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Introduction
Service quality plays an important role in understanding different issues in the areas of services and relationship marketing (Furrer et al., 2000). A key element of service quality is the service encounter (Kong and Jogaratnam, 2007; Raajpoot, 2004). Interaction between customers and service providers is the moment in which quality is perceived. Therefore, to provide high-quality service, marketers should distinguish between positive and negative encounters to avoid inimical encounters and foster favorable ones (Stauss and Mang, 1999).
Because cultural values may influence services owing to their inseparable and intangible characteristics, service firms should seek to understand values of their target market (Kong and Jogaratnam, 2007). Values could affect many factors in a service encounter – attitudes, skills and behaviors of customers and service providers. Therefore, service quality evaluation is influenced by interaction between these factors (Kong and Jogaratnam, 2007; Stauss and Mang, 1999). Thus, one of the most important variables that seemingly lead consumers to evaluate services differently is one’s cultural background. In fact, Stauss and Mang (1999) state that, when service providers do not meet culturally specific expectations of consumers, consumer dissatisfaction may ensue.
In the past two decades, many researchers have been interested in the relationship between culture and service quality. Their studies have sought to find links between cultural values and service quality dimensions (Furrer et al., 2000). Some scholars have even cogently argued that culture may have an impact on how consumers evaluate service quality (Furrer et al., 2000; Kong and Jogaratnam, 2007; Li and Cai, 2012; Liu et al., 2001; Polsa et al., 2013).
Certain services researchers have focused on differences between the East and West and between developed and developing countries to explicate the importance of culture (or country) in service encounters. For example, Malhotra et al. (1994) compared developed and developing countries and found that environmental, economic and socio-cultural factors affect service quality evaluations. Winsted (1997) ascertained that consumers in the USA and Japan evaluate service encounters differently. Mattila (1999) showed that Western consumers rely more on tangible cues than their Asian counterparts. Mattila (2000) also observed that Asian consumers evaluate service encounter quality significantly lower than Western consumers. In addition, when comparing dental service quality perceptions and customer satisfaction in...