Malaysia is one of the many countries affected by COVID-19, socially and economically. One of the sectors most affected was the food hawkers. Thus, this study measured the food hawker business thriving efforts during the pandemic. Specifically, the study’s objectives are to determine the Impact of a movement control order on food hawker businesses’ performances and determine the moderating effect of digitalization on food hawker businesses’ performances. Two hundred and twenty-two (222) data were collected from food hawkers in Selangor, Kedah, and Terengganu between February and March 2021. At the time, Malaysia was under movement control order (MCO) 2.0. Thus, data were collected online via google form and distributed to businesses through the Whatsapp application. The data were then analyzed using SPSS v24 for descriptive analysis and multiple regression relationships. It was found that there is a relationship between MCO and food hawker business with a standard beta coefficient of 0.836. Digitalization strongly impacts food hawker businesses with a 0.886 standard beta coefficient. Even though food businesses were severely affected during MCO, the digitalization movement impacted sustaining the businesses.
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