Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Background and Purpose of the Study
By the year 2010, multinational companies have controlled approximately half ofthe world’s assets. Many companies that were identified as companies such asMacDonald’s, Wendy’s, Holiday Inns and others have saturated the Chinese market.Holiday Inn, for example, entered the European market in 1968, the Asian market in1973 and the Chinese market in 1984. Globalization of the hotel industry hascontinued since that time and has greatly increased over the last ten years. There aremany benefits of international expansion. Additional growth or expansion addedrevenues or profits which lead to improved return on investment were reported as thegreatest benefits. Other benefits cited included larger market penetration and thusmore market share. In addition, a greater name recognition and an internationalidentity are also advantageous to the company. These benefits are undoubtedly mostfavorable; however, international expansion has exposed the Chinese hospitalitycompanies to groups of multicultural consumers. The rapid global development of thehospitality industry has made it important for multinational corporations to be able tofunction profitably in foreign environments.
Globalization has also created a demand for competent and qualified globalmanagers. Global managers are expected to successfully interact with people fromvarious cultures and more importantly to be able to understand more than thedomestic market, both in managing their properties and in marketing their products.Almost any book about running a business states the cardinal requirement forentrepreneurial success: know your customers. Meeting and responding to the needsof customers from different cultures is a prerequisite for global managers’ success.Internationally, as competition and customer sensitivity intensifies, lodging providersare becoming increasingly concerned with the quality of their service offerings.Hotels with poor services have difficulties succeeding in the area of marketing nomatter how attractive their advertising may be or how many sales calls their salespersonnel may make. Aggressive advertising and sales promotions only persuademore people to experience poor service and learn to avoid the hotel in the future.Many hoteliers have recognized this reality and as a result they find providinghigh-quality service is increasingly seen as a determining factor in the success of theirproperties.
1.2 Organization of the Study
This thesis consists of six chapters, chapter one introduces in brief thebackground of the current study and the research purpose. Chapter two offers theliterature review on service quality perception; definitions of culture and culturetheory proposed by some researchers; relationship between culture and service qualityperception. In this chapter, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions is presented as theframework for the understanding of cultural difference. In Chapter three, fivehypotheses are developed based on severe reasoning. The hypotheses reflect thecorrelation of service quality dimension and its influencing factors in the contexts ofAmerican and Chinese cultures. Chapter four touches upon the current study in whichsubjects, instrument, data collection are explained in detail. The data analysis of theempirical study is presented in Chapter five. Chapter six is a concluding chapter. Theconclusion and limitations of the present study are illustrated and future researchdirections are also discussed here. Based on the comparative analysis, the authorprovides suggestions accordingly for international marketers wanting to promoteservice quality in Chinese and American markets.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Culture and Cultural Theories
E. B. Taylor, a famous anthropologist, defined culture as “a complex whole whichincludes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities andhabits acquired by individuals as members of a society.” Bates and Plog (1990)proposed a descriptive definition that includes most of the major territories of cultureon which scholars currently agree that “Culture is a system of shared beliefs, values,customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of a society use to cope with theirworld with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generationthrough learning”. Since then, culture has become an extremely important terms andanthropological research subject. In 1950s, American anthropologists Kluckhohn(1967) had a comprehensive analysis from more than 160 kinds of culture definitionby each discipline under the well-known scholars. Finally, they gave culture acomprehensive definition: “Culture is present in a variety of implicit and explicitpatterns among the symbolic use of learning and dissemination of human populationsand constitute special achievements, these achievement include a variety of specificdesigned manufacturing goods; the basic elements of culture is the traditional ideasand values, especially the most important values.” This definition was accepted bymany modern western scholars.Synthesize cultural anthropology research, we can find the word “Culture” hasbroad and narrow levels of definition. Culture in its broad sense, refers to the humanspossess, and other social species lack, that is the basic distinction between humanbeings and animals, such as language, knowledge, habits, thoughts, beliefs, art,technology, rules, etiquette, etc. The narrow sense of culture, refers to a uniquelifestyle which is developed by a
society adapting to the natural andsocial environment, pursuing stable life and descendants multiplied.
2.2 Service Quality
The concept of service quality coming from the initial marketing areas, is theextension of the concept of tangible product quality. From the quality of service hasbeen put forward, scholars have been conducted on the concept of service qualityresearch, but so far there is no accepted definition. Conduct research on quality ofservice history can be divided into three stages:(1) The initial stage (before 1985): In this period, studies on the quality of theservice is mainly defined quality of service management in the basic concepts.The most influential is the customer perceived service quality put forward by Finlandscholar Gronroos in 1982, and put service quality into the technical quality andfunctional quality, he pointed out the quality of service is the result of the comparisonof customer expectations and actual experiences. In addition, Sasser (1978) pointedout that the quality of service is a consumer service satisfaction determined byconsumer service experience and service expectations; Lehtinen (1991) divided thequality into the physical quality, the interaction quality and company image quality.
Chapter 3 Hypothesis Development..................................... 20
3.1 Power Distance and service quality .................................................. 20
3.2 Uncertainty Avoidance and service quality ....................................... 21
3.3 Individualism and service quality ................................................. 22
Chapter 4 Research Methodology....................................................... 27
4.1 Questionnaire Design........................................ 27
4.2 Data Collection ............................... 28
4.3 Method and Procedure ............................ 29
Chapter 5 Data Discussion......................30
5.1 Descriptive Analysis ........................................... 30
5.2 Validity and Reliability .................................... 31
Chapter 5 Data Discussion
5.1 Descriptive Analysis
The result of the investigation reveals that most (55.6 percent) of the Chineseconsumers who receive the questionnaire are males; 52.4 percent of Chineserespondents are 20-29 years old; 32.4 percent are college graduates; 52.3 percent areunmarried. 34.3 percent of the Chinese are business travelers, and among these 25.9percent are employed in the service industry; 49.5 percent are entry-level personnel,and 14.4 percent are executives. 35.2 percent have chosen the hotel due to the“arrangement of the company”, while 21.8 percent have chosen the hotel because ofthe “service”.Most of the American consumers (80 percent) who receive the questionnaire aremales, 38 percent are aged 30-39 years; 35 percent are college graduates; 60 percentare married; 43 percent are business travelers, and 21 percent are employed in theservice industry. 44 percent are medium level executives. 31 percent of the Americantravelers chose the hotel due to the service, followed by 22 percent that chose thehotel because of the arrangement of the company.
5.2 Validity and Reliability
This research uses confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to analyze and test theeffect of implementation. The purpose of this stage of the analysis is to identify andeliminate poorly performing items for the reflective measures and find thatGFI=0.883 and AGFI=0.85 in Chinese questionnaire, and GFI=0.83 and AGFI=0.8 inAmerican questionnaire. All figures are larger than 0.8. The T-values of the 24 itemsin SERVQUAL table fall in the range between 13.28 and 16.49. All T-values arehighly significant, meaning the proper distribution of all data with effectiveimplementation. The scale’s Cronbach α=0.93 in China questionnaire, and Cronbach’s0.88 in American questionnaire indicates that all items of the scale are highlyconsistent, are suitable for inclusion into analysis, and are highly reliable.
5.3 Research Findings
The research findings of Chinese and American consumers’ views toward fiveevaluation dimensions of service quality in the international hotel and 24 evaluationfactors of service quality in the international hotel.It finds significant differences with respect to Chinese and American consumers’evaluation factors of overall service quality in the international hotel. The averagevalues are respectively 6.2 and 5.9, which reveal that Chinese and Americanconsumers all value overall service quality in the international hotel. Chineseconsumers are more concerned about overall service quality than Americanconsumers (shown in table 8).
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Chapter 6 Conclusion and Suggestion
The major research findings of the questionnaire investigation are as follows:coming from different cultures, Chinese and American consumers exhibit somesignificant differences in their evaluation and cognition of international hotel servicequality.China’s culture features a moderately strong power distance orientation. Chineseconsumers concern “reliability” more than American consumers do. Among thefactors, with regard to the factor of “fulfilling promises to customers within thespecified”, Chinese and American consumers have no significant difference. Thereason might be in that Chinese value a solemn promise and consider maintaining asmooth relationship with others is important. Once one promises something, heshould keep the promise accurately. American consumers are impatient with time andthey cannot stand waiting. As to the factor of “keeping error-free records”, Americanconsumers value the point more than Chinese consumers do. The reason might be thatAmerican consumers are in the culture of “individualism”. Compared with Americanconsumers, Chinese consumers do not have sufficient individual confidence due totheir ethic of collectivism. With regard to perfect service, Chinese consumers are notas strict as American consumers influenced by “individualism”.
In China, an individual wouldexpect the hotel management to offer more stable surroundings to avoid uncertainty.Therefore, they would be more likely to ask the service personnel to offer “assurance”.Under the effect of “uncertainty avoidance” perspective, Chinese consumers are alsoinfluenced by their “collectivism” and “long-term orientation” perspective. However,compared with American consumers with low “uncertainty avoidance”, this researchfinds no significant difference between the above two. “Employees maintain a politeattitude to customers” and “Employees have enough professional knowledge toanswer customers’ questions”, Chinese and American consumers have significantdifferences. This finding do not comply with the hypothesis of this research. Thereason might be that China has been a country of manners and ceremonies. Thus,compared with American consumers, they attach more value to the service personnel’smanner and attitude. Possession of adequate professional knowledge is the conditionfor the service personnel to offer stable service, diminish the chance for the Chineseconsumers to detect uncertainty or risk and further allow Chinese consumers to bemore concerned about this point than American consumers. As to the factor of “Thehotel gives its customers a feeling of safety”, American consumers place more valueon this point than Chinese consumers do. The above complies with the previousdeduction that China is under the culture of long-term orientation. With regard to“Employees’ service behaviors instill customers’ confidence”, Chinese and Americanconsumers have no significant difference, which does not comply with the originaldeduction. The reason might be that under the effect of their uncertainty avoidanceperspective, Chinese consumers generate confidence toward the service provider andthe sense of insecurity is thus reduced. Therefore, Chinese consumers tend to valuemore at this evaluation factor than American consumers do.
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参考文献（略）