The Impact of National Context on Consumer Evaluation of Service Value: A Qualitative Study of Developed and Emerging International Market Consumers

Abstract

The international market arena is characterised by country-specific governance and sociocultural factors, the effect of which determines the context of the arena where marketing activities take place (Li and Filer 2007). The effect of the national context impacts consumer behaviour in international markets. The current qualitative study examined how differences in developed and emerging international market contexts (e.g. political structure, legal system, regulatory framework, law enforcement and sociocultural contexts) affect consumers’ evaluation of service value. This research examined British and Nigerian consumers of retail banking services. The two countries represent a good example of developed and emerging markets’ national contexts because of differences in their human development index, political stability, national development and economic power (Burgess and Steenkamp 2006). We conducted 52 semi-structured interviews, 26 in each country, and used thematic content analysis approach to analyse the data (Braun and Clarke 2006; Kolbe and Burnet 1991; Saldana 2013). Our findings indicates that the (1) value of service patronage, (2) value of service content, and (3) value of service process differ among developed and emerging market consumers, due to the impact of differences in national contexts. We proposed service adaption (Wills et al. 1991) rather than standardisation (Szymanski et al. 1993) especially in emerging international markets both in the content and process of service delivery due to the heterogeneity of their service value expectations. We identified some limitations of the research and recommended areas of further research. Despite its limitations, the current study extends international service marketing research to a less-researched emerging international market segment. It equally extends international service literature to a less-researched topic (national context in evaluation of service value) and sheds light on areas that require immediate attention. We posit that our findings fill an important gap in the literature by demonstrating the differences in evaluation of service value between developed and emerging markets’ consumers.