LITERATURE REVIEW 2. 1 Role of Culture, Cultural Dimensions in Consumer Behaviour Hofstede (2001) refers to culture as ‘‘the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another’’. Culture refers to a set of values, ideas, artifacts and other meaningful symbols that help individuals to communicate, interpret and evaluate as members of society. It is a normally homogeneous system of collectively shared meanings, way of life and common set of values shared by a member of society. Culture comprises the shared values, assumptions, understandings and goals that are learned from one generation, imposed by the current generation, and passed on to succeeding generations (Deresky, International Journal of Management (IJM), ISSN 0976 – 6502(Print), ISSN 0976 - 6510(Online), Volume 4, Issue 5, September - October (2013) 141 2003). It governs how we wish to be treated and how we treat others; how we communicate, negotiate process information and make decisions (Scarborough, 2000). Due to rapid globalization, though we are fast absorbing concept of ‘‘no-border’’ world, yet cultural factors moderate many aspects of consumer’s buying behaviour. There is a growing interest in cultural differences of countries and understanding the cultural context of consumer behaviour in a globalized marketplace (Maheswaran and Sharon, 2000). It is true that in the market place, consumer’s perception of an inexperienced new technology is based upon its abilities to satisfy needs on which culture and values have a great impact. Over the past decades, due to aggressive competition in the retail business environment, a company’s success largely depended on the satisfied customers who are willing to experiment with the latest innovation in the shopping experience (Siu and Cheung, 2001; Srinivasan et al., 2002). Researchers suggested that creating a positive retail store environment plays a critical role in satisfying customers and maintaining their loyalty to the store in foreign markets (Chang and Tu, 2005). Much research also showed that certain retail store attributes influence store choice and patronage behaviour (Baker et al., 2002; Hu and Jasper, 2006; Pan and Zinkham, 2006; Sherman et al., 1997; Sirgy et al., 2000). Zhang, Beatty, and Walsh (2008) reviewed twenty service research journals and discovered forty articles that focus on cross-cultural customer service research. The most popular categorization of cultural dimensions is the framework proposed by Hofstede (1980) which includes individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, high power of distance versus low power of distance, and high uncertainty avoidance versus low uncertainty avoidance. Prior studies show that individualism and uncertainty avoidance are important to consumer acceptance of innovations in different cultures (Lim, Leung, Sia, & Lee, 2004). Individualism defines cultures where there are loose ties between individuals and there is a greater propensity for people to take care of themselves and their close family with low levels of concern for the rest of society. Collectivism defines cultures where people are integrated into cohesive groups and have strong loyalties to the group. People in individualistic cultures are encouraged to make their own choices whereas people in collective cultures are more willing to conform to the norms of the group (Erumban, & Jong, 2006). Members of individualist cultures feel free to express their own
views and act accordingly and are therefore more willing to innovate and adopt new ideas (Erumban, & Jong, 2006). Further, an individualistic culture, where people tend to follow their own motives are more innovative than people from collectivistic cultures and are more likely to accept self-service checkout implementations. Uncertainty avoidance varies across counties and is measured using a scale defining low or high uncertainty avoidance. The main characteristic of uncertainty avoidance is the orientation of society members toward the new and the unknown. According to Hofstede (1980), uncertainty avoidance is related to the degree by which members of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity. Therefore, people from cultures with low levels of uncertainty avoidance are more tolerant toward risk and are more willing to try new things. According to Yeniyurt and Townsend (2003) uncertainty avoidance has a negative effect on the acceptance rates of new products. Therefore uncertainty avoidance is related to consumer willingness to adopt new technologies such as self-service technologies in retailing.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The term "service encounter" has attained widespread use in marketing speeches, articles, and research in a fewshort years. Surprenant and Solomon (1987) define the service encounter as "the dyadic interaction between a customer and service provider." This definition draws on their earlier work suggesting that "service encounters are role performances" (Solomon et al. 1985) in which both customers and service providers have roles to enact. This use of theterm "service encounter" focuses on the interpersonal element of service firm performance. Shostack (1985) defines theservice encounter somewhat more broadly as "a period of time during which a consumer directly interacts with a service."Her definition encompasses all aspects of the service firm with which the consumer may interact, including its personnel,its physical facilities, and other visible elements. Shostack's definition does not limit the encounter to the interpersonalinteractions between the customer and the firm, and in fact suggests that service encounters can occur without any humaninteraction element. (Bitner 1990)Several survey-based studied of service satisfaction also suggest that the human interaction component of servicedelivery is essential to the determination of satisfaction/dissatisfaction. A study of relationship marketing in the lifeinsurance industry found clients' satisfaction with their contact
person (or agent) to be a significant predictor of overallsatisfaction with the service (Crosby and Stephens 1987). Other researchers have found the human interaction componentto be of importance in evaluating professional services (Day and Bodur 1978; Quelch and Ash 1981), medical services(Brown and Swartz 1989), and retail outlets (Westbrook 1981). Similarly, experimental studies of service satisfaction alsohave uncovered the importance of particular contact employee behaviors (Bitner 1990; Surprenant and Solomon 1987).This study focus on the personal interactions between customers and employees in service encounters. It also identifies thespecific events and behaviors through customer survey which shows their satisfaction and dissatisfaction level thatinfluenced by the service encounters provided by the Hotels.
