Investigating the Factors Affecting Restaurant Performance During Covid-19: Future Direction for Restaurant Entrepreneurs

Abstract

The world has faced some extraordinary health threats through COVID-19, which has specifically impacted the global economy, global supply chains, and nations at large. COVID-19 has transformed the overall industrial paradigms; resultantly the entrepreneurs around the globe have tried to utilize different factors as innovative tools so that they can retain as well as enhance the organizational performance. Having a major blow to the global economy, concerns for business performance during the pandemic have increased. Using quantitative analysis technique, this study aims at studying the impact of entrepreneurial proactiveness (EP), creative self-efficacy (CSE), explorative marketing capability (EMC) and, food service technology (FST) on restaurant performance (RP) through the lens of service innovation (SI) within the context of COVID-19. Data was collected from a total of 200 top and middle level employees of 30 fine dining restaurants located in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad and analyzed through Amos by conducting structural equation modeling. Findings show that SI fully mediates the relationship between, EP and RP and partially mediates the relationship between FST and RP and EMC and RP. Results for CSE were found to be insignificant. The findings of the study have industrial implications especially for the restaurant industry which is more vulnerable during sudden pandemics.