An Investigation of the Initial Recovery Time of Chinese Enterprises Affected by COVID-19 Using an Accelerated Failure Time Model

COVID-19 has had a great impact on the economy, society, and people’s lives in China and globally. The production and operations of Chinese enterprises have also faced tremendous challenges. To understand the economic impact of COVID-19 on enterprises and the key affecting factors, this study adds to the literature by investigating the business recovery process of enterprises from the micro perspective. Specific attention is paid to the initial stage of business recovery. A questionnaire survey of 750 enterprises explored the impact during the pandemic period from July to September 2020. An accelerated failure time model in survival analysis was adopted to analyze the data. The results show that the manufacturing industry is mainly faced by affecting factors such as enterprise ownership, employees’ panic and order cancellation on initial enterprise recovery. As for the non-manufacturing industry, more factors, including clients’ distribution, employees’ panic, raw material shortage, cash flow shortage and order cancellation, are found to be significant. Acceleration factors that estimate the effects of those covariates on acceleration/deceleration of the recovery time are presented. For instance, the acceleration factor of employees’ panic is 1.319 for non-manufacturing, which implies that, compared with enterprises where employees are less panicked, enterprises with employees obviously panicked will recover 1.319 times slower at any quantile of probability of recovery time. This study provides a scientific reference for the post-pandemic recovery of enterprises, and can support the formulation of government policies and enterprise decisions.