service quality in the hotel industry

Month XXXX Cornell hospitality Quarterly 1

Service Quality in the Hotel Industry

When Cultural Contexts Matter

by ELIZA ChInG-YICK tSE and SUK-ChInG ho

2009 CoRnELL UnIVERSItYDoI: 10.1177/1938965509338453

Volume XX, Issue X xx-xx

An analysis of 168 critical incidents of service suc-cess or failure for seventeen hotels in Hong Kong found that the most common critical incident involved a hotel employee responding to a guest request. That stands in contrast to an earlier study conducted in Western hotels that identified service recovery as the most common critical incident. The analysis is based on interviews with fifty-six front-desk employees in a diverse group of Hong Kong hotels. When it came to service recovery, hotels in Hong Kong were inclined to apply compensatory responses, while earlier studies found that Western hotels favored corrective responses, even when customers preferred compensation. The comparison of Western studies with those of Hong Kong high-light cultural differences with regard to service. One particular difference was employees’ assessment of the source of customer dissatisfaction. Whereas respondents in Western studies seemed to cite external causes, the delivery system, or the cus-tomers themselves for customer dissatisfaction,

the respondents in the Hong Kong study uniformly blamed themselves.

Keywords: service failure; service recovery; Hong Kong hotels; customer satisfaction; crit-ical incident technique

The hotel industry has long focused on ensur-ing service quality at all levels as a differen-tiation tool to establish competitive positioning

and to improve return on investment (e.g., Baker and Fesenmaier 1997; Iglesias and Guillen 2004). Quality management programs typically encompass the related aspects of service quality and service recov-ery. Service quality is instrumental in increasing cus-tomer satisfaction, doing more with less, reducing costs, increasing sales, and enhancing repeat purchases (Barsky and Labagh 1992; Walker and Braunlich 1996; Yi 1990; Madden 1988). While hospitality

Cornell Hospitality Quarterly OnlineFirst, published on June 17, 2009 as doi:10.1177/1938965509338453

SECtIon SERVICE QUALItY In thE hotEL InDUStRY

2 Cornell hospitality Quarterly Month XXXX

companies seek to provide error-free service, this goal is nearly impossible to achieve, which makes service recov-ery an essential part of quality service (McCollough, Berry, and Yadae 2000; Fisk, Brown, and Bitner 1993; Brady 2000; Lin, Lin, and Lin 2007; Olorunniwo, Hsu, and Udo 2006; Ross 1999). Research specifi-cally related to hospitality businesses has found service recovery to have a sig-nificant effect on satisfaction, intention to repeat purchases, and word-of-mouth activ-ity (Hocutt, Bowers, and Donavan 2006; R. C. Lewis 1983; Smith and Bolton 1998). In the case of Hampton Inns, for instance, the implementation of a service-guarantee strategy received not only the highest scores on customer retention rate in the industry but also $11 million in additional revenue (Tax and Brown 1998).

Despite the rich body of literature per-taining to this topic, the bulk of service quality research has been conducted in the Western nations (Mueller et al. 2003). Our extensive review of the various cross-cultural studies pertaining to service qual-ity and recovery in different service industries found perhaps a dozen studies, all of which pointed to the importance of culture as an influential factor in customer responses to service quality and recovery in the hospitality industries (see Becker et al. 1999; Donthu and Yoo 1998; Furrer, Liu, and Sudharshan 2000; Huang, Huang, and Wu 1996; Lee and Ulgado 1997; Malhotra et al. 1994; Mattila 1999a, 1999b; Mueller et al. 2003; Sultan and Simpson 2000; Winsted 1997, 1999).

With Western-based hotel corporations investing in properties in Asia, especially in China (e.g., Accor, Hyatt, Marriott, and Starwood), and Asia-based chains operat-ing in Europe and the United States (e.g., Nikko, Peninsula, and Taj), we believe that it is important to add to the cultural understandings between East and West. In

this article, we examine how employees in an Asian culture evaluate hotel service quality and hotels’ subsequent attempts at service recovery.

In this regard, we conducted a study with the following twofold purpose:

1. Explore how well Western-originated classification schemes, one related to service quality (Bitner, Booms, and Mohr 1994) and one to service recov-ery (Hoffman and Chung 1999), can be applied in Hong Kong, represent-ing an Asian cultural context. We then attempt to account our findings related to service quality and recov-ery in Hong Kong along some well-established cultural dimensions. We also attempt to explore how the pub-lished findings relating to the above-mentioned classification schemes could be explained by the cultural dimensions.

2. Make preliminary recommenda-tions to the hotel industry regard-ing the development of a hotel’s human resource management strat-egy in cross-cultural operations.

Hong Kong represents an ideal field for a cross-cultural research study. Although it is a part of China, it has experienced strong Western influences. As a major trading and financial center and a gateway to China, Hong Kong was recognized by National Geographic as one of the top ten cities in the world for every traveler to visit. According to the World Tourism Organiza-tion statistics, by 2020 Hong Kong will become the number-five destination in the world, with an expected 59.3 million arriv-als. Con comitant with the thriving tourism industry, Hong Kong has welcomed such hotel brands as Hilton, Holiday Inn, Hyatt, Mandarin Oriental, Marriott, Peninsula, Ritz-Carlton, and Shangri-la. Thus, hotels in Hong Kong are comparable to hotels internationally, and our findings should


SERVICE QUALItY In thE hotEL InDUStRY SECtIon

shed light on the cultural context within which hotels operate.

Literature ReviewThe service encounter can be viewed as

a social interaction in which expectations would vary from one culture to another. As such, there has been a growing research interest in cross-cultural studies associated with service encounters.

Most cross-cultural research efforts on service quality have studied the effect of customers’ cultural backgrounds on their perceptions and expectations in regard to the dimensions of service quality (Donthu and Yoo 1998; Furrer, Liu, and Sudharshan 2000; Malhotra et al. 1994; Sultan and Simpson 2000). Other researchers have adopted a different route in their investiga-tions. They developed a set of behavioral-based service encounter dimensions and examined how these dimensions affect encounter satisfaction of customers in dif-ferent cultural settings (Winsted 1997, 1999; Becker et al. 1999). Researchers have also studied the impact of culture on customers’ selection of cues in their evalu-ation of service quality (Mattila 1999b), while others investigated the relationship between national character and a custom-er’s typical complaining behavior (Huang, Huang, and Wu 1996; Mueller et al. 2003). Research findings further suggested that individual customers’ sensitivity to culture-based norms in service encounters might be mediated by that person’s purchase motivation (Mattila 1999a). Exhibit 1 sum-marizes this stream of research and the principal findings in the hospitality and tourism industry.

The Critical Incident Technique

After considering several research meth-ods, we chose the critical incident tech-nique (CIT) to gather firsthand information

regarding the underlying sources of serv-ice quality, as reflected in employees’ views of customers’ satisfaction and dis-satisfaction in service encounters. Flanagan (1954) described the CIT as “a procedure for gathering certain important facts con-cerning behavior in defined situations.” The CIT method is considered to be a ver-satile and powerful tool that is theoreti-cally sound and capable of facilitating considerable depth of analysis, and it has been shown to be useful for gathering pri-mary data of a subjective nature from participants (Chell and Pittaway 1998), such as in this study.

The CIT has been used in numerous studies to examine service quality in the hospitality industry and other service indus-tries (Bitner, Booms, and Tetreault 1990; Lockwood 1994; Gilbert and Morris 1995; Edvarsson 1992; Hinkin 1995; Callan and Lefebve 1997; Callan 1998; George 1989; Hoffman, Kelley, and Rotalsky 1995). Chell and Pittaway (1998) reported the use of CIT in studying entrepreneurial behavior in the restaurant and café industry, while B. R. Lewis and McCann (2004) used the same technique to examine service failure and recovery strategies in the hotel industry. The results of this literature review support the proposition that CIT is an appropriate and useful technique for studying service quality questions and assessing customers’ perceptions in the hospitality industry.

Data Collection

We developed a representative list of hotels drawn from the membership directory of the Hong Kong Hotels Association, mak-ing sure that our list included national and regional brands, as well as hotels with 5- and 4-star ratings. To solicit participation, we sent a letter explaining the study to the general manager of each of the chosen hotels. In sum, seventeen hotels participated.



Exhibit 1:Summary of the Cross-cultural Studies on Service Quality and Recovery Related to hospitality and tourism Industries

Study

Lee and Ulgado (1997)

Sultan and Simpson (2000)

Winsted (1997)

Culture/Cultural

Dimensions

American and Korean

European and American

American and Japanese

Industry Context

Fast-food Restaurant

Airline

Restaurant

Findings

1. Korean sample’s expectations on the quality dimensions were generally higher than those of the American sample, particu-larly about tangibles, reliability and assurance.

2. Assurance was significantly important to the American sam-ple in their evaluation of fast-food establishments. Koreans rated reliability and empathy as significant variables.

1. there was no difference in the order of importance of the ser-vice quality dimensions but the relative importance of the dimen-sions was significantly different for reliability and tangibility for the European and Americans but not for responsiveness, assur-ance or empathy.

2. Service quality expectations varied by nationality with the American sample exhibiting higher expectations.

3. Service quality perception varied by nationality with the American sample exhibiting higher perception.

4. European passengers were more critical of the airline ser-vice quality.

1. there were similarities and differences in the behaviorally-based factors pertaining to the service delivery personnel that consumers in the U.S. and Japan used to evaluate the quality of the service encounter.

(continued)



Exhibit 1: (continued)

Study

Winsted (1999)

Becker, et al. (1999)

Culture/Cultural

Dimensions

American and Japanese

American and hongkongers

Industry Context

Restaurant and Medical services

Restaurant

Findings

2. themes of friendliness, being personal, authenticity and promptness seemed prevalent in the dimensions and behaviors that emerged for the American sample.

3. the overriding theme of the dimensions in Japan seemed to be one of caring for the customers.

4. For the similar factors that appear in both samples, there were group differences regarding the behavioral elements comprising the factors.

1. Identified through a review of the services and culture literature 8 dimensions that might be relevant to consumer satisfaction with service encounter. they were: authenticity, caring, control, courtesy, formality, friendliness, personalization and promptness.

2. All of the 8 dimensions have significant differences between respondents of the U.S. and Japan in level of relative importance to satisfaction for restaurant transactions.

3. All but friendliness and promptness showed significant nation effects for medical transactions.

1. Identified 6 factors that customers felt were the most important indicators of quality restaurant services. they were: accommodation, sanitation, product knowledge, entertainment, professionalism and cordiality.

(continued)




Study

Mattila (1999a)

Mattila (1999b)

huang, huang and Wu (1996)

Culture/Cultural

Dimensions

Asian and Western

Asian and Western

Japanese and American

Industry Context

Luxury hotel

hotel

hotel

Findings

2. the American and hong Kong customers attributed significantly different levels of importance to 4 of the factors: professionalism, accommodation, product knowledge and entertainment.

3. there were significant group differences regarding the joint distribution of variables comprising each of the six factors.

1. Customers with Western cultural backgrounds were more likely than their Asian counterparts to rely on the tangible cues from the physical environment in the evaluation of the quality of the hotels.

2. the hedonic dimension of the consumption experience might be more important for Western customers.

1. While encounter level evalua-tions might be culture- dependent, the magnitude of the impact of culture might be mediated by that person’s pur-chase motivation.

2. Business travelers rated the ser-vice encounter and the service firms in a very similar fashion for both Asian and Western guests.

3. For leisure travelers, Asians were less happy with the ser-vice provided than their Western counterparts.

1. In response to unsatisfactory service, American respondents were more likely to stop patron-izing the hotel, complain to hotel management, and warn family or friends than Japanese respondents were.

(continued)



Rather than focus on customers’ atti-tudes, we attempted to understand the service encounters from the employee’s perspective, following the example of certain previous studies (e.g., Bitner, Booms, and Mohr 1994; B. R. Lewis and Clacher 2001). The employee’s perspec-tive is important because in the hotel indus-try, the front desk is the first and last contact a guest usually has with the hotel, so that the frontline people can readily shape the customer’s experience through the service encounters. In fact, in previous attempts to develop a scale for measuring the service quality of the hotel industry, the employee dimension was found to be an important aspect of hotel service (Saleh and Ryan 1991; Ekinci, Riley, and Fife-Schaw 1998; Wong, Dean, and White 1999; Thwaites and Williams 2006). The unit of analysis is a critical incident occurring in a hotel service encounter.

Following the Bitner, Booms, and Mohr (1994) prototype, a trained research

associate interviewed a sample of fifty-six frontline employees of the seventeen par-ticipating hotels over a period of four weeks. Employees were asked to recall and describe up to five critical incidents of service encounters in the prior year result-ing in a customer’s being satisfied or dis-satisfied. If the customer was dissatisfied, we also asked the employees what service recovery strategies they employed. By learning why employees consider particu-lar incidents and their recovery strategies to be particularly satisfying or dissatisfy-ing for customers, we gain rich input to plan policies to facilitate satisfying encoun-ters. (We also asked questions regarding respondents’ age and positions held.)

Using this methodology, we collected 168 critical incidents. With the agreement of the participants, the interviews were tape-recorded and later transcribed verba-tim to allow us to categorize and sort the incidents in a step-by-step method using content analysis. This process consisted of


Study

Mueller, et. al (2003)

Culture/Cultural

Dimensions

American and Irish

Industry Context

Restaurant

Findings

2. Japanese respondents were more likely to take no action.

1. there was much commonality with regard to types of service failures–the top three critical incident failures reported were the same for both the American and Irish respondents.

2. on average, Irish respondents tended to list more dissatisfying incidents but Americans were more vocal in their complaints.

3. overall, Americans tended to perceive the failures as more severe but they were also more forgiving of the service failures.



repeatedly reading and sorting the inci-dents into the predetermined groups and categories of the two classification schemes related to service quality and service recov-ery. We used content analysis in counting the number of occurrences of certain inci-dents and for classifying them into catego-ries to reduce any subjectivity we brought to the process and to ensure reliability. We continued this iterative process until we reached agreement in the classification of each incident. In the process, using Perreault and Leigh’s (1989) estimate of reliability index for determining interjudge reliability, we achieved an index of .91 for the reliability of the coding process. This is

in line with the results of other studies, as described, for example, by Paraskevas (2001) and Mueller et al. (2003).

ResultsAs shown in Exhibit 2, twenty-nine of

the fifty-six employees participating in this study are men. The respondents are relatively young, with more than half of them twenty-six years or younger, and they are relatively new in the business. About half of the participants have one to three years in their hotels, and a third of them have been in their current job for the same number of years. Participants in this study were primarily frontline employees,

Exhibit 2:Profiles of the Participating hotels and Respondents

Variable Number Percentage

Participating hotels 5 star 10 58.84 star 7 41.2

International chain 8 47.1Regional/local operation 9 52.9

Respondent gender Male 29 51.8Female 27 48.2

Respondent age Less than 26 36 64.326-30 11 19.631-35 8 14.3More than 35 1 1.8

Years working in this position Less than 1 28 50.01.1-3 19 33.93.1-5 7 12.55.1 and more 2 3.6

Positions held Supervisor 8 14.3Management 7 12.5Frontline employee 41 73.2

Functional area Front office 39 69.6housekeeping 1 1.8Food and beverage 14 25.0General management 2 3.6



the majority of them working in the front office, followed by food and beverage. Supervisors and managers who have direct contact with the customers were also included in the sample.

In the remaining section, we will com-pare and contrast the findings of our study with those of Bitner, Booms, and Mohr (1994) and those of Hoffman and Chung (1999). We wish to examine whether there are any differences in the three studies due to cultural context.

Classification of Service Encounters

The classification scheme we adopted to classify the service quality dimensions in the hotel industry originated from the Bitner group’s studies (Bitner, Booms, and Tetreault 1990; Bitner, Booms, and Mohr 1994). In their first study, they collected nearly seven hundred critical incidents

from a customer sample, and then they collected more than seven hundred inci-dents from an employee sample of airlines, hotels, and restaurants. The incidents were categorized to isolate the particular events and related behaviors of contact employ-ees that caused customers to distinguish very satisfactory service encounters from very unsatisfactory ones. Three incident groups were identified from the incidents recalled by the customer sample, to which one group was added from the employee sample (referred to as BBM framework hereafter). The four major groups identi-fied in the BBM framework are (1) employee response to service delivery sys-tem failures, (2) employee response to customer needs and requests, (3) unprompted and unsolicited employee actions, and (4) problematic customer behavior. Their frequencies of occurrence are shown in Exhibit 3.

Exhibit 3:Comparison of BBMa and hKb Studies on the Incident Classification by type of Incident outcome (in percentages)

Type of Incident Outcome

Group Satisfying Dissatisfying Row Total

Group 1: Employee response to service delivery failures

BBM study 27.5 51.7 39.3hK study 29.0 37.5 30.8

Group 2: employee response to customer needs and requests


Group 3: Unprompted and unsolicited employee actions

BBM study 22.4 9.8 16.3hK study 6.5 0 5.1

Group 4: Problematic customer behavior


a. Indicates the Bitner, Booms, and Mohr (1994) study of hotel, restaurant, and airline industries.b. Indicates this article’s Hong King study of the hotel industry.



Other researchers who have replicated the BBM methodology found three or four similar behavior groups across a wide range of service industries, includ-ing restaurants and theme parks (Gremler and Bitner 1992; Hoffman, Kelley, and Rotalsky 1995; Lewis and Clacher 2001; Mueller et al. 2003).

We compare our findings (hereafter, the HK study) to those of the BBM sam-ples in Exhibit 3. As shown, the incidents reported by the hotel employees whom we interviewed could be classified into the BBM framework. The rank order of the groups and the magnitude of occur-rence of the incidents are different, how-ever. The row total (last column) in Exhibit 3 shows that more than one-third (39.3 percent) of the incidents cited in the BBM study belong to employee response to

service delivery failures (group 1). This is followed by employee responses to cus-tomer needs (group 2, 33.3 percent), unso-licited employee actions (group 3, 16.3 percent), and customer actions (group 4, 11.1 percent). For our HK study, on the other hand, an overwhelming majority (62.4 percent) fall into the employee responses group, followed by service recovery (30.8 percent). Less than one-tenth (5.1 percent) of the incidents recalled are of unprompted and unsolicited employee action, and troublesome cus-tomer behavior is negligible (1.7 percent).

The rank order of the distribution of satisfying incidents is the same for both studies. The largest number of satisfying incidents involved employees’ responding to customers’ needs, and the smallest number involved customers’ misbehavior.

Exhibit 4:Comparison of hC and hK Studies on hotel Recovery Strategies

Effectivenessa/Satisfactionb Frequency of Use Ranking (1 = Most Recovery Strategies (1 = Most Frequent) Effective/Most Satisfied)

Corrective responses hC study 1 2hK study 3 3

Compensatory responses hC study 2 1hK study 1 1

no action taken hC study 3 4hK study / /

Empathetic responses hC study 4 3hK study 2 2

Extrarole responsesc hC study / /hK study 4 4

Managerial responsesc hC study / /hK study 5 5

a. Indicates this article’s Hong King study.b. Indicates the Hoffman and Chung (1999) study.c. New categories identified in the HK study.



But we note marked discrepancies in the proportion of occurrence between the two studies. For instance, although employee responses (group 2) accounted for the largest number of satisfying incidents in both studies, the percentage was 49.4 in the BBM study, while it was 63.4 in our HK study. A similar discrepancy is also evident for unsolicited employee activi-ties (group 3)—22.4 percent in the BBM study versus 6.5 percent in our HK study.

As far as dissatisfying incidents are concerned, the two studies found differ-ences in both rank order and frequencies of occurrence. In the BBM study, by far the largest numbers of dissatisfying inci-dents are categorized in service recovery (group 1) followed by problem customers (group 4), employee responses to requests (group 2), and unsolicited actions (group 3). Our study’s rank order exchanges employee responses (group 2) and service recovery (group 1), with problem custom-ers a distant third. None of the dissatisfying incidents arose from unprompted and unsolicited employee actions.

Classification of Service Recovery Strategies

Hoffman and Chung (1999) initially iden-tified eleven hospitality recovery stra tegies, based on the customer accounts of hundreds of critical incidents in hotels and restaurants. Separating the incidents into those relating to hotels and those involving restaurants, the following four major recovery-strategy groups were identified for hotels: (1) correc-tive responses, (2) compensatory responses, (3) empathetic responses, and (4) no action taken. The frequencies of occurrence in what we call the HC framework are shown in Exhibit 4. Reviewing other studies on service recovery, we found recovery strate-gies similar to those identified by Hoffman

and Chung (e.g., Kelley, Hoffman, and Davis 1993; Hoffman, Kelley, and Rotalsky 1995; Hoffman, Kelley, and Chung 2003; Mueller et al. 2003).

For ease of reference, we also tabulated the findings from our Hong Kong study using the categories developed by Hoffman and Chung (1999), shown together in Exhibit 4. The majority (79.5 percent) of the recovery responses reported by the hotel employees from our HK study can be classified into three of the original four major groups of the HC framework. None of our respondents mentioned the “no action taken” strategy identified in the HC study. The remaining incidents (20.5 per-cent) were categorized into two groups not identified by Hoffman and Chung. We labeled these “extrarole response” (12 per-cent) and “managerial response” (8.5 per-cent). As the name implies, managerial responses are situations that require man-agement intervention. Extrarole responses usually involve employees’ performing activities outside of the property. These employee initiatives are typically beyond the call of duty, rather than a response to the guest’s request or complaint.

Exhibit 4 shows that hotels in the HC study mostly emphasized corrective responses despite customers’ favoring com-pensatory strategies (ranked first in terms of perceived effectiveness). Hotels in Hong Kong most frequently used compensatory responses, which at the same time provided the most satisfaction to the customers. Empathetic strategies were also emphasized more in our HK sample (ranked second of the five recov-ery strategies as well as in satisfaction provided) than in the HC sample (ranked last in frequency of use). On the whole, hotels in Hong Kong seem to be more action-oriented in one way or another, and none of our respondents gave a response of “no action” for service recovery.



Discussions and Strategic Implications for International Hoteliers

Culture affects customers’ behaviors and perception on service performance. Previous empirical studies have confirmed that cultural influences affect the percep-tions and behaviors of customers toward service performance. Although we did not originally design our study to test this proposition, we found both similarities and discrepancies in the employees’ evalu-ations of service quality and recovery strategies in Chinese culture, as compared to other studies. In this connection, we raise the issue of the extent to which research findings can be explained by cul-tural influences and the possible strategic implications to hoteliers on how to adjust their domestic organizational policies accordingly. Hofstede (1980) found that cultural differences vary along the follow-ing four dimensions: uncertainty avoid-ance, individualism or collectivism, power distance, and masculinity or femininity. It appears that the characteristics of individ-ualism or collectivism and power distance might be relevant to explain some of the differences in the research findings.

Cultural differences on sources of cus-tomer dissatisfaction. Bitner, Booms, and Mohr (1994) found that the service provid-ers in their study tended to attribute the sources of customer dissatisfaction to external causes, such as the delivery sys-tem, or to the customers themselves. In cases where dissatisfaction was due to the employees’ own shortcomings, they implied that their inability to satisfy cus-tomers was due to the external constraints imposed on them by the laws or by their own companies’ rules and procedures. But they were more ready to attribute custom-ers’ satisfaction to their own responses to accommodate customers’ needs.

We would explain the above evaluation tendency as stemming from the influence of individualism of Western culture. The sample of contact personnel in the BBM study who exhibited a high degree of self-orientation, stressing their own efforts and making their own benefit the top priority, actually manifested the cultural dimension of individualism, characterized by relying more on oneself than on others. Thus, they tend to emphasize individual initiatives, self-confidence, self-interest, and individ-ual achievement.

In contrast, the service providers whom we interviewed tended to attribute the source of dissatisfaction to their own res-ponses to customer needs and demands. This is in keeping with the collectivist ori-entation of the Chinese people, who put the organizational interests and group harmony on top of their personal concerns. Hence, the employees were less likely to point to the organization (e.g., the service delivery system) or the customer as scapegoats.

Power distance in Asian culture. Res-pondents in our survey reported a far smaller proportion of problematic cus-tomer behavior than did those in the BBM study. We believe that the cultural charac-teristic of power distance can explain this phenomenon. In Asian cultures, power distance is high—meaning that there is a well-defined social hierarchy. As such, service providers clearly define their role as providing service, and the concept of service has been institutionalized in Asia (Schmitt and Pan 1994). Accordingly, we found the service providers in Hong Kong to be far less likely to blame service fail-ures on the customers they serve. Likewise, this service mentality means that employ-ees would not opt for a “no action” response in the recovery strategy. Rather, they are willing to render “extrarole” activ-ity if that serves to make up for the poor service. This service orientation probably



also explains why employee response to customer needs and requests accounts for the highest occurrence of incidents in the Hong Kong sample.

The considerable power distance in Asian cultures may also explain why employees whom we interviewed took fewer spontaneous initiatives than those in other studies. As individuals tend to main-tain the hierarchical social order, the serv-ice providers need to follow a strict role script in the interaction rather than take spontaneous action. We believe that this well-defined hierarchical structure is the reason that the service contact persons in our HK study were more prone to involve managerial personnel in the recovery ini-tiatives (strategy 6 in Exhibit 4), whereas this did not surface in the BBM study.

Managerial Implications on Human Resources Strategies

The findings and discussions noted above provide some implications for man-agerial practices for the international hoteliers. We must emphasize, however, that these three studies are separate stud-ies, and their only commonality is that similar frameworks were adopted to clas-sify the incidents. In our attempt to explain how some of the findings can be attributed to cultural influences, it became obvious that the differential cultural influences may carry strategic implications. Given the exploratory and preliminary nature of the analysis, however, the implications should be treated as possible insights that could be gained from this study rather than as definitive conclusions. We hope that our suggestions will stimulate further research to systematically assess cross- cultural similarities and differences in relation to service quality and recovery in the hotel industry.

The chief managerial implications of our findings relate directly to human resource strategies.

A flexible human resources system is needed. The fundamental implication of all three studies is that hoteliers should not strive to adopt a standardized human resource system. Hotels spend consider-able time, effort, and resources in manag-ing their employees, and with that intense effort comes the temptation for hotels operating across national frontiers to man-age service variability by standardizing service tasks. The research findings from the two cultures indicate that the percep-tion of quality service comes from differ-ent behaviors in different places. In this sense, service quality is not a static con-cept but is open to the influence of specific cultures. Any attempt to standardize the human resource procedures in various countries may result in counterproductive service outcomes. Instead, managers should build flexibility into their human resource planning programs for the differ-ent units operating in different cultures.

Effective intercultural training pro-grams. Training programs should be appropriate to their culture. In the training program for a culture with high power distances, for instance, employees should be equipped with clearly spelled-out ser-vice procedures. This will alleviate their concern of overstepping their roles and authority. At the same time, however, they should be encouraged to maintain their service orientation with the assurance of support from their managers. Empower-ment, on the other hand, would be a pre-ferred strategy in a culture with low power distances to provide the employees greater job freedom, while still ensuring that the job is correctly accomplished. Furthermore, it is important for the customer contact personnel to have training in cultural sen-sitivities. Management should design intercultural training programs that develop a broad repertoire of knowledge of other cultures and define a range of



action alternatives that employees can exercise to suit customers of different cultures. The training programs should equip managers and frontline employees with an awareness of what customers of different cultures consider important in service encounters. If employees have such intercultural sensitivity training, they can adjust their behaviors accordingly.

Appraisal and reward systems reflect cultural differences. Neither will the appraisal and reward systems be the same for the frontline staff working in different cultures. The appraisal criteria for staff working in a culture that demands consid-erable amounts of employees’ time to serve customers and build relationships can devi-ate from the benchmarks set by a culture that emphasizes efficiency and time saving in service delivery. In a collectivist culture, for example, rewarding the employees as a team may be more acceptable than featur-ing an individual prominently.

Our emphasis on intercultural recogni-tion and sensitivities notwithstanding, we are not suggesting that service organiza-tions give up management systems designed to provide consistent service actions across units operating in a multicultural context. We are recommending that the international hoteliers consciously consider how to manage the human resource sys-tem to allow employees to serve a diverse array of customers more effectively. Service organizations that successfully strike a balance between conformity and flexibil-ity will best assist their contact employees in creating the most appropriate and posi-tive service experiences for guests in all cultures.

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Eliza Ching-Yick Tse, PhD, is a professor in the School of hotel and tourism of the Chinese University of hong Kong ([email protected]), where Suk-ching Ho, MBA, is a professor and chair of the department of marketing ([email protected]).

service quality in the hotel industry

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