp capital flow of the upstream suppliers and downstream distributors, logistics, the business flow, information flow, and then grasp the operations of the upstream and downstream enterprises, taking their credit lines as the guarantee to provide financing services to the upstream and downstream enterprises to improve the operating efficiency of the entire industry chain (He and Tang, 2012; Yin, 2009).
2.3 Discussion
Judging from the above literatures, supply chain finance can alleviate the financing problems of SMEs, but it is worth noting that supply chain finance developed in China for about 10 years, but the financing difficulties of SMEs have not been effectively alleviated. This shows that there has not been a good match between supply chain finance model and the actual needs of SMEs. This study starts from the real financing needs of SMEs to understand the specific operation mode of supply chain finance in China's SMEs, through analyzing the conflicts between the two and understanding the old and new risks in current implementation of supply chain finance to recommend on how China's supply chain finance better meet the real financing needs of SMEs.
3.0 Methodology
3.1 Research philosophy
Positivism figures that the world is real and it is observable (Creswell, 2009). Those who want to understand the world must observe it by all sorts of information collected, the information is mainly quantitative data, through a value-neutral, scientific and objective processing of the data to get the understanding of the world (Cooper and Schindler, 2006); human society has an objective regularity as what the nature has, it is not transferred by human will and human society can recognize it through scientific methods to form a universal law (Cooper and Schindler, 2006; Collis and Hussey, 2003).
Interpretivism believes that the world is objectively constructed by people, without human subjective factors, objective world does not exist; as the world is constructed by people, the statement of objective law does not exist, the most important thing is to explore why people build the world, since the world is built, then the world should be different and people should not find the general law, but to find the differences between the world and its hidden meaning (Creswell, 2009; Collis and Hussey, 2003).
In short, positivist epistemology holds that there is a universal law of social development, and the law is not transferred by human will, people should discover and verify these laws through empirical research. And interpretivism figures that there is not universal law for development of the society, researchers should be in its special context, through scientific research methods to explain, deconstruct or reconstruct people's experience and views. This study aims to study the supply chain finance problems which are prevalent in China's SMEs, rather than supply chain finance problems of a single or several SMEs. Therefore, it is proper to adopt positivist research philosophy in this study.
3.2 Research approach
In this research, it will make use of a quantitative research method. Quantitative research is generally used to determine the quantity of a certain aspect of a thing (Neuman, 2000). It mainly uses investigation, observation, experiment, statistics and other methods to observe phenomenon, it has high requirements for the tightness, objectivity, value neutrality of research to get objective facts. In this paper, quantitative research is used to determine the scientific research of certain aspects of things (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009). The value of neutrality brings forward strict demands for having an access to objective facts. Quantitative research often makes uses of data to describe social phenomena, through a deductive ways to predict theories, following by collecting data, evidence to assess or validate theories, models, hypotheses that was expected before carrying out the research (Creswell, 2009).
Deduction approach refers to the way of thinking that people take theoretical understanding that reflects objective law as the basis to deduce the unknown part of a thing from the known part (Creswell, 2007). It is from the general to the individual to recognize things. Based on the steps of deductive methods, it is first through literature review to determine the research questions and research hypothesis of this study, including to understand what the supply chain finance of China's SMEs needs, what the risks are; what the reasons for the existence of the risks and so on. And then, it will design questionnaire, and then rely on the questionnaire to collect information, through quantitative analysis to verify whether the research hypothesis is correct.
3.3 Research type
This study belongs to the category of explanatory research. Explanatory research is based on certain propositions or hypothesis, through deductive methods to explore the correlation or causality between things (Cooper and Schindler, 2006). Explanatory research focuses on the interpretation of the characteristics, internal relations, and laws of the phenomena or things studied (Sadhu and Amarjit, 1980). This interpretation is based on guidance of theory, based on collection, statistics and analysis of information to achieve the purpose. Based on the explanatory research process and relevant theory, it forms the research hypothesis.
3.4 Data selection
In this study, it will be through questionnaire to collect first-hand data for analysis and discussion, the authenticity and timeliness of first-hand data is better than that of second-hand data, it can let the author have a true understanding of the current Chinese SMEs’ status and problems in the supply chain finance.
Questionnaire will be used to collect quantitative data. Benefits of using questionnaire lies in that it help researchers in a short time to spend less manpower and financial resources to collect data on research objects, and questionnaire is a structured survey, it is impossible for any individual, whether it is a researcher, or an investigator to bring subjective bias to investigation (Collis and Hussey, 2003). What’s more, results of questionnaire facilitate statistical analysis, so that researchers can obtain the desired research conclusions through data analysis. However, as questionnaires are finished by respondents themselves, so the quality of the survey results is often not guaranteed
3.5 Research tools and samples
In study, financial management of SMEs in China will be taken as the survey respondents, because they understand China's relevant financial policies, China's supply chain finance status and problems, what China's SEMs needs for supply chain finance and the difficulties they face in financing. In this study, SMEs in China's Zhejiang Province and Guangdong Province will be taken as the research objects, because the number of SMEs in these two regions is the most, and they profit most, data show that about 36% of China's SMEs are in these two provinces. By virtue of the author’s personal relationship, the author will contact with the SME Service Center of the Guangdong Province and Zhejiang Province. The author believes that with their help, he can get their help to contact with the financial management of the SMEs by e-mail contact, after getting the consent of the person in charge, the author can carry out the questionnaire survey.
The questionnaire is expected to issue 150 copies. The random sampling method will be used to determine the survey objects. According to Chung and Tan’s (2017) research, China's SMEs are divided into manufacturing, science and technology, logistics, retail agriculture types, 30 SMEs will be selected as the research objects by random sampling method from SEMs of each above-mentioned type to conduct a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire includes four parts. The first part mainly introduces the research purpose of this investigation, the method of filling out the questionnaire and declaration of ensuring the privacy of research objects, as well as avoiding use it for other commercial purposes. The second part of the survey is to investigate the needs of SMEs for supply chain finance. Third part is to understand the difficulties that China's SMEs meet in using supply chain finance in financing, How they carry out supply chain financing. The fourth part is to explore these SMEs’ status quo of their own financial operation, which will be used to analyze why Chinese SMEs have many difficulties in using supply chain finance for financing, as well as what the risks of supply chain finance are. The fifth part will investigate the industry background, the number of years of establishment, the size of the factory of the SMEs, and so on. Answers to the questions of the questionnaire will be represented by making use of Likertscale method, “1” represents “strongly disagree”, “5” represents “strongly agree”.#p#分页标题#e#
3.6 Data analysis
This study will use SPSS 22.0 for data analysis, the data analysis is divided into four steps, the first step is reliability and validity testing towards the questionnaire. The validity test will be carried out by using factor analysis method to check the structural validity of the questionnaire. The reliability test is implemented by using Cronbach α to judge if the reliability questionnaire is qualified, if Cronbach α > 0.6, the reliability of the questionnaire is qualified. The second step is to carry out descriptive statistic towards the data of the questionnaire, and according to Best’s (1997) standard to evaluate the questionnaire results, by using descriptive analysis to determine what the SMEs need for supply chain finances, what are difficulties in financing, and what are the reasons for the financing difficulties. The third step will use the analysis of variance to compare the score of each type of the SMEs, if <0.05, indicating that there is statistical differences between the two, so as to determine the differences between each type of the SMEs in terms of their needs for supply chain finance, financing difficulties, and the reasons for the financing difficulties.
3.7 Research ethics
Before carrying out the questionnaire survey, the author will declare that any information involved in this study will only be used in this study and they will not be used for commercial purposes. The data of this research will be kept in the author’s private mailbox. Without permission, no people can have an access to the data and information, which protects the personal privacy of the research objects to a large extent. The author himself will personally participate in the data collection, statistics and analysis process, which can avoid any possible error and data inveracity.
3.8 Time arrangement
Time schedule of implementation of the research is shown in the following table and the Gantt chart.
 
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