2.1. Theoretical Foundations: Towards a Psychology of STF Owners’ Behaviours
Unlike large tourism companies, STF owners must make the reopening decision individually, without feasibility studies or mathematical simulations and predictions [
18,
19]. As STF owners are both the decision makers and the implementers of the reopening plan, stressful conditions combining both the infection threat and unsustainable business operations particularly matter [
20,
21]. STF reopening cannot be viewed as a pure business decision rooted in economic rationalism. In contrast, according to dual-process theory, seriously stressful conditions interfere with rational and deliberative processes, leading decision-makers to fall back on more intuitive, automatic processes, a relatively faster, more superficial, and spontaneous mode based on intuitive associations [
22]. Therefore, the basis of commonly used theories in risk and crisis management studies [
17]—such as the resource-based view [
23], socioemotional wealth theory [
24], etc.—is not fully applicable to STF reopening behaviour.
We first adopted the reductionist perspective to identify the key components of this complex phenomenon (see
Figure 1). Shutdowns during the outbreak caused major business financial losses and might have even threatened firm survival. Although timely reopening entails the possible rewards of earning profits, the business risk cannot be ignored. Uncertainty during this stage also involves commercial risks and new costs associated with reopening. Individually, most owners with stress disorders also take physical health conditions seriously. Reopening involves more frontline exposure, producing occupational risks and even some disagreement from individual social networks. Overall, STF owners’ decision processes cannot be encompassed by a business economic algorithm or a complex rational reasoning outcome [
25]. Under the risk of stress arising from social, psychological, and physiological aspects, the STF owners’ decision outcomes can be understood as more intuitive outcomes [
26]. Problem-solving decisions in psychology are not viewed as simple cognitive processes based on calm and rational logic but on heuristics and emotions, providing an opportunity to gain a much clearer understanding of the causes of predictable behaviour [
27,
28]. Based on social psychological epistemology, the reopening decision is an individual one that owners make based on their understanding of human–firm–environment interactions, informing an integrated understanding and awareness. Therefore, psychological cognition is introduced as a theoretical foundation to capture the specific attributes of the business decision to reopen, providing a theoretical supplement to the existing risk and crisis management studies. Accordingly, the conceptual model of this study was developed based on the sociopsychological theoretical frameworks PMT [
29,
30] and TPB [
3].
2.1.1. Protection Motivation Theory (PMT)
To better understand how individuals cope with threats, Rogers proposed PMT, arguing that individual behaviour in response to a potential threat is not a straightforward outcome of the physiological stress response but is the result of a cognitive mediating process in response to an evaluation of the threat and coping levels [
29,
33]. The cognitive process results in effects from fear-arousing communications about threats, whereupon the process mediates individual attitudes. By affecting a person’s attitude, the process induces changes in subsequent behaviours. Thus, each component of the fear appeal is responsible for a specific cognitive mediating process, which leads to protection motivation. Through a set of psychological constructs and communication tools, PMT helps reveal the main elements responsible for attitude change. Its strong explanatory and predictive power has been verified for preventive and protective behaviours in specific potential threat scenarios, including preventive behaviours in response to COVID-19 [
34] and various tourism risk contexts [
35].
2.1.2. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB)
Ajzen developed the TPB considering nonvolitional factors as behavioural determinants to explore a more realistic context in which the subjective probabilities of success and actual control are less than perfect [
3]. According to the TPB, behavioural intention is a function of attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control. As one of the most predictive attitude–behaviour theories, the TPB has been widely used to interpret different behaviours in both the risk context and the tourism field [
36,
37], including travel behaviours in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era [
38].
2.2. Integrated Model and Hypotheses
Although these two theories have been widely used to predict diverse risk and tourist behaviours, they have had limited predictive power in some research contexts because of their specific mechanisms and limitations [
39]. For instance, in addition to behavioural ability, PMT considers the variable of behavioural influence from perceived threats, while the TPB focusses more on people’s attitudes and norms regarding behaviour. Taylor et al. stated that a single theory is insufficient and that integrating distinctive constructs from competing theories into one or more poly-theoretical models can fully illuminate and more effectively predict individual behaviour [
40]. Thus, a model integrating PMT and the TPB has been adopted by scholars to increase the predictive power [
41,
42]. However, this model is absent from tourism risk studies. We used the integrated model, which includes the main cognitive aspects illustrated in
Figure 1. The dependent variable is the behavioural intention, taken as a proxy measure of the likely decision to reopen. After clarifying this feature of PMT and the TPB, some relationships that were hypothesised and tested are presented below.
According to PMT, the coping behavioural intention is positively associated with the threat appraisal process. Reopening is one such process that carries threats of both infection risk and business uncertainties. For individuals, infection risk and fear discourage the reopening decision. Wang et al. reported that the prerequisite for industry resumption is the guarantee of no human infection [
35]. The same reasoning applies to tourists. Because of the pandemic, tourists’ risk perceptions, fear, reduced free time, and disposable incomes all hinder tourist behaviour [
43]. In addition, maintaining social distancing means a potentially low frequency of business transactions in indoor STFs [
44]. Coupled with the instability of the epidemic, uncertainties are significant to businesses during this stage [
45]. Bernanke’s real option theory observes that the irreversibility of many decisions and possible sunk costs cause enterprises to opt to withdraw from decision making [
46], as many large tourism enterprises in China do, such as Shanghai Disneyland and Happy Valley Theme Park. Therefore, consistent with PMT and the dimensions of the individual and firm in the owner’s decision framework, we present the following hypothesis:
H1. Perceived infection risk (PIR) has a negative effect on the behavioural intention to reopen (BIR).
H2. Perceived business uncertainty (PBU) has a negative effect on BIR.
Reward refers to the subjective or objective sense of benefit that an individual perceives will result from the behaviour. In PMT, the construction is suggested to be considered a component of the behavioural decision, as the individual will not take action if the perceived benefit is less than the loss [
29]. In the current study, home quarantine can reduce the likelihood of damage from threats, but owners will reopen if the perceived reward is greater. Kahneman and Tversky’s prospect theory notes that people tend to be risk seeking when determining losses, and higher perceived rewards result in a stronger gambling psychology [
47]. Wang even found that many people cannot parse the risk probabilities if the rewards are sufficiently high [
48]. In addition, Morrish and Jones found that tourism entrepreneurs who successfully recovered generally accepted higher-than-normal risks in the postdisaster recovery in New Zealand [
31]. Xu’s survey also notes the risk preference of small and medium-sized enterprise business management during the COVID-19 pandemic [
21]. Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H3. Reward (Rew) has a positive effect on BIR.
The coping appraisal process is the individual assessment of the ability to cope with and avoid threats, including response efficacy, self-efficacy, and cost [
49]. Response efficacy refers to compliance with reopening as an effective mechanism for eliminating the threat. Self-efficacy refers to the perceived types of skills and measures needed for reopening, which are linked to an individual’s capabilities. Response cost refers to perceived opportunity costs in terms of the money, time, and effort required to reopen. Those who have the requisite knowledge about the effectiveness of the coping mechanism and who possess higher levels of self-efficacy regarding protection behaviour are more likely to adopt adaptive behaviours [
3,
50]. The same rationale applies to STF owners’ reopening [
31]. Response cost is the converse of the reward function. That is, if the cost is sufficiently high, individuals will be reluctant to adopt the behaviour, and vice versa [
25]. The coping process aligns with the two behavioural dimensions and results in the owner’s decision framework. Hence, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H4. Response efficacy (RE) has a positive effect on BIR.
H5. Cost (Cos) has a negative effect on BIR.
H6. Self-efficacy (SE) has a positive effect on BIR.
According to Ajzen [
3] and Francis et al. [
51], attitude is an individual’s overall evaluation of the focal behaviour. Subjective no24rms are an individual’s perception of important others’ thoughts and views about a target behaviour—i.e., the individual’s own estimate of the social pressure to perform the behaviour. In the current study, attitude refers to owners’ overall feelings about reopening, while subjective norms are defined as their perceived social pressure to reopen. The TPB indicates that a more positive attitude results in a greater perceived social pressure promoting the behaviour and hence a stronger behavioural intention. STF owners have several attitudes due to differences in the aspects of personality traits, resources, ability to integrate information, etc. Owners with pessimistic and negative attitudes tend to think that resuming operations is futile and meaningless; thus, they are less likely to do so. Regarding social influence, although they are independent firm decision-makers, owners rely on information and judgements by authoritative government officials and experts because owners’ capabilities are limited [
2,
52]. Moreover, since STF development is characterised by geographical concentration, peer actions and knowledge sharing within the cluster are important factors influencing owners’ decision making [
19]. Asgary et al. found that social values and family constraints were the key influencing factors in the STF recovery process in Pakistan’s postflood period [
4]. Based on this analysis, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H7. Attitude (Att) has a positive effect on BIR.
H8. Subjective norms (SN) have a positive effect on BIR.