Cross-Cultural Study of Students’ Response to Education Dissatisfaction: An Australian Context

Abstract

The inevitability and unpredictability of service failures can result in consumer dissatisfaction, whereby consumers respond to their lack of satisfaction with the service provision in a variety of ways. Previous research indicates that consumers’ response options to service dissatisfaction is related to various facets of customer loyalty, which, in turn, may heavily impact on future repurchase intentions (Helou and Caddy, 2007). Accordingly, this study investigates the impact of loyalty and its cultural understanding on dissatisfaction response styles of university students. In particular, it compares the variations in response options between Anglo-Saxon Australian students and international Asian Chinese students, in an attempt to explore the impact of culture on dissatisfaction, and the resultant response options chosen by students, as guided by culturally defined perceptions and values (Helou, 2005; Helou and Caddy, 2007; Newsome and Cooper, 2016). Findings indicate that there are significant variations in terms of the degrees of ethnic loyalty and the response options engaged in as a reaction to dissatisfaction, mostly attributable to differences in cultural values. The contributions of this study are three-fold. First, the current research study further develops our understanding of cultural loyalty and its impact on students’ future repurchase intentions. Secondly, it provides an understanding of the dissatisfaction response styles of university students coming from different ethnic backgrounds. Finally, the current study further contributes to our understanding of the relationship between students’ ethnic backgrounds and their respective repurchase decisions.