Sustainability implementation in restaurants: A comprehensive model of drivers, barriers, and competitiveness-mediated effects on firm performance

This study examines sustainability implementation in restaurants by theorizing and testing a comprehensive model of antecedents and effects. It represents positive and negative pressures toward sustainability respectively by entrepreneurs’ attitude and barriers to sustainability, while hypothesizing that customer satisfaction and competitiveness mediate effects of these practices on firm performance. Covariance-based structural equation modeling is used to analyze survey data on 334 restaurants in North Italy. Results show that sustainability attitude exerts pressure toward sustainability, while barriers in terms of costs, fear of regulation or skepticism about benefits have negative, but lower, effects. Sustainability implementation positively contributes to firm performance, but only via two intermediate measures of business success: competitiveness and customer satisfaction. The study fills a gap in the literature by presenting a whole construct of sustainability, by testing two mediating effects not yet hypothesized and by highlighting in the same model the role of factors enabling and deterring sustainability.