- Title
- Cultural values, service quality expectations and customer satisfaction: evidence from generational cohorts in Malaysia
- Creator
- Chee, Su Ching
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2020
- Description
- Professional Doctorate - Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)
- Description
- In today’s rapidly evolving, highly connected and fast-paced world, businesses need to be in touch with their customers as well as their expectations and perceptions. This means the necessity to be aware of the importance in embracing a proactive stance, rather than a reactive position, when dealing with their customers so as to ensure customer satisfaction. Therefore, effective and competent managers are inclined to continuously seek, identify and develop the factors, as well as areas, within the business in order to enable superior performance that renders quality, meet expectations and attain customer satisfaction. Nevertheless, most studies only consider the dimensional viewpoint of consumerism rather than the precursor elements. Consequently, this study was developed with the focus on the antecedent angle or perspective of consumer behaviour in relation to the service quality expectation and customer satisfaction constructs in the high-contact service-based hospitality industry in Malaysia. The antecedent factors evaluated are cultural values, generational cohorts, ethnic and gender. In the study, the cultural dimensions were evaluated as a direct antecedent component whereas the remaining three variables, generational cohorts, ethnic and gender, were considered as moderating factors between cultural values and service quality expectations. Literature has found these precursor variables to influence or shape consumer behaviour, perception, expectations and satisfaction in varying degrees and manner. As such, consumer thoughts, perception and behaviour contrast and diverge in different societies and nations. Since these underlying factors may directly or indirectly affect a consumer’s consideration as well as decision making behaviour, therefore, this study endeavour to keep the marketers up to date and in touch with any development that may occur with the changing times. The study adopted a quantitative research methodology whereby a total of 420 primary data were collected, quantified and evaluated with the aid of the SPSS and AMOS SEM statistical tools. There were a total of twelve hypotheses tested in this paper and the findings indicate that nine of the hypotheses were supported whereas three were rejected. On a whole, the cultural value construct confirms a positive and significant influence on service quality expectations. However, out of the six individual cultural value dimensions, the short term/ long terms dimension, had to be dropped due to unanticipated shortcomings or inadequacy in the measurement scale. Nevertheless, the remaining sub construct dimensions; power distance, individualism/ collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and indulgence/ restraining dimensions independently support a positive correlation to service quality expectation with the masculinity/ femininity cultural dimension fulfilling the expected position of having no significant correlation to the service quality expectation construct. In addition, service quality expectation is positively linked to customer satisfaction though only partially mediating the relationship between cultural values and customer satisfaction. In terms of the moderating variables, only the generational cohort demographic variable moderates the relationship between cultural values and service quality whereas ethnicity and gender were found to be insignificant as a moderating variable between cultural values and service quality. Additionally, the study’s findings postulated an array of theoretical contribution and practical implications as well as the limitations within the study and directions for future research. The findings from the cultural value research model were able to support and validate many of the past literature though it also indicate that the variables may interact contrarily as moderating factors. The generational cohort moderating factor was found to significantly influence the relationship between cultural values and service quality expectations which, in the process, reduced the strength and impact of the cultural value construct on the service quality expectation construct. Another theoretical input found Malaysia to exhibit conflicting traits and attributes that defied its Hofstede cultural classification. For example, Malaysia is a high power index nation but the study found its consumers to behave akin to consumers from a low power index society. Similarly, Malaysia is a collectivist nation but behaved like consumers from individualistic nations. The study also contributed to the limited literature on Hofstede’s newest dimension of indulgence and restraint as an antecedent as well as the demographic variable, gender, as a moderating factor. Based on this study’s findings, the indulgence/ restraint dimension strongly influences service quality expectations in Malaysia’s hospitality industry whilst gender was found to be irrelevant as a moderating factor between the cultural value and service quality constructs. With these finding, these aspects of the study are able to contribute to building the foundation for future research. On the practical side, managers are encouraged to adopt customized strategies that incorporate the antecedent factors such as culture and generational cohorts as part of the marketing policies and stratagems. In addition, the findings enable businesses within industries of similar high-contact establishments to benchmark against better performing businesses of the same typology. Finally, these contributions and the study’s limitations give way to invaluable insights for future researches, managerial and marketing strategies on the enhancement on consumer behavior.
- Subject
- cultural values; service quality expectations; customer satisfaction; generational cohorts
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1438229
- Identifier
- uon:40562
- Rights
- Copyright 2020 Su Ching Chee
- Language
- eng
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 3 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 314 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |