تحویل کیفیت خدمات در زمینه بین المللی Service quality delivery in a cross-national context

1. Introduction Countries have their own idiosyncratic origins and paths that influence service culture. Attitudes and behaviour of service sector stakeholders (e.g. owners, managers and employees) are typically influenced by social and cultural norms that have been formed and reformed in the past (Agarwal, Malhotra, & Bolton, 2010; Malhotra, Ulgado, Agarwal, Shainesh, & Wu, 2005). Many factors impact the mindset, attitude, expectations and behaviour (service culture) of those who are engaged in the service industry (service quality delivery). These include culture and philosophy, social hierarchy, historical events (e.g. political revolution) and transformation (e.g. economic reform). In addition, such factors as technological development, access to information, and the process of globalisation influence the nature of service quality. Given the increasing cross-border trade and investment in general, and expanding international tourism and hospitality in particular, cross-national service delivery has become a key performance indicator. The spectacular growth of emerging markets provides more opportunities to develop new perspectives to capture cross-national service delivery, which are needed to better understand the differences between emerging market and increasingly economically nonviable markets in advanced economies (Kaski, Hautamaki, Pullins, & Kock, 2017; Sheth, 2011). The rising interconnectedness of economies (e.g. Manyika et al., 2014; McKinsey’s Interconnectedness Index, 2016) suggests tourism and hospitality services (including hotels, resorts, restaurants, cruises, airlines, banking, retailing, etc.) are now increasingly being consumed by a mix of international consumers. A range of home and host contextual factors play a role in constraining the effective application of cross-cultural skills (Wang, Fan, Freeman, & Zhu, 2017). Accordingly, it is critical and timely to identify those elements that influence service culture and cross-national service delivery in a comparative setting (Donthu & Yoo, 1998; Hoang, Rao Hill, Freeman, Lu, & Imrie, 2017; Kaski et al., 2017). Taking a novel approach, we draw on the expectancy-disconfirmation theory (Oliver, 1977, 1980, 1997; Oliver & DeSarbo, 1988; Oliver, Balakrishnan, & Barry, 1994) to the cross-national service quality delivery context. A cognitive psychology theory, the expectancy-confirmation framework is more commonly used to explain post-purchase satisfaction as a result of expectations, perceived performance, and disconfirmation of beliefs. Perceived performance is how a person perceives what is actually happening (e.g. in the initial service delivery encounter). Typically, discontinuation occurs when the perceived performance moves sufficiently away from the buyer’s expectations. Specific to our focus, discontinuation can be positive (where performance exceeds expectations) or negative (where performance fails to meet expectations). Disconfirmation, then impacts the satisfaction with the service provider or employee, either positively or negatively.