The main field of study regarding location theories is to define location factors and to determine the optimal location assuming rational behaviour of economic entities. The issue is to find out what place is suitable for localization of the economic entity in order to maximize its profits in relation to its spatial orientation. In the theoretical part, location theories for industry and services with the impact of location factors are first briefly described. Mainly their development and significance in the competitive environment is discussed because the right selection of location factors can actually help to increase the competitiveness of regions. This paper analyses the actual soft regional and local location factors in individual economic sectors and focuses on the secondary and tertiary sector because the primary sector is affected by other than the examined factors. The aim of this paper is to identify factors that affect industry and are more important to the service sector. Identifying these factors can actually help to attract new businesses and to increase regions competitiveness. It is, therefore, necessary to determine the key factors that have stimulating effects on the development of individual regions.

This article is concerned with the significance of individual localization factors during the decision-making of economic subjects regarding the location of their businesses. In the first phase of the research, the investigated localization factors were divided into four groups into regional, local, business, labor and infrastructure. The selected localization factors were investigated with the help of an empirical examination of thirteen selected economic branches in the secondary and tertiary sectors. In subsequent stages, a statistical analysis of the acquired data was performed; the selected economic sections were compared among themselves; and with the help of a diffusion analysis, the dependence of the evaluation on the size of the enterprise andregional policies when shaping the business environment. This involves the current topic, which overall has not been devoted sufficient attention in Czech professional literature. For this reason, in the context of the research project "Analysis of selected localization factors and their comparison according to individual economic activities," 26 localization factors were investigated in 13 sections of the national economy according to the CZ-NACE classification.Characterized in the first section of the article are localization factors as noted in the professional literature and the methodological starting points of the research. In this section, the research results are linked to the investigated localization factors as divided into four thematic groups for greater clarity. In the context of the analysis, their dependence on the size of the enterprise and on the type of economic activities was evaluated. Particular attention was devoted especially to regional and local factors in regard to their growing significance in recent times and at the same time due to the fact that less attention has been devoted to them in other research.The main goal of the research is to verify the basic hypothesis that despite the existence of various approaches to determining localization factors, in part there are localization factors that act universally in all economic branches and further factors that specifically manifest themselves only in some branches. Associated with this hypothesis are the two parts of the hypothesis:l The evaluation of an investigated factor depends on the size of the enterprise.l The evaluation of the localization factor of geographic proximity to the competition declines with the size of the enterprise.l The significance of the localization factor of geographic proximity to suppliers will be directly proportionate to the size of the company.l In the case of the localization factor of the possibility of cooperation with the competition, its significance will decline with the growing size of the company.The basic theme of localization theory is not merely to define localization factors, but also under the assumption of the rational behavior of economic subjects, to determine their optimal placement. In essence, this involves determining what locati...

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