Executive summary of “Examining the role of attribution and intercultural competence in intercultural service encounters”

Citation

(2014), "Executive summary of “Examining the role of attribution and intercultural competence in intercultural service encounters”", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 28 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-02-2014-0069

Executive summary of “Examining the role of attribution and intercultural competence in intercultural service encounters”

Article Type: Executive summary and implications for managers and executives From: Journal of Services Marketing, Volume 28, Issue 2

This summary has been provided to allow managers and executives a rapid appreciation of the content of the article. Those with a particular interest in the topic covered may then read the article in toto to take advantage of the more comprehensive description of the research undertaken and its results to get the full benefit of the material present.

You do not have to travel the world these days to meet people of different cultures and to interact with them in service encounters – such as visiting restaurants, shops, gyms, coffee bars, sports centers etc. As immigration increases and our countries become more multicultural, here at home you are likely as not to hear a diversity of foreign languages and accents and encounter a whole crop of different cultural attitudes and activities. People of different cultures – whether the service firm’s employees or customers – come together in a multitude of encounters. Generally speaking it is a situation to be welcomed, an added “flavor” to the business of getting on with our lives, but sometimes there can be problems – language difficulties being merely one.

Perhaps customers from different cultures expect and perceive services differently. In intercultural service encounters, where service employee and customer are from different backgrounds, their expectations and perceptions are likely to be shaped by their own cultures, leading to differences in those expectations and perceptions about each other’s roles and behaviors. These mismatched “roles” and “scripts” can cause conflicts and misunderstandings and may result in unhappy customers, frustrated employees, and loss of business. But if a service encounter between people of different cultures goes bad, is it a result of those differences or something else, something such as incompetence, a genuine misunderstanding, or lack of training maybe?

Perceived cultural distance is the extent to which two cultures are perceived differently from each other and is a result of differences in various cultural elements such as language, religion, social structure, and values. It has been suggested that cultural proximity and cultural distance are likely to influence customer satisfaction because of their different preconceptions and expectations. Customers might show significant differences in their perceptions of service experiences with culturally different employees. For example, customers tend to prefer employees of the same race as themselves because of greater trust and familiarity, thus cross-race interactions may result in more unfavorable outcomes than same-race interactions. Similarly, the perceived nationality of a service provider may be more important to customers than other factors, a preference for domestic over foreign airlines for instance.

In “Examining the role of attribution and intercultural competence in intercultural service encounters” Dr Jackie Tam et al. aim to shed light on the influence of perceived cultural distance on customer satisfaction with a service. Specifically, they develop a model based on attribution theory and intercultural literature to explain the relationship between them.

It is for service firms to recruit the right staff and train them so that they are able to provide services to meet the diverse needs of multicultural customers. Tolerance for ambiguity, openness to change, and ability to develop relations with others are desirable traits in a cross-cultural context. Skills can be acquired through formal training programs but traits are more likely to be inherited and shaped by experience. Service firms should hire people with the appropriate personality traits for dealing with diverse multicultural customers. Although prescreening tools such as aptitude and personality tests might be useful, observing the behaviors of an applicant in simulated intercultural service encounters could offer a clearer understanding of whether the applicant possesses the desirable qualities.

The current study found that perceived cultural distance is positively related to customer satisfaction, and cultural attribution plays an important role in mediating the relationship between these two variables. Although one may expect that a lower perceived cultural distance between customers and employees may facilitate their communication with each other and improve the quality of their interaction and its outcomes, the findings of the study’s in-depth interviews and empirical analysis suggest that customers seem to become more tolerant and lower their expectations when they interact with employees from different cultures.

Hence, given the same service failure, customers may feel less dissatisfied with the service provided by an employee of a different culture than with the service provided by an employee of the same culture. The study also shows that attribution to cultural differences (in terms of language, customs etc.) mediates the relationship of perceived cultural distance with customer satisfaction. In other words cultural differences may serve as a cushion which mitigates unpleasant experience in an intercultural service encounter failure.

Service firms might consider educating their culturally diverse customers about local norms and practices, and encourage them to consider cultural difference factors before making negative judgments about service employees or the firms. For example, some travel agencies in Hong Kong offer cultural orientation programs to help their clients better understand the cultures of countries so that their expectations can, if necessary, be adjusted. Service firms can also use their staff as well as their websites and physical environment displays to communicate knowledge about local norms and practices – for example, the amount of service charge which a local restaurant might consider normal.

To read the full article enter 10.1108/JSM-12-2012-0266 into your search engine.

(A précis of the article “Examining the role of attribution and intercultural competence in intercultural service encounters”. Supplied by Marketing Consultants for Emerald.)