Emotion and Service Evaluation: How Different Cultures Respond to Service Experiences

The increasing trend towards globalization/ internationalization of services (Bolton and Myers 2003; Cicic, Patterson, and Shoham 1999) has highlighted the need for researchers to examine the ways in which consumers from different cultures evaluate the service they receive and how this then affects their behavioral intentions towards the service provider. Many researchers adopt similar frameworks to those described in mono-cultural studies focusing on consumers’ cognitive evaluation based on perceptions, expectations or both. Yet a considerable body of literature (Arnould and Price 1993; de Ruyter and Bloemer 1999; Mattila and Enz 2002; Menon and Dubé 2000) has emphasized the role of affect in service experiences and in consumer decision-making. Since the nature of feelings and emotions, and how these are expressed, is known to differ across cultures (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner 1997) it is likely that an examination of the role of affect will have implications for both the development of cross-cultural service quality measurement and services marketing theory.

Citation:

Anne M. Smith and Nina L. Reynolds (2006) ,"Emotion and Service Evaluation: How Different Cultures Respond to Service Experiences", in LA - Latin American Advances in Consumer Research Volume 1, eds. Silvia Gonzalez and David Luna, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 73-75.