Challenges among Small and Medium F&B Operators during Covid-19 Pandemic: An Entrepreneurial Resilience Perspectives

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic that hit turned out to stretch a tremendous impact to the Malaysia economy in macro and micro level including the SMEs company. Statistic shows that 37,415 business operators from the SMEs cluster had severely affected and have got to closed the business due to the enforcement of Movement Control Order (MCO). Despite large numbers of business closure, there are also some small and medium F&B operator who have managed to generate more income during pandemic. Moreover, data issued by Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM), from 1 April to 19 July 2020, 82,555 new businesses were registered. This show that, COVID-19 does not prevent anyone to venture into business including SMEs. Sustainable SMEs play a key role in a country's long-term viability. In order to redevelop the collapse of SMEs during Covid-19, deeper attention and consideration are needed to discover the causes of this phenomena. Study about the impact of entrepreneurial resilience on success of small and medium F&B operator during COVID-19 in Malaysia are very scanty. Thus, this study is done to explore a lack of study on Malaysian small and medium food operator’s success during pandemic attributed by entrepreneurial resilience. In future this study could give direction and description of ways to sustain during pandemic among F&B SMEs.