Purpose – The paper aims to empirically investigate the relationship between perceived service
quality, satisfaction, trust, and loyalty in e-commerce settings in two cultures – Malaysian and Qatari –
at the level of construct dimensions.
Design/methodology/approach – A survey method approach was used in this study. To test the
dimensionality of the perceived service quality, all 20 items were analyzed using oblique rotation and
varimax rotation. The hypotheses were tested using the structural equations modeling and general
linear model of univariate analysis of variance.
Findings – Perceived service quality was found to have a significant impact on customer
satisfaction. In turn customer satisfaction was found to have a significant effect on trust. Both
customer satisfaction and trust have significant effects on loyalty through word of mouth (WOM)
while WOM is an antecedent of repeat visits or repurchase intentions. Interestingly, trust does not
directly influence the latter. With the exception of the effect of satisfaction on trust, we found no
significant difference between the effects of perceived service quality on satisfaction, satisfaction
on loyalty, and trust on loyalty among the Qatari and Malaysian customers indicating that the
relationships in the model did not hold across the two cultural groups because the respondents have
similar cultural background.
Research limitations/implications – This study suffers from a limitation in that it uses a
convenience sampling technique without a fully matched profile of the respondents. However, the
satisfactory fit of the estimated model allows for the study to be a basis of a reliable comparison for
future research.
Practical implications – In an e-commerce setting companies can increase customer loyalty
directly by improving the ease of use, the attractiveness, and the security of their website. Thus,
marketers should tailor their marketing strategies to fit each marketing environment because
overseas success of their business is very much a function of cultural adaptability.
Originality/value – The major contribution of this study is that it is the first attempt to investigate
the impact of word of mouth on trust and intention.