The Role of Intercultural Communication Competence on Service Reliability and Customer Satisfaction

Abstract

IntroductionIncreasing the recognition of the significance of services, there is a growing awareness that the competitive strategies in retailing may integrate a framework of intercultural service quality assessment and enhancement (Ahmad et al., 2014; Briones et al., 2009). This has given rise to the notion of measuring the service quality (SQ) with cultural aspects in retailing, which has become a crucial element in the retailer business (Cameran et al., 2010). Integration in emerging economies, globalisation, elimination of trade barriers and innovations in technology have facilitated and compelled the retailers to internationalise many value chain activities (Hutchinson et al., 2009). Nevertheless, despite suggestions of enlarged cultural homogeneousness (Keillor et al., 2001), the retailers continue to struggle in overseas markets due to their inability to understand and overcome cultural differences (Hopkins et al., 2009). Obviously, the evaluation of service experiences and measurement of customer satisfaction cannot be performed without cultural dimension (Sharma et al., 2012; Ihtiyar et al., 2013). Developments on multiculturalism in marketing in the past decades have focused on how cultural aspects influence customer choices (Huang et al., 2013), interpersonal interaction (Sharma et al., 2012), employee performance (Kong and Jogaratnam, 2007; Sizoo et al., 2005), service evaluation (Sharma et al., 2012; Paswan and Ganesh, 2005), customer satisfaction (Hopkins et al., 2009) and purchase intention (Teng and Laroche, 2007). Increasingly greater complexity of the retail atmosphere - density of growing competition, demanding customers and shopping attitudes of customers, the capability of retailers to offer a satisfactory service may be crucial and attractive manoeuvre to differentiate and actively satisfy the customers (Martinelli and Balboni, 2012). In fact, the tools usually used by the retailers for competition and promotion, such as low price and combined merchandise offers, may influence the effectiveness in competition negatively since the offers perceived as homogeneous by customers. In other words, in order to improve level of service performance as well as the customers' perception of it, the retailers make different moves to better satisfy their potential customers. When managing cultural issues in the multicultural atmosphere, intercultural communication competence (IC) that deals with having the right mind set, skill and sensitivity, is rising as a crucial aspect for intercultural service encounters (ISEs) and has become a new research theme in ensuring customer satisfaction (CS) (Sharma et al., 2012; Ladhari, 2009). CS with highly satisfied service experiences has positive effect on enhancing customer retention, long-term business success, positive word of mouth, loyalty, cost-effectiveness and sustainable competitiveness (Martinelli and Balboni, 2012; Kim et al., 2010; Ladhari, 2009).Although, general acceptance on significance of IC, particularly for service providers operating in various cultural settings, most of existing discussions are conceptual and qualitative based. However, many authors such as, Sharma et al. (2012); Ueltschy et al. (2007); Friedman and Antal, (2005) suggest that measurement of service quality for service settings in multicultural societies may include cultural dimension for better understanding customers from various cultural backgrounds.However, some the existing models do not include 'culture' as a dimension such as SERVQUAL and RSQS. Therefore, the gap exists in providing empirical evidence on the relationships between the intercultural communication competence, service reliability and customer satisfaction, particularly in a specific industry type that operates in multicultural atmosphere and emerging economy.The aim of the study is to examine the role of intercultural communication competence (IC) on service reliability (R) and customer satisfaction (CS) in grocery retailing of Malaysia. …