An Empirical Study On The Correlation Between Cultural Value And Service Expectation

Since the reform and open policy, service industry has been playing more and more vital role in our country's economy reform, economy growth and the society development. Said to the service enterprise, which provides the high quality service for the customer, can win the prestige and strive for customers. Therefore, the arduous duty that improves the grade of service and enhance the continuous competitive ability, has already presented in front of the service enterprises.Many scholars on service management and marketing issues believe the service quality is determined by the gap between expected service and perceived service, and different customers with different cultural value background would have different expectation and perception on the same service, so their evaluation on the service is also different. This paper assumes the service perception is pre-defined, and the key factor influencing the service quality level is the customer's expectation. Based on the cultural value model of Hofstede as well as the PZB's SERVQUAL evaluation model, this paper conducts the analysis of correlation between cultural value and service expectation, to implement effective management of customer's expectation on service according to different cultural values, which would improve the customer's evaluation of total service quality while the limited resources are distributed properly.This research proposes 5 hypotheses on the correlation between cultural value's 5 dimensions and service expectation's 5 dimensions. Through small sample and big sample survey of commercial banking industry, factor analysis, reliability and effectiveness test using SPSS11.5, and hypothesis test using Pearson correlation method, the conclusions are made as follows: there is positive relationship between power distance and tangibles as well as reliability; there is negative relationship between power distance and empathy; there is positive relationship between individualism and responsiveness, empathy as well as assurance, and negative relationship with tangibles; there is positive relationship between masculinity and reliability; there is positive relationship between uncertainty avoidance and tangibles, reliability as well as assurance; there is positive relationship between long-term orientation and empathy, and negative relationship with tangibles.Since it is 1st empirical research on the correlation between cultural value and service expectation in China, and the built-up of item system mainly learn from foreign related research, thus it may differ from the practice of China's situation and services, and some error may exists. However, the research manner and conclusion derived from this paper, may be a reference for future research.