Title: COVID-19 crisis and online businesses resilience: a moderated mediation model

Authors: Pejman Ebrahimi; Maryam Soleimani; Sebastian Kot; Maria Fekete-Farkas; Hamidreza Alipour

Addresses: Doctoral School of Economic and Regional Sciences, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE), Gödöllő 2100, Hungary ' Department of Management, Economics and Accounting, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran ' Institute of Economic Sciences, Czestochowa University of Technology, Częstochowa, Poland; Department of Entrepreneurship, Faculty of Economic Sciences and IT, North-West University, Częstochowa, Poland ' Institute of Economic Sciences, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE), Gödöllő 2100, Hungary ' Department of Management & Economics, Rasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Rasht, Iran

Abstract: This study aims to investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic crisis affected online businesses resilience. An online questionnaire designed and distributed among the sample of four online businesses, and 443 completed questionnaires were analysed following the PLS-SEM approach. Findings revealed that adaptability (ADAP) and robustness (ROB) had positive effects on Business Model Innovation (BMI) and Business Model Development (BMD) during the conditions of COVID-19 crisis. BMI also had a positive effect on BMD and online business resilience (RES), and BMD also positively affected resilience. All the mediation effects were confirmed based on their analyses. Analysis of research hypotheses by moderating the type of business showed no significant effects of only ADAP on BMD for travel, tours and tourism services and that of BMI on BMD for online sales of various clothing. Besides, the moderated mediation effect was not significant only for ADAP-BMD-RES. Findings also highlighted that innovation in the COVID-19 pandemic crisis was the key to online business resilience.

Keywords: COVID-19; online businesses resilience; business model innovation; business model development.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIM.2026.153351

European Journal of International Management, 2026 Vol.29 No.2, pp.232 - 264

Received: 07 Sep 2020
Accepted: 24 Jan 2021
Published online: 06 May 2026 *

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