Abstract: To prevent the disorderly expansion of capital and accelerate the resolution of bottleneck issues, the government encourages small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to pursue a specialized and sophisticated path of high-quality development. However, the research on the enterprise specialized sophisticated transformation is still in the exploratory stage. Based on partial industry-listed firms on China’s SME board, ChiNext board, and Science and Technology Innovation board from 2011 to 2020, we construct evaluation indicators for enterprise specialized and sophisticated transformation and empirically explore the impact of enterprise specialized and sophisticated transformation on total factor productivity. The paper finds that the degree of enterprise specialized and sophisticated transformation is positively associated with total factor productivity, which arises from improving the efficiency of internal capital allocation and labor production. In addition, the relationship is enhanced under lower financing constraints, industry competition intensity, industrial intelligence level, and non-state-owned enterprises. Specifically, compared to ordinary small and medium-sized enterprises, the transformation of “Little Giant” enterprises significantly promotes total factor productivity. Moreover, specialized and sophisticated transformation helps enhance the firm’s value. Our conclusion enriches the literature on hidden champions and niche winners and has useful reference for promoting the high-quality development of SMEs.

Key words: specialized and sophisticated, total factor productivity, hidden champions, implicit knowledge, small and medium-sized