LITERATURE REVIEW 2.

1 Role of Culture, Cultural Dimensions in Consumer Behaviour

Hofstede (2001) refers to culture as the collective programming of the mind which
distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another. Culture refers to a
set of values, ideas, artifacts and other meaningful symbols that help individuals to communicate,
interpret and evaluate as members of society. It is a normally homogeneous system of
collectively shared meanings, way of life and common set of values shared by a member of
society. Culture comprises the shared values, assumptions, understandings and goals that are
learned from one generation, imposed by the current generation, and passed on to succeeding
generations (Deresky, International Journal of Management (IJM), ISSN 0976 6502(Print),
ISSN 0976 - 6510(Online), Volume 4, Issue 5, September - October (2013) 141 2003). It governs
how we wish to be treated and how we treat others; how we communicate, negotiate process
information and make decisions (Scarborough, 2000). Due to rapid globalization, though we are
fast absorbing concept of no-border world, yet cultural factors moderate many aspects of
consumers buying behaviour. There is a growing interest in cultural differences of countries and
understanding the cultural context of consumer behaviour in a globalized marketplace
(Maheswaran and Sharon, 2000). It is true that in the market place, consumers perception of an
inexperienced new technology is based upon its abilities to satisfy needs on which culture and
values have a great impact. Over the past decades, due to aggressive competition in the retail
business environment, a companys success largely depended on the satisfied customers who are
willing to experiment with the latest innovation in the shopping experience (Siu and Cheung,
2001; Srinivasan et al., 2002). Researchers suggested that creating a positive retail store
environment plays a critical role in satisfying customers and maintaining their loyalty to the store
in foreign markets (Chang and Tu, 2005). Much research also showed that certain retail store
attributes influence store choice and patronage behaviour (Baker et al., 2002; Hu and Jasper,
2006; Pan and Zinkham, 2006; Sherman et al., 1997; Sirgy et al., 2000). Zhang, Beatty, and
Walsh (2008) reviewed twenty service research journals and discovered forty articles that focus
on cross-cultural customer service research. The most popular categorization of cultural
dimensions is the framework proposed by Hofstede (1980) which includes individualism versus
collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, high power of distance versus low power of
distance, and high uncertainty avoidance versus low uncertainty avoidance. Prior studies show
that individualism and uncertainty avoidance are important to consumer acceptance of
innovations in different cultures (Lim, Leung, Sia, & Lee, 2004). Individualism defines cultures
where there are loose ties between individuals and there is a greater propensity for people to take
care of themselves and their close family with low levels of concern for the rest of society.
Collectivism defines cultures where people are integrated into cohesive groups and have strong
loyalties to the group. People in individualistic cultures are encouraged to make their own
choices whereas people in collective cultures are more willing to conform to the norms of the
group (Erumban, & Jong, 2006). Members of individualist cultures feel free to express their own

views and act accordingly and are therefore more willing to innovate and adopt new ideas
(Erumban, & Jong, 2006). Further, an individualistic culture, where people tend to follow their
own motives are more innovative than people from collectivistic cultures and are more likely to
accept self-service checkout implementations. Uncertainty avoidance varies across counties and
is measured using a scale defining low or high uncertainty avoidance. The main characteristic of
uncertainty avoidance is the orientation of society members toward the new and the unknown.
According to Hofstede (1980), uncertainty avoidance is related to the degree by which members
of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity. Therefore, people from cultures
with low levels of uncertainty avoidance are more tolerant toward risk and are more willing to
try new things. According to Yeniyurt and Townsend (2003) uncertainty avoidance has a negative
effect on the acceptance rates of new products. Therefore uncertainty avoidance is related to
consumer willingness to adopt new technologies such as self-service technologies in retailing.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The term "service encounter" has attained widespread use in marketing speeches, articles, and
research in a fewshort years. Surprenant and Solomon (1987) define the service encounter as "the
dyadic interaction between a customer and service provider." This definition draws on their
earlier work suggesting that "service encounters are role performances" (Solomon
et al. 1985) in which both customers and service providers have roles to enact. This use
of theterm "service encounter" focuses on the interpersonal element of service firm performance.
Shostack (1985) defines theservice encounter somewhat more broadly as "a period of time
during which a consumer directly interacts with a service."Her definition encompasses all
aspects of the service firm with which the consumer may interact, including its personnel,its
physical facilities, and other visible elements. Shostack's definition does not limit the encounter
to the interpersonalinteractions between the customer and the firm, and in fact suggests that
service encounters can occur without any humaninteraction element. (Bitner 1990)Several
survey-based studied of service satisfaction also suggest that the human interaction component of
servicedelivery is essential to the determination of satisfaction/dissatisfaction. A study of
relationship marketing in the lifeinsurance industry found clients' satisfaction with their contact

person (or agent) to be a significant predictor of overallsatisfaction with the service (Crosby and
Stephens 1987). Other researchers have found the human interaction componentto be of
importance in evaluating professional services (Day and Bodur 1978; Quelch and Ash 1981),
medical services(Brown and Swartz 1989), and retail outlets (Westbrook 1981). Similarly,
experimental studies of service satisfaction alsohave uncovered the importance of particular
contact employee behaviors (Bitner 1990; Surprenant and Solomon 1987).This study focus on
the personal interactions between customers and employees in service encounters. It also
identifies thespecific events and behaviors through customer survey which shows their
satisfaction and dissatisfaction level thatinfluenced by the service encounters provided by the
Hotels.