Conclusions
This study supports the hypothesis that ethnic or national culture influences
individuals’ predisposition to give good service. It also shows how specific cultural
dimensions influence service-mindedness. Individuals who scored highly on the
“human-heartedness” dimension (equivalent to the feminine pole of Hofstede’s
“masculinity-femininity” dimension) and on the “Confucian work dynamism”
dimension also tended to score more highly on all the SP dimensions. “Integration”
was related to carrying out one’s duties, emphasising the importance of teamwork in
service operations. “Moral discipline” was related to competence, showing the need for
firm resolve in making sure that service standards are upheld.
These findings seem to imply that certain nationalities are more predisposed to give
good service than others; in other words that it may be more difficult to find
service-minded individuals among some populations than others. However, it is not as
clear-cut as this, since the key value dimensions that affected service predisposition
were those of empathy for the customer and willingness to work hard. Both of these
can be more regarded as personal values than ethnic ones, and individuals of all
nationalities who show these values would be preferred for service work anywhere in
the world. Furthermore the present study showed that these values were fairly evenly
distributed across all of the nationalities investigated. One certainly could not say for
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Downloaded by NARESUAN UNIVERSITY At 04:03 18 September 2014 (PT)instance that Europeans were less empathic or lazier than people from other parts of
the world.
The cultural value differences that were recorded between different nationalities
related mainly to the other value dimensions: power distance, moral discipline and
integration and the only SP component that was affected was “giving clients
something extra”. This implies that there may be a difference in the way different
nationalities take initiative in service situations, and there are also perhaps issues of
relating to strangers. It seems likely that these will affect the nature of the service
encounter, even if they do not much influence fundamentals like empathising or
working hard, since they are bound to affect the formality or informality of the service
encounter. This poses an interesting problem for the globalisation of service, since
expectations of formality are different in different countries and are also expressed in
different ways. Thus it may be difficult to recruit staff who can deliver an
American-style service in, say, China, but local staff may have a better idea of what the
local market needs, and may be able to tailor the foreign style of service so that it
retains the appeal of its foreignness but does not offend locals. Underlying this is a
need for sensitivity and interpretation in both the recruitment of staff and the design
and delivery of service standards.
The study has also demonstrated significant differences between the subjects in
the Scottish and Swiss samples, concerned mostly with SP components rather than
value dimensions. The differences were greater than any due to the nationality of
the subjects, and surprisingly Europeans were responsible for most of the
differences; no significant differences were recorded among the Asian respondents.
Different teaching approaches, and different service cultures between institutions
in Switzerland and Scotland were probably responsible for these different attitudes
to service delivery. As might have been predicted, differences between the cultural
values of subjects from a Confucian heritage country as compared with those from
other countries.
These findings show that teaching and practice profoundly affect students’
attitudes to delivering service; substantially more so than differences between
nationalities. The implication is that training can enhance the service skills of all ethnic
groups. However, it probably cannot compensate for low empathy with customers or
an unwillingness to work hard. It also seems that “local” nationalities learn local
differences in service delivery more readily than foreigners. There are two possible
implications from this. On the one hand, it may be best to train people locally for
service delivery, so that they learn local norms, but little is known about the way
overseas students learn service, and it is likely that there is a considerable benefit from
studying abroad.
Globalisation and workforce migration are making front line service staffing
increasingly multicultural in nature. This study has given a first glimpse of how
culture may be affecting service attitudes, and hence how staff teams might be
managed and recruited. Hospitality teaching and training are also increasingly
directed at multicultural audiences: the international student body identified in this
study, as well as the need to train staff recruited from many cultural backgrounds.
Studies like this can identify how cultural differences influence service attitudes, and
provide useful guidelines for structuring training programmes and curricula.
IJCHM
19,2
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Downloaded by NARESUAN UNIVERSITY At 04:03 18 September 2014 (PT)Although other researchers have sought to relate cultural values and service
perceptions, the present work is the first to quantitatively assess the relationship
between service predisposition and cultural dimensions. The findings about the
learning of international students are particularly interesting for managers and
teachers at such schools, because they present a way of measuring the effectiveness of
the learning/acculturation process.
This study leaves many questions and there is clearly much scope for further
research. For instance, it would be of interest to reconfirm this result and to identify the
effects of the style of teaching upon service attitudes of students. It would also be
interesting to see whether actual service workers, as opposed to students, show similar
relationships between service attitudes and values.