cultura si serviciile-articol

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Review and future directions of cross-cultural consumer services research

Jingyun Zhang a,, Sharon E. Beatty b,1, Gianfranco Walsh c,2

a Department of Marketing, College of Business Administration, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USAb Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, University of Alabama, P. O. Box 870225, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0225, USA

c Institute for Management, University of Koblenz-Landau, Universittsstrasse 1, 56070 Koblenz, Germany

Abstract

It is widely recognized that an increasing number of service firms are expanding into international markets. Many studies in the servicesmarketing literature have focused on the identification and discussion of similarities and/or differences in consumer service experiences across

nations and cultures. In this paper we review the relevant literature, address conceptual and methodological issues associated with extant cross-

cultural consumer services research and suggest theories and approaches in regards to future research in the area. In addition, we introduce and

discuss the concept of cultural service personality as a potential new theoretical perspective.

2007 Published by Elsevier Inc.

Keywords: Cross-cultural; Services research; Service expectations; Evaluations of service; Reactions to service

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2112. Article selection method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

3. Consumer service experiences and culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

3.1. The consumer service experience and our framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

3.2. Culture and service expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

3.3. Culture and service evaluations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

3.4. Culture and reactions to service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

4. Conceptual issues: critique and future directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

4.1. Going beyond Hofstede . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

4.2. Cultural service personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

5. Methodological issues: critique and future directions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

5.1. Emic vs. etic oriented research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

5.2. Operationalization and measurement of culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

5.3. Selection of country and context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

6. Limitations and conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

1. Introduction

Services are increasinglyimportant worldwide. In the U.S., the

service sector accounted for more than 79% of the GDP in 2006

(US Central Intelligence Agency, 2007) and 80% of its workforce

come from the service sector (Czinkotaand Ronkainen, 2002).As

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

Journal of Business Research 61 (2008) 211224

Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 419 372 9529; fax: +1 419 372 8062.

E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J. Zhang), [email protected]

(S.E. Beatty), [email protected] (G. Walsh).1 Tel.: +1 205 348 6184; fax: +1 205 348 6695.2 Tel.: +49 261 287 2852; fax: +49 261 287 2851.

0148-2963/$ - see front matter 2007 Published by Elsevier Inc.doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2007.06.003
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2007.06.003http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2007.06.003mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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the economic significance of the service industry grows, so does

the interest in services research, as demonstrated by the fast-

growing body of services marketing literature in the past decade,

especially in the consumer services area. In fact, Vargo and Lusch

(2004) recently suggested that the marketing discipline is going

through a paradigmatic change, shifting its focus from exchanges

ofgoods to service-centered exchanges.

An increasing number of service providers are marketingservices internationally and it is the fastest-growing area of

international trade (Lovelock and Wirtz, 2007). American firms

have experienced dramatic growth in service exports over the past

decade, generating a $65 billion balance of payments surplus in

services in 2003, helping to offset the country's $483 billion

deficit in goods (US Department of Commerce, 2005). This

growth creates opportunities as well as challenges for businesses,

especially when firms attempt to globally standardize their service

delivery (Lovelock and Wirtz, 2004). One reason for such

challenges is that consumers' perceptions of service are culturally

bound (Zeithaml et al.,2002). de Ruyter etal. (1998, p. 189) argue

that [i]n order to market services effectively to internationalconsumers, service providers must have a thorough knowledge of

their target group(s). A solid understanding of the role of culture

in the service delivery process is more crucial than ever for service

firms operating globally.

Despite growing research in consumer service experiences,

relatively littleresearch has examinedthe roleof culture in regards

to these experiences, with little attempt aimed at synthesizing it.

As Maheswaran and Shavitt (2000) point out in regard to global

consumer psychology research, systematic research in consumer

services is in its infancy. In this article, we attempt to review cross-

cultural services research that focuses on the consumer. First, we

introduce our conceptual framework and its components. Second,

we review existing studies using our framework and suggest

future research directions. Third, we discuss overall conceptual

issues in the literature and introduce the concept of cultural

service personality, developed from our review, as a potential

new theoretical perspective. Finally, we address overall method-

ological issues and point to future research directions.

2. Article selection method

Our goal was to locate academic cross-cultural services

research focusing on consumers and published in major

journals. We used three criteria in choosing articles to include.

1. It should be empirical cross-cultural or cross-national

comparative studies for two or more cultures/countries.

2. Studies need to involve consumer services, i.e., be related to

the service experience.

3. Studies need to have investigated the topic from a consumer

behavior perspective, rather than a more general focus on

international services marketing, from a firm perspective(cf. Knight, 1999).

We focused our search in a set of leading and influential

academic journals that we felt would cover the topics of interest

here. We also conducted a search in major electronic databases

including ABI Inform and EBSCO using keywords such as

cross-cultural, cross-national and services. A total of 40

relevant articles were located, covering 11 years of research

published from 1996 to 2006. Earlier Knight (1999) reviewed

international services marketing studies from a firm's perspec-

tive (19901998), focusing, for example, on issues like mode of

entry. Our review covers cross-cultural services from a different

perspectivefrom the perspective of the consumer and onlyoverlaps with Knight by 3 years. A summary of the journals

reviewed and the number of relevant articles found per journal

are shown in Table 1. We note that our focus on journals leaves

out a number of conference or book articles on this topic.

However, we focused on journal articles due to their wide

availability across countries.

Fig. 1. A framework of the role of culture in consumers' service experiences.

Table 1

Journals included in the review

Name of journal Number of articles

located

Journal of Service Research (JSR) 8

Journal of Services Marketing (JSM) 6

International Journal of Service Industry Management(IJSIM)

5

Journal of Business Research (JBR) 5

International Marketing Review (IMR) 4

Journal of Retailing (JR) 4

Journal of Consumer Marketing (JCM) 2

Service Industries Journal 2

European Journal of Marketing (EJM) 1

Journal of Marketing 1

Journal of Marketing Theory & Practice (JMTP) 1

International Journal of Research in Marketing (IJRM) 1

Journal of Consumer Psychology (JCP) 0

Journal of Consumer Research (JCR) 0

Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) 0

Journal of International Marketing (JIM) 0

Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) 0Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS) 0

Marketing Science (MS) 0

Psychology & Marketing (P&M) 0

212 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Business Research 61 (2008) 211224


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3. Consumer service experiences and culture

3.1. The consumer service experience and our framework

Fig. 1 provides the conceptual framework we use here to

review and organize our presentation of the literature. This

framework represents our view of the effects of culture onimportant dimensions of consumers' service experiencestheir

expectations, their subsequent evaluations of the service

experience, and finally their reactions to the service experience.

Our view of consumers' service experiences is consistent with

three-stage models of service consumption used in the services

marketing literature (cf. Lovelock and Wirtz, 2007) and with

major service paradigms, such as the SERVQUAL framework

(Parasuraman et al., 1993; Zeithaml et al., 1993).

Expectations are commonly defined as [p]retrial beliefs about

a product that serve as standards or reference points against which

product [or service] performance is judged (Zeithamlet al.,1993,

p. 1) and are important in service experiences. In regard to service

expectations (as well as evaluations of services), the most widely

acceptedframework is the SERVQUAL framework developed by

Parasuraman and his colleagues (Parasuraman et al., 1988;

Zeithaml et al., 1993). This framework conceptualizes the

customer's assessment of service quality as the gap between

what they expect and their evaluation of the performance of aparticular service provider. The SERVQUAL framework also

incorporates an instrument to measure service quality, which is

proposed to include five dimensionstangibility, reliability,

assurance, responsiveness, and empathy. The SERVQUAL

instrument, originally developed in North America, has been

tested in various service contexts and is highly regarded.

In the second stage, individuals evaluate the service

performance, often against expectations (Patterson and John-

son, 1993). An individual will confirm or disconfirm aspects of

the service performance based on expectations, which influ-

ences their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the service

provider. Following a satisfying or dissatisfying serviceexperience, in the third stage, individuals will have varying

reactions to the service. When poor service is received, the

customer may take various actions, such as complaining and/or

switching. Further, they could have varying reactions to the

service provider's recovery efforts. On the other hand, a

satisfying service encounter or service recovery may lead to the

formation of an ongoing relationship between the parties.

Our framework (in Fig. 1) shows culture as potentially

impacting on each stage of the service experience. National

culture has been defined as patterns of thinking, feeling, and

acting that are rooted in common values and societal

conventions (Nakata and Sivakumar, 2001). Hofstede (1991,

p. 5) defined culture as the collective programming of the mindwhich distinguishes the members of one group or category of

people from those of another. We identify some of the most

popular categorizations of national culture or cultural dimen-

sions in Table 2. Further, Table 2 indicates which paradigms are

used by the studies reviewed here. The popularity of Hofstede's

(1984, 1991) framework is notable here.

Each article in our review was categorized by the primary

service experience dimension addressed. Then, Table 3 was

developed in which we chronologically present the articles and

a summary of a) how culture was treated, b) which countries and

the service contexts were studied, and c) a summary of the

findings. Our goal in the sections to follow is to summarize thefindings, highlighting what they tell us about the topic in regard

to universals and differences.

3.2. Culture and service expectations

Many researchers have attempted to test the robustness of the

SERVQUAL dimensions across cultures. Based on our review, it

appears that while the majority of reviewed studies attempted to

validate the SERVQUAL scale by assessing its psychometric

properties and by examining the structure and relative importance

of the resulting dimensions across cultures (Donthu and Yoo,

1998; Espinoza, 1999; Furrer et al., 2000; Sultan and Simpson,

2000; Witkowski and Wolfinbarger, 2002), others looked for or

Table 2

Categorizations of national culture/cultural dimensions

Source Cultural dimensions Number of studies

incorporating the

dimension

Kluckhohn and

Strodtbeck

(1973) a

Human nature orientation; man

nature orientation; time orientation;

activity orientation; relational

orientation

0

Hall (1976)b High context/low context 6

Hofstede (1980,

1984, 1991) aPower distance; individualism/

collectivism; masculinity,

uncertainty avoidance; long-term

orientation

27 c

Hofstede and Bond

(1988)a

Riddle (1986) a Achievement orientation; time

orientation; activity orientation;

relationship orientation

1

Gudykunst and

Ting-Toomey

(1988) b

Direct vs. indirect; elaborative vs.

succinct; personal vs. contextual;

instrumental vs. affective

0

Schwartz (1992,

1994) aPower; achievement; hedonism;

stimulation; self-direction;

universalism

1

Benevolence; tradition; conformity;

security

Keillor et al.

(1996) aNational identity: national heritage,

cultural homogeneity, belief system,

consumer ethnocentrism

0

Trompenaars andHampden-Turner

(1997) a

Universalism vs. particularism;communitarianism vs. individualism;

neutral vs. emotional; defuse vs.

specific cultures; achievement vs.

ascription; humantime relationship;

humannature relationship

0

Triandis and

Gelfand (1998) aHorizontal/vertical 4 c

Triandis (1995) a Individualism/collectivism

Steenkamp (2001) a Autonomy; egalitarianism;

mastery; uncertainty avoidance

0

a Cultural dimensions relate to abstracts of intangible elements of culture such

as values and belief systems.b Cultural dimensions relate to the communication systems of a culture.c

Four studies cited both Hofstede's and Triandis's (and other related work)work related to individualism/collectivism.

213J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Business Research 61 (2008) 211224


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Table 3

Summary of cross-cultural services literature

Source Treatment of culture Countries/service context Findings

Service expectations

Lee and Ulgado

(1997) JSM aUsed Hofstede's individualism/

collectivism as post-hoc explanation.

U.S. vs. Korea/fast food Differences between U.S. and South Korean patrons

in terms on expectations and perceptions of fast-food

restaurant services. For U.S. customers, low foodprices and assurance were more important; for Korean

customers, reliability and empathy were more important.

Donthu and Yoo

(1998) JSR

Applied Hofstede's dimensions

directly in hypotheses, measured at

individual level.

U.S., Canada, and India/banking Individuals rated lower on power distance, higher on

individualism and uncertainty avoidance, and those

who are short-term oriented had higher overall service

quality expectations.

Low powerdistanceresponsiveness and reliability ratings

Individualismempathy and assurance

Espinoza

(1999) IJSIM

Applied individualism/collectivism,

monochronic time, and polychronic

time in hypotheses, pre-hoc

justification, not measured.

Quebec (Canada) vs. Peru/

supermarket

Similar dimensional structure of SERVQUAL in two

cultures. Importance of the dimensions:

Reliability: equality important in Quebec and Peru

Responsiveness: more important for Quebecois

Tangibles: More important for Peruvians

Furrer et al.

(2000) JSR

Applied Hofstede's dimensions in

hypotheses, measured.

U.S., Switzerland and, China,

Singapore, South Korea/banking

Individualismhigh service quality expectations.

In cultures with greater power distance: weakerrespondents were more likely to tolerate failure from

more powerful service providers. In cultures with high

degree of masculinity, respondents expected a female

service provider to be more feminine than professional.

Sultan and Simpson

(2000) JSM aNo specific cultural dimensions used. U.S. vs. Europe/airline No difference in the order of importance of SERVQUAL

dimensions by nationality. Expectations, perceptions and

overall assessment of service quality varied by nationality.

U.S. respondents had higher expectations of service quality

than Europeans; Europeans found theservice qualityof U.S.

airlines to be lower than their own international carriers.

Witkowski and

Wolfinbarger

(2002) JBRa

No specific cultural dimensions used.

Focused on service environment and

cultural norm differences.

U.S. vs. Germany/banks, medical care,

retailing, postal facilities, restaurants

German respondents had lower service expectations,

lower perceived service outcomes than did U.S.

respondents.

Raajpoot (2004) JSR Applied Hofstede's dimensions,

+national culture dimensions(Dorfman and Howell, 1988) and

personal values (Schwartz, 1992).

Pakistan/banks, hospitals, retail,

and insurance industries

Developed new service quality scale, PAKSERV for

Asian culture. six dimensions: tangibility, reliability,sincerity, formality, personalization, assurance.

Laroche et al.

(2005) IMR

Applied individualism/collectivism in


English speaking vs. French speaking

Canadians/airline

Both individualists and collectivists relied more on

external information sources in formulating service

expectations. Internal (external) information sources

were relatively more important in forming expectations

for collectivists (individualists) than for individualists

(collectivists), and will (should) expectations were

more diagnostic for collectivists (individualists) than

for individualists (collectivists).

Malhotra et al.

(2005) IMR

Used Hofstede's power distance, and

individualism/collectivism as pre-hoc

justification, not measured. Focused on

economic and social-cultural factors.

U.S., India, the Philippines/banking Examined differences in perception of service quality

dimensions between developed and developing

economies. Developed countries: better established

reliability, more emphasis on breakthrough service,

emotional security, and credibility based on performancestandards, communication geared to individuals,

continuous improvement of service quality and higher

levels of relationship marketing.

Johns et al.

(2005) SIJ

No specific cultural dimensions used. Northern Cyprus vs. U.S./travel agents Promptness, empathy, efficiencyand servicescape aesthetics

were main determinants of customer satisfaction. Instead of

the predicted SERVQUAL five-factor solution, factor

analysis showed an underlying unidimensionality.

Evaluations of service

Herbig and Genestre

(1996) JCM

No specific cultural dimensions used. U.S. vs. Mexico/banks, grocery

stores, specialty stores, and

department stores

Mexican respondents rated perceived service quality

higher than U.S. respondents. Different importance of

service quality factors: U.S. respondents

focused more on personalized service. Mexican

respondents emphasized availability more and

confidence in the support staff.



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Winsted (1997) JR;

(1999) JMTP;

(2000) IJSIM

Occidental vs. oriental cultural heritage

and Hall's communication context,

pre-hoc, not measured.

U.S. vs. Japan/restaurant, health care Friendliness, being personal, authenticity, and

promptness were more common from the U.S. sample;

caring for the customer was more consistent from the

Japanese sample. Results were consistent in both

restaurant and health care.

Mattila (1999a) JSR

Mattila (1999b) JSM

Applied Hall's and Hofstede's

power distance and individualism/

collectivism in hypotheses, pre-hoc

and post-hoc, not measured.

Western vs. Asian consumers/hotel Individuals of different cultures focus on cues. Respondents

from Western cultures were more likely than Asian

counterparts to rely on tangible vs. intangible cues.

Stauss and Mang

(1999) JSM

Used Hofstede's, Hall's, and Riddle's

to derive cultural distance, pre-hoc


Japanese, U.S.,

Germany/airline

Contrary to predictions, customers recalled more critical

incidents with respect to 1) intra-cultural encounters than

inter-cultural encounters, 2) encounters between partners

with small cultural distances vs. encounters between

partners from distant cultures, and 3) the percentage of

negative critical incidents was higher in intra-cultural

encounters than in inter-cultural encounters.

Brady and Robertson

(2001) JBRbNo specific cultural dimensions used. U.S. vs. Ecuador/fast food Effect of service quality on behavioral intentions such

as repurchase intentions, loyalty, and word of mouth is

mediated by satisfaction, consistently across cultures.

Gilbert et al.

(2004) JSM

No specific cultural dimensions used. Jamaica, Scotland, U.S.,

Wales/fast food

Revealed two empirically derived cross-cultural fast-food

customer satisfaction dimensions: satisfaction with the

personal service and satisfaction with the service setting.

Keillor et al.

(2004) JIM

Used Hofstede's dimensions as

pre-hoc justification, not measured.

Australia, China,

Germany, India, Morocco,

Netherlands, Sweden,

U.S./fast food and grocery

Drew on theory from Nordic School of Service

Marketing (NSSM), tested direct effects of technical

(physical good quality) and functional (service quality

and servicescape) elements of the service encounter

on intentions. Differences found between fast-food

and grocery customers in the eight countries. Relative

effects of the service elements on intentions also differ.

Laroche et al.

(2004) JIM

Used Hall's communication context

and Hofstede's dimensions as

pre-hoc justification, not measured.

U.S., Canada, Japan/dentist's

office

Japanese respondents were more conservative in their

evaluations of superior service (lower ratings) but were

less critical (more forgiving) of inferior service

(higher ratings) than North U.S. respondents.

Ueltschy et al.(2004) JBR No specific cultural dimensions used. U.S., English vs. French speakingCanadian/dentist's office Some measures of satisfaction and service quality arenonequivalent across cultures (due to response bias

introduced by translation, interpretation and meaning

of particular items). In situations with high expectations

and performance, English Canadians perceived lower

service quality than U.S. and FrenchCanadians

subjects. In situations where expectations and

performance were lower, ECs perceived higher

quality than U.S. and FC respondents.

Voss et al.

(2004) JSR

Used Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance

dimension, pre-hoc and post-hoc, not

measured.

U.K. and U.S./

financial service,

retail, restaurant, hotel

U.K. customers were more tolerant of poor service quality

than U.S. customers. The use of systematic procedures for

capturing customer feedback and complaints had a direct

and positive influence on satisfaction.

Brady et al.

(2005) b (JR)

Used Hofstede's dimensions as country

selection criteria only, not measured.

Australia, Hong Kong,

Morocco, Netherlands, U.S./fast

food and grocery(PhysiciansU.S. study)

Identified four service evaluation models from the

literature involving the relationships amongst sacrifice,

service quality, service value, service satisfaction, andbehavioral intentions. The comprehensive model fit

best across countries and service settings.

Cunningham et al.

(2005) SIJ

No specific cultural dimensions used. U.S., Korea, Taiwan/multiple Examined how US, Korean and Taiwanese consumers

perceived and classified 13 services. Results showed

consumers view services primarily based on whether

they are personalized or standardized, and whether there

is a physical component of the service. Convenience

perceptions and evaluations of banking, public transit

and university services differed across countries.

Imrie (2005) IMR Used Confucianism as post-hoc

explanation, not measured.

Taiwan vs. U.S./multiple

(unspecified)

Generosity, reflecting the Confucian relational ethic,

had a filtering role on individuals' evaluations of service

experiences in the Taiwanese context, due to hierarchical

nature of Taiwanese society, where service providers

adhere to strict roles and appear content to do so.

(continued on next page)

Table 3 (continued)



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Table 3 (continued)



Veloutsou et al.

(2005) EJM

No specific cultural dimensions used. Greece, Jamaica, U.K.,

U.S./fast food

There were more similarities than differences in the

measurement of satisfaction across cultural contexts

suggesting that the development of measures to examine

and compare consumer satisfaction across cultures andlanguages is feasible.

Reactions to service

De Wulf et al.

(2001) JM

Used Hofstede's dimensions as

justification for country selection,

not measured.

U.S. the Netherlands, Belgium/

food and apparel retail

Different marketing relationship tactics such as direct

mail, preferential treatment, interpersonal communication

and tangible rewards have a differential impact on

consumer perceptions of retailer's relationship

investment, which in turn affect relationship quality and

behavioral loyalty.

Liu et al. (2001) JSR Applied Hofstede's dimensions in


U.S., Switzerland, China, Singapore,

South Korea/banking

With superior service, individuals from low

individualism or high uncertainty avoidance cultures

tended to plan to praise more than individuals from

high individualism or low uncertainty avoidance

cultures. With poor service, individuals from high

individualism or low uncertainty avoidance culturesmore often said they would switch, give negative

word of mouth, or complain than individuals from

low individualism or high uncertainty avoidance

cultures.

Liu and McClure

(2001) JCM

Used individualism/collectivism,

in-group/out-group as pre-hoc


U.S. vs. Korea/retail

and restaurant

When dissatisfied, customers in collectivist culture

were less likely to engage in voice behavior, but

more likely to engage in private behavior (WOM or

exit) than customers in an individualist culture. Those

who voice dissatisfaction in individualistic cultures

were less likely to exit while those who did not voice

dissatisfaction in collectivistic cultures were less likely

to exit.

Patterson and Smith

(2001a) IJISM;

(2001b) JSM

Used Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance,

individualism/collectivism, femininity/

masculinity as pre-hoc justification,not measured.

U.S. vs. Thailand/medical,

hairdressers, auto mechanics,

travel agents, and retail financialadvisors

While the same set of benefits motivated both U.S.

and Thai respondents'

propensity to maintain relationships with a range ofservice providers, special treatment benefits (reflecting

social bonds) were more important for Thai

respondents and confidence benefits were more

important for U.S. respondents.

Hui and Au

(2001) JBR

Used Hofstede's long-term orientation

as part of pre-hoc justification, not

measured.

China vs. Canada/hotel Compared the effects of three kinds of complaint-

handling strategies (voice, compensation, and apology)

on respondents' justice perceptions and

post-complaint behaviors. Voice had a stronger effect

on Chinese than on Canadian respondents, while

compensation had a stronger effect on Canadian

respondents than on Chinese respondents.

Patterson and Smith

(2003) JR

Used Hofstede's individualism/

collectivism as pre-hoc justification,

not measured.

Australia vs. Thailand/travel

agency, medical and hairdressers

Examined 6 switching barriers: search costs; loss of

social bonds; setup costs; functional risk; attractiveness

of alternatives; and loss of special treatment benefits.

These costs explained substantial amounts of variancein propensity to stay and appeared universal across

westeast cultures, while variations were found across

industries.

Warden et al.

(2003) IJSIM

Used Hofstede's dimensions as pre-hoc


Taiwan vs. outside Taiwan/airline Extended Stauss and Mang (1999) model. Found

reduction in inter-cultural failure seriousness can be

attributed not to the error itself, but to increased

acceptance of the recovery strategy.

Mattila and Patterson

(2004a) JSR;

(2004b) JR


collectivism and uncertainty avoidance

as pre-hoc justification, not measured.

U.S., Malaysia, Thailand/restaurant Compensation (discount and apology) was more effective

in restoring a sense of justice to U.S. respondents than

to East Asian (Thai and Malaysian) respondents.

Poon et al. (2004)

EJM

Used Hofstede's long-term vs. short-

term orientation as pre-hoc justification,

not measured.

Canada vs. China/unspecified Compared to Chinese consumers, Canadian consumers

experienced less perceived control in dissatisfying

service encounters, blamed themselves less, perceived

the provider to have more control over a negative

event, and believed the event to be less likely to reoccur.



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assessed additional aspects beyond the five SERVQUAL

dimensions (Lee and Ulgado, 1997; Malhotra et al., 2005).

Laroche et al.'s (2005) study was unique in that it examined how

customers use information sources to form expectations, as well

as the nature of these expectations across cultures.

There are both consistent and inconsistent findings that can be

drawn from these studies. One consistentfinding is that compared

to U.S. consumers, consumers from other cultures/countries tend

to have lower overall service quality expectations. Some

researchers attribute this to differences in national service

environments (Witkowski and Wolfinbarger, 2002) or socioeco-

nomic factors (Malhotra et al., 2005). For example, Witkowski

and Wolfinbarger (2002) argue that the lower service expectationsfound in their sample of German respondents (compared to U.S.

respondents) were due to the general unfriendly service

environment in Germany (which they call service desert) and

the tendency of Germans to compartmentalize their public and

privateselves. Other researchersattribute it to culturaldifferences,

most often using Hofstede's dimensions. The positive link

between individualism and higher levels of service expectations

was often found (Donthu and Yoo, 1998; Furrer et al., 2000;

Laroche et al., 2005). The argument is that individualists, due to

their drive and self-responsibility ethic, will demand that others

also be efficient and will, therefore, be more demanding than

individuals from more collectivist cultures (Furrer et al., 2000).When comparing the dimensional structure of SERVQUAL

measures across different cultural settings, many studies found

structures that were consistent with the original U.S. conceptu-

alization (Donthu and Yoo, 1998; Espinoza, 1999; Furrer et al.,

2000). However, when it comes to therelative importanceof these

dimensions, findings were less consistent. For example, Sultan

and Simpson (2000) found no difference in the order of

importance of SERVQUAL dimensions for U.S. vs. European

airline passengers, with reliability being the most important and

tangibles the least important. Witkowski and Wolfinbarger (2002)

also found reliability to be the most important for both U.S. and

German samples. However, Espinoza (1999) reported that while

reliability was equally important in individualist and collectivist

cultures (Quebec and Peru), responsiveness was the most

important for the Quebecois due to their monochromic time

orientation. Lee and Ulgado (1997) found that, in regard to fast-

food service, low price and assurance were more important to

individualistic U.S. consumers due to their focus on the notion of

time is money, while reliability and empathy were more

important to collectivist Korean consumers who consider eating

in a restaurant as more of a social experience. Donthu and Yoo

(1998), measuring cultural values at the individual level, found

that individuals high on power distance had lower expectations

about the responsiveness and reliability of service quality and

were more willing to tolerate poor service due to their tolerance

for inequities. On the other hand, individuals high on individu-alism expected more empathy and assurance from the service

provider and tended to focus more on meeting their own needs

and were thus, less tolerant of poor service.

While the SERVQUAL remains the dominant framework

applied in this area of cross-cultural research, some researchers

have begun to challenge the SERVQUAL dimensions by both

conceptualizing a framework for measuring service quality

internationally (e.g., Smith and Reynolds, 2001) and by

empirically developing a culture-specific service quality

measure suitable in non-Western cultures (Raajpoot, 2004).

This resulted in the addition of several dimensionspersonal-

ization, formality, and sincerity. Raajpoot's PAKSERV measureused not only Hofstede's dimensions, but also the national

cultural orientation (Dorfman and Howell, 1988) and

Schwartz's (1992) personal values.

Further, the appropriateness of some unique elements within

cultures is harder to explain. For example, Ashforth and

Humphrey (1993) report that in many Muslim cultures, smiling

can be a sign of sexual interest and therefore women are

socialized not to smile at males. Similarly, Rafaeli and Robert

(1987) report in Israel, smiling at customers is viewed as a sign

of inexperience, suggesting that an American-type service (that

is, service with a smile) may be inappropriate in some cultures.

In regards to future research in this area, more within culture,

emically-oriented research (i.e., culturally bound) is needed to


Reactions to service

Wong (2004) JBR Used Hofstede's dimensions as pre-hoc


U.S., Australia, Singapore/restaurant Compensation improved respondents' assessments of

the service encounter in all three countries but only

affected repurchase intentions and word of mouth

in U.S. sample, not in Singaporean or Australian

samples. An apology improved satisfaction for

Singaporean and Australian samples but not for U.S.

respondents.

Patterson et al.

(2006)


collectivism, power distance, and

uncertainty avoidance to develop

hypotheses, measured at individual

level.

Australia vs. Thailand/hotel Customers with a higher collectivist value orientation

perceived more interactional justice when there was an

organization-initiated recovery. An apology from a

service provider with more status had a greater effect

on perceptions of distributive justice for customers with

a higher power distance value orientation. Customers

with a higher uncertainty avoidance orientation

perceived higher levels of procedural justice when

given cognitive control over the recovery process.

a Studied both expectations and evaluations.b Studied both evaluations and reactions.

Table 3 (continued )



8/14

systematically develop more theory in the area. A few steps may

be taken to achieve this. For example, researchers could start by

using qualitative research methods to develop a list of

expectations focusing on a specific culture. From there, a

means-end (or similar) approach to tie these expectations to

cultural values and orientations could be used. This then could

be expanded to other cultural contexts using a more eticapproach (not culture bound) to assess the impact of cultural

orientations along with other related factors such as national

service environment on service expectations.

3.3. Culture and service evaluations

As mentioned previously, the SERVQUAL framework is

conceptualized based on the gap between consumers' expecta-

tions and evaluations of the service performance. A number of

studies reviewed in the previous section that used SERVQUAL

measures (Lee and Ulgado, 1997; Sultan and Simpson, 2000;

Witkowski and Wolfinbarger, 2002) also examined the evaluationof services. Findings from these studies indicate that consumers

in different cultures evaluate and perceive service quality

differently. For example, across service categories, Mexican

respondents rated service quality higher than U.S. respondents

(Herbig and Genestre, 1996) possibly due to their lower

expectations, while German respondents reported poorer service

performance than U.S. respondents (Witkowski and Wolfinbar-

ger, 2002) due to the poor service environment in Germany.

A number of studies also found differences in customers'

evaluations of service under low and high service performance

conditions. For example, Voss et al. (2004) found that due to the

conservatism and the stiff upper lip model in the U.K., U.K.

customers were more tolerant of poor service quality than U.S.customers. Laroche et al. (2004) found that Japanese respon-

dents expressed lower ratings of quality perceptions under a

superior service condition than North Americans. They argue

that this is because Asian cultures are traditional service cultures

and in such high-context/collectivist and long-term oriented

cultures, trust and commitment are considered necessary for any

good customerprovider relationship.

A number of studies also looked at the factors consumers use

in evaluating services. Many researchers used emic approaches

and went beyond the SERVQUAL framework (e.g., Imrie,

2005; Winsted, 1997, 1999, 2000). They consistently found that

individuals in different cultures focus on different factors whenevaluating services. Further, some of these factors are culture-

specific and not included in the SERVQUAL dimensions. For

example, Japanese respondents emphasized caring for the

customer due to the unique oriental cultural heritage (Winsted,

1997), while Taiwanese respondents, who are heavily influ-

enced by the Confucianism in Chinese culture, stressed the

importance of generosity (Imrie, 2005). Individuals in

different cultures also seem to rely on different cues when

evaluating their service experience. Using Hall's communica-

tion context framework, Mattila (1999a) found thatrespondents

from Western cultures (low context) were more likely than their

Asian counterparts (high context) to rely on tangible rather

than intangible cues from the environment.

Individuals' evaluations of services are often reflected in their

satisfaction ratings of the service experiences. The dominant

perspective is that satisfaction is a result of high service quality

(Cronin and Taylor, 1992). While Veloutsou et al. (2005) found

similarities in the measurement of satisfaction across four

culturally diverse samples, Ueltschy et al. (2004) found that

some measures of satisfaction and service quality were notequivalent across cultures due to response biases based on

translation, interpretation and meaning of particular items across

cultures. Brady and Robertson (2001) and Brady et al. (2005)

attempted to test the service quality-satisfaction relationship in a

multi-country context and found that the relationship does

generally hold across cultures, with some differences across

countries noted due to differing national and temporal settings.

In regards to future research in this area, the universality of

causal relationships as examined by Brady and his colleagues

appears to be a useful direction to pursue. If relationships and

relationship causality do not hold up across cultures our task of

understanding cross-cultural differences and similarities will bemuch harder. Further, an overall framework to aid in examining

this area more carefully would be useful. Perhaps this could begin

by fully listing potential behaviors and norms, then relating these

to values and cultural dimensions, and suggesting differential

effects on satisfaction/dissatisfaction based on theory. Finally,

althoughthere is some evidence that individuals evaluate physical

surroundings in service settings differently across cultures (e.g.,

Mattila, 1999a), servicescape research (e.g., Bitner, 1992) has yet

to be extended in a cross-cultural context. Thus, experimental

research aimed at how individuals in different cultures evaluate

different elements of the servicescape would be quite useful.

3.4. Culture and reactions to service

A number of studies reviewed here examine how people

across cultures react differently to service failures and service

recovery actions taken by the service providers. Findings in this

topic are fairly consistent. For example, many studies found that

when receiving poor service, consumers from individualistic

cultures such as the U.S. are more likely to complain than

individuals from collectivist cultures such as China, Singapore

and Korea (Liu et al., 2001; Liu and McClure, 2001).

Further, researchers have found that recovery strategies may

have different effects on consumers in different cultures. For

example, Mattila and Patterson (2004a,b) found that compen-sation (e.g., discount and apology) was more effective in

restoring a sense of justice to American respondents who focus

more on equity given their highly independent self view, than to

East Asian (Thai and Malaysian) respondents who focus more

on the interdependent self and equal treatment than equity.

Wong (2004) found that compensation improved their respon-

dents' assessments of the service encounter in the three

countries investigated (U.S., Australia, Singapore), but it only

affected repurchase intentions and word of mouth for the U.S.

sample. On the other hand, an apology improved satisfaction for

the Singaporean and Australian samples but not for the U.S.

sample. She argued that Australians and Singaporeans are

sensitive to the informational cues that are embedded in the



9/14

compensation offered but this information is only incorporated

and interpreted within the service delivery contexts indepen-

dently of the consumption experience. Hui and Au (2001) found

that voice (i.e., allowing customers a chance to express

dissatisfaction) had a stronger effect on collectivist Chinese

respondents who value respect, status and face in their social

behaviors, while compensation had a stronger effect onCanadian respondents due to the fact that receiving physical

and financial compensation is uncommon in China and Chinese

consumers may have much lower expectations because of its

underdeveloped service industry. These findings suggest that

Northern Americans may be more result-focused and pragmatic

in their reactions to service experiences.

Individuals' reactions to poor service may be a reflection of

their attributions of the failure. Poon et al. (2004) found that when

compared to Chinese consumers, Canadian consumers experi-

enced a lower level of perceived control in dissatisfying service

encounters, blamed themselves less, perceived the provider to

have more control over the negative event, and believed the eventto be less likely to reoccur due to the considerable difference in the

stage of economic development and the likelihood of service

failures between Canada and China.

As a reaction to service, consumers may choose to stay with

the same service provider and develop a relationship.But why and

how customers develop a relationship may differ across cultures.

Patterson and Smith (2001a,b, 2003) found that while the same set

of benefits motivated both U.S. and Thai respondents' propen-

sities to maintain relationships with a range of service providers,

the importance of the benefits differed for the respondents by

country. Special treatment benefits, reflecting social bonds, were

more important for Thai respondents, who tend to rate high on

uncertainty avoidance and collectivism, while confidence benefitswere more important for U.S. respondents, who tend to rate low

on uncertainty avoidance and highon individualism. Further, they

found that switching costs provided a strong explanation for

propensity to stay with a service provider in both cultures, sug-

gesting their universality. However, none of the studies we

reviewed examined the possible differences in customerservice

provider relationship formation across cultures.

Obviously, there needs to be more cross-cultural research on

service failure and recovery, customer complaining behaviors,

service relationships and antecedents to and nature of service

provider loyalty. There is a surprising lack of research on these

important topics. Further, theories revolving around attribution,appraisal and equity may be useful in this work but have not

been systematically applied. These topics should be fully

enumerated and explored in future cross-cultural studies. Next

we address various conceptual issues raised by our review.

4. Conceptual issues: critique and future directions

Cultural research can help validate existing theoretical

paradigms, enrich our current theorizing, and may even lead to

new theories (Bagozzi, 1994). Although the field of cross-cultural

consumer services is relatively new, it has tremendous potential

for developing insights into the services marketing literature. In

this section, we discuss some overall conceptual issues and some

future directions with a focus on going beyond Hofstede.

Finally, we present a potentially new theoretical perspective in the

areathe concept ofcultural service personality.

4.1. Going beyond Hofstede

Although there are many useful categorizations of culture orcultural dimensions (see examples in Table 2), only a few, other

than Hofstede, have been applied in cross-cultural services

research. While Hofstede's extensive framework has been

applied and appears to be useful across a number of different

areas (cf. Sivakuma and Nakata, 2001), scholars in recent years

have raised concerns related to the over-reliance on this

framework. Some question the constraints of the population

(IBM employees) and time frame (19681973) of much of the

data collected (Smith et al., 1996). Others argue that since

Hofstede's classification was originally related to work values

rather than consumer behavior and other micro-phenomena, it

might be less relevant in more culture-specific studies on moremicro-phenomena in consumer behavior (Yau et al., 1999).

Thus, we believe it is important to go beyond Hofstede. We

address this on several fronts. First, we argue that it is important to

consider alternative cultural value dimensions in cross-cultural

research. Many of the dimensions in Table 2 have been

extensively used elsewhere. For example, the cultural work of

Schwartz, Triandis (and Gelfand), and Hall have each been cited

hundreds and some even thousands of times, according to Google

Scholar. Thus, itis surprisingwe donot see more of these works in

the consumer services area. Moreover, some of the inconclusive or

conflicting findingswe currently see in the literature may be partly

due to the fact that Hofstede's dimensions may not capture some

of the rich differences across cultures and ignore some of the otherimportant differences, such as the degree to which a culture is

horizontal or vertical (Triandis and Gelfand, 1998). For example,

in a recent issue of the Journal of Consumer Psychology, Shavitt

et al. (2006) expand on Triandis and Gelfand's work, highlighting

its relevance to cross-cultural research in moving beyond

individualism/collectivism. Other articles in this issue also

highlight cultural concepts that go beyond individualism/

collectivism in advancing cross-cultural research in consumer

psychology (cf. Aaker, 2006; Oyserman, 2006).

Future research should attempt to adopt alternative cultural

dimensions, when relevant, to expand our understanding of

culture and its impact on service experiences. For example, whenexamining customer complaint and word-of-mouth behaviors,

Schwartz's (1992, 1994) value dimensions may be relevant and

yet have not been applied to how individuals might react to

service experiences in different cultures. Further, since almost

every service delivery process involves communication between

customers and employees, it could be fruitful to use frameworks

that focus on communication differences between cultures. For

instance, by drawing on the communication dimensions of direct

vs. indirect, elaborative vs. succinct, personal vs. contextual,

and instrumental vs. affective communication, identified by

Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey (1988), researchers could examine

the extent and type of communication customers from different

cultures expect and desire during service delivery.



10/14

Secondly, in going beyond or moving forward,we argue that

it is important to go beyond cultural value orientations or belief

systems such as Hofstede's work. Recently, in an excellent article,

Craig and Douglas (2006) pointed out that culture is no longer a

phenomenon defined by or isolated to a particular locale since the

world is becoming increasingly de-territorialized and penetrated

by elements from other cultures, resulting in cultural contamina-tion, cultural pluralism and hybridization. Indeed, researchers

must carefully specify the role of culture and define the

appropriate unit of analysis. They also suggest that in order to

develop deeper understanding of culture and its various

manifestations, it is time to move beyond national culture and

incorporate three important components of culture. These include

a) abstracts of intangible elements of culture such as values and

belief systems (represented by Hofstede or Schwartz's work),

b) the communication links which bind and perpetuate a cultural

system (which would be represented by Hall's (1976) work) and

c) material aspects of culture, such as artifacts, symbols and rites

(represented by McCracken's (1986) framework on the culturalmeaning of consumer goods). This would also include economic

aspects of the culture. We have categorized these cultural

components in Table 2, noting that the first two are represented

but not the material aspects. We believe that cross-cultural

consumer services research could benefit greatly by more fully

incorporating the components of culture as suggested by these

scholars. Next, based on our understanding of culture, our review

of the cross-cultural consumer services literature and the

broadened perspective of cultural components, we present a

new conceptualization that addresses the role of culture on

consumer service experiences.

4.2. Cultural service personality

From our review of the literature on cross-cultural consumer

services, we observed a number of consistent findings which

underlie the impact of culture on the various stages of consumers'

service experiences. This led us to the conclusion that different

cultures may exhibit various cultural service personalities,which we define as the overall characteristics, tendencies, or

desires related to consumer service experiences within a specific

culture. While different researchers in the past have focused on

different elements of culturesome focused more on value and

belief systems (e.g., Hofstede's dimensions) while others on

communication systems (Hall's framework), the perspective we

propose incorporates all three components of culture as

recommended by Craig and Douglas (2006). We believe that by

incorporating these different components of culture (value and

belief systems, communication systems, and material culture), we

can capture the richness of culture and its impact on consumer

service experiences. It also expands upon ourFig. 1 in regards tothe role of culture in consumer service experiences in a specific

cultural context (e.g., Western vs. Eastern perspective).

We suggest that consistent cultural service personality patterns

may be a product of the impact of various components of culture

on consumer service experiences. This perspective not only

provides a brief summary of what we currently know about the

literature, it also has the potential to help us gain deeper

understanding of the role of culture in consumer service

experiences in future research. In Table 4, we outline this

framework by presenting two consistent cultural service person-

alities which emerged from our reviewthe Western/

Table 4Cultural service personalityWestern/individualistic vs. Eastern/collectivist



11/14

Individualistic vs. the Eastern/Collectivist. Note that the compo-

nents of culture we are using are the ones derived from our review.

However, there is certainly a need to adopt alternative ones, such

as some of the other ones found in Table 2.

Cultural service personality is reflected in the service

experience dimensions (e.g., consumer service expectations,

and their evaluations and reactions to the service received) and isinfluenced by the different components of culture. Take

consumer satisfaction as one of the characteristics of cultural

service personality for an example. A number of studies from our

review consistently reported lower satisfaction ratings from

Western respondents than their Eastern counterparts especially

under low performance situations. This difference can be

explained by a number of factors related to cultural components.

First, Western consumers are more difficult to satisfy due to

their higher expectations of service quality as a result of a) their

higher individualism (value and belief systems) which leads to

higher expectations and demands in terms of efficiency and

individual attention, and b) to their generally higher economicdevelopment levels (material culture) where service industries or

service environments are more established in general and

consumers are more accustomed to higher levels of service

performance. Second, Western consumers evaluate service

differently than their Eastern counterparts. In terms of

communication systems, Western consumers, characterized by

low communication context, are more likely to focus on

tangible/physical elements of the service. On the other hand,

Eastern consumers, characterized by a high communication

context, are more likely to focus on the intangible elements of

service or give a more holistic evaluation of their service

experience thus often times resulting in higher satisfaction

ratings especially when the service performance level is lower.Thus, this theory offers a view of how culture and service

experiences combine to form a view of a country or cultural area.

Next we turn to the methodological issues raised in this review.

5. Methodological issues: critique and future directions

In this section, we discuss three methodological issues that

evolved from our review and suggest some future research

directions. Specifically we focus on a) the emicetic debate,

b) operationalization and measurement of culture, and c) the

selection of country and context.

5.1. Emic vs. etic oriented research

How to study cross-cultural services is closely related to the

debate over emic vs. etic research approaches. While the emic

approach is based on the premise that theorizing is culture-

specific and favors within-culture investigation, the etic

approach advocates generalization and focuses on issues that

are universal and common to all cultures (Berry, 1989). We

believe that both approaches contribute to our understanding of

service related issues in the global context. They are simply two

points of view that can converge to enrich cultural research

(Maheswaran and Shavitt, 2000). The critical question is which

approach best addresses the issue at hand.

Moreover, Berry's (1989) five-step systematic process is

useful: 1) start with initial research on a question in one's own

culture (emic A), 2) next attempt to use the same concept or

instrument to study a behavior in another culture (imposed etic),

3) then move to a discovery strategy in another culture (emic B),

4) then compare emic A and emic B, and 5) when there is no

communality, comparison is not possible, but with somecommunality (derived etic) comparison is possible. Although

the literature is moving in this direction, the imposed etic

approach is still the dominant approach. However, when

studying service expectations and evaluations, frameworks

with an emic approach (e.g., studied first in the U.S.) such as

SERVQUAL and servicescape research may be developed

further by following this direction.

Additionally, it is important in cross-cultural research to

involve the locals. Collaborative research across countries

should utilize local researchers in all steps of the process (Craig

and Douglas, 2002; Cavusgil and Das, 1997). Research teams

should be drawn from the countries involved in the research toreduce chances of incorrect interpretations and to increase

emic understanding.

5.2. Operationalization and measurement of culture

The major issue here is how culture or cultural dimensions

are assessed. As seen in Table 3 and also from our review, we

found trends which are similar to what Nakata and Pokay

(2004) found in the global marketing literature. That is, the

majority of the studies explicated culture implicitly. That is they

loosely or briefly discuss what is meant by the culture construct

in the context of the study, while others present a culture

construct in more detail, but used it post-hoc to explainunpredicted results or pre-hoc to provide only context and

background. In contrast it is important to draw cultural concepts

and develop hypotheses based on strong theory and logic.

How culture is operationalized and whether cultural values

are measured is another issue of concern. Most often it is treated

as synonymous with country or nation, perhaps for expediency;

however, it is clear that cultures are not homogenousbut that,

in fact, layers of culture exist (Hofstede, 1991, p. 10), and such

an operationalization often shortchanges the richness of the

cultural concept. Observed effects may be due to many effects

other than culture, leading to erroneous conclusions (Nakata and

Pokay, 2004). Although the nation-as-surrogate assumption hasbeen called into question (Nakata and Pokay, 2004), most

researchers tend not to acknowledge the potential problem.

It is important for researchers to measure values and cultural

orientations rather than assume differences based on where the

data are collected. Very few studies reviewed here actually

measured the culture construct. While few studies used cultural

constructs in forming hypotheses, even fewer measured the

dimensions at the individual level, with a few exceptions

(Donthu and Yoo, 1998; Furrer et al., 2000; Laroche et al.,

2005; Patterson et al., 2006). In regards to measurement issues,

although there are many scales to choose from, there are also a

number of issues to tackle. Taras (2006) identified and reviewed

113 instruments that have been used to measure culture



12/14

quantitatively, while Triandis et al. (1995) empirically assessed

seven scales that measure allocentrism and idiocentrism

(i.e., the individual-level constructs of collectivism and

individualism). Finally, Rowney and Taras (2006) identified a

number of measurement issues to address, such as response

styles, low reliabilities, wording comparability, as we move

forward in this area.

5.3. Selection of country and context

A final issue of concern here relates to country selection in

cross-cultural service research and the need for a theoretical

foundation for the selection of countries (e.g., Cavusgil and Das,

1997; Sivakuma and Nakata, 2001). Often convenience and

achieving a large variation on the dimensions of interest are the

primary drivers of this issue (Livingstone, 2003). Our review

reveals that other than convenience, the rationale for selecting

countries was often not provided, and the inconsistent findings,

especially in service expectation and evaluation areas, may bedue to the strong variations in selection of country and within-

country or culture sample. Thus, countries or cultures should be

selected on the basis of generalizing and building on theory.

Further, some inconsistent findings may be due to variations of

service contexts. Many of the studies reviewed in the service

expectations area used a single industry, often in banking or retail

contexts. The lack of contextual richness of these studies may

reduce the generalizability of the findings. We believe there are

many other service contexts that could be used in cross-cultural

service research, ranging from services which involve low to high

amounts of interaction opportunities and include customer

service provider employee contact (Bowen, 1990). These include

services suchas hairdressers, telecommunication services, and carrepair shops. Further, since some studies found differences due to

contexts (Cunningham et al., 2005; Keillor et al., 2004; Winsted,

1999), industry selection is important.

6. Limitations and conclusions

In this article we attempted to review the literature on cross-

cultural services marketing research, to highlight and discuss

conceptual and methodological issues, and to make recommen-

dations for future research regarding the interplay of culture and

service delivery. Although we tried to include as many quality

studies as possible to provide a comprehensive overview of theliterature, we did not draw from all possible sources, leaving out

sources such as books and proceedings, where much additional

cross-cultural research resides. We believe, however, that the

research reviewed here provides a good overview of the topics.

Our framework in Fig. 1 outlines important areas in regard to

culture's impact on various aspects/stages of individuals'

service experiences, while our Table 4 expands this topic

based on specific findings and understanding from our literature

review. Although there have been studies looking at the role of

culture in each area (i.e., expectation, evaluation, and reaction to

service experiences), more is needed to enrich our current

understanding of variations, as well as commonalities of

consumers' service experiences across cultures.

Successful services marketing in the global market depends

on a solid understanding of the uniqueness of specific cultures

in which the firm competes. Future research efforts should focus

on discovering these insights through both emic and etic

research modes. Further, we recommend using the five-step

approach suggested by Berry, as well as Craig and Douglas's

(2006) perspective, utilizing all three components of cultureincluding value/belief systems, communication systems, and

material culture. The future of cross-cultural research in services

is bright and we encourage others to delve into these topics

further. We also hope our cultural service personality

perspective will serve as a potential new theoretical idea to

encourage future research in the area.

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