Cross-cultural differences on consumer emotional and behavioral responses in negative service encounters

• Main Authors: Chia-wei Sun, 孫嘉薇
• Other Authors: Jacob Y.H. Jou
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/24655183814797052407

碩士 === 國立高雄第一科技大學 === 行銷與流通管理所 === 97 === Due to the trend that global corporations shift their business model toward service-centered economy, cross-cultural studies on service encounters become more and more important. The purpose of this research is to examine cross-cultural differences on consumers emotional and behavioral responses to negative service encounters. This study conducted an experiment using embarrassing shopping scenarios as negative service encounters to explore the differences between Taiwan and Austria consumers. Firstly, this study found that the characteristics of Taiwanese are high in power distance, high in uncertainty avoidance, masculinity and high in confucian dynamism. On the contrary, the characteristics of Austrian are low in power distance, low in uncertainty avoidance, femininity and low in confucian dynamism. The results indicate that Taiwanese (versus Austrian) are more dissatisfied with an embarrassing service encounter and prefer to express their dissatisfaction in indirect ways, such as leaving the store, disseminating negative word of mouth and switching to other providers. However, Austrian consumers tend to express their dissatisfaction in direct ways, such as engaging in voice and retribution behaviors. This gives insights into how culture features influence consumers to respond to embarrassing service encounters and to discover that the explicit behaviors consumers adopt may not absolutely mean the real meanings consumers feel.