Negotiating Reality: Motives towards Developing Cultural Sensitivity in International Service Encounters

• Main Authors: KristinaBilello, 畢婷雅
• Other Authors: James Stanworth
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/5qne25

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 國際經營管理研究所 === 106 === Increasing global mobility means people from different cultures interact for service. This research explores such intercultural service encounters (ICSE) between culturally distant customers and service providers in Taiwan. Research focuses predominately on short-term residents. Underlying theoretical assumptions, though, point towards acculturation that develops cultural sensitivity over time. This suggests that if customers are motivated they will develop better understanding of ICSE and how to play their role within them. This research identifies and examines the motives that push or draw culturally distant short-, intermediate and long-term residents into learning about service in Taiwan. Through the implementation of laddering and means-end chain theory, interviews and an open-questionnaire the researcher collects data from 79 participants. Analysis results in 1,422 motive categories that consolidate to 155 main categories. The analytical approach distinguishes between short-, intermediate and long-term respondent groups and separates them into positive and negative motives. The results are six implication matrixes and associating hierarchical value maps. The findings for this study express a narrative for each category. Short-term respondents place a strong emphasis on motives concerning language abilities and belonging to a community, viewing service encounters as opportunities to achieve pragmatic tasks. Intermediate respondents represent the most complicated group, caught between a desire to acculturate and thoughts of leaving, they focus on achieving a sense of contentment. Long-term respondents transition to abstract motivations, focused on self-improvement with the confidence to handle themselves inside of different service encounters, perceiving service as a daily necessity with minimal gain unless they choose otherwise. These results contribute to theory about ICSEs by providing an explanation of how motivations adjust over time. While previous research suggests that people adapt to a host culture, this study identifies a motivation mechanism by which this happens.