Understanding and Predicting Indian Restaurant Owners’ Intention to Continue Business in Post-COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown

Abstract

Restaurant business is one of the profit making and employment generation small scale businesses in India. Restaurant owners are on the verge of losing their businesses and suffering from different psychosocial stress due to COVID-19 lockdown. Therefore, this study explores the restaurant owners’ intention to sustain their business after the COVID-19 lockdown. This study has adopted an integrated model that combines the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and the self-determination theory (SDT) to predict behavioural intention. ‘566’ participants from eight different cities of central India participated in the study. The results confirmed that the motivational factors (need satisfaction (NS) and need frustration (NF)) significantly influence the attitude (AT), subjective norms (SN), perceived behavioural control(PBC) and behavioural Intention (BI). The findings have also established the partial mediating effect of AT, SN, PBC on the relationship between motivational construct (NS & NF) and BI. The findings may help all the stakeholders to support the restaurant owners in their pursuit to continue business after the COVID-19 lockdown.