Impact of national culture on the quality of information delivery in services

Transcription

1 Serv Bus (2014) 8: DOI /s EMPIRICAL ARTICLE Impact of national culture on the quality of information delivery in services Adelina Gnanlet H. Muge Yayla-Kullu Received: 19 December 2012 / Accepted: 19 May 2013 / Published online: 13 June 2013 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013 Abstract A nation s culture has a significant influence on an employee s behavior and communication. Culture-specific characteristics cause information delivery biases, especially in services. This paper studies how a nation s culture affects the quality of information delivery using a global airline dataset. Cultural differences are measured by two commonly used datasets, Hofstede and Globe projects. Our results show that cultural characteristics have statistically significant effects on the website quality, inflight media options, and inflight communications. We suggest firms in each culture become aware of these findings and step forward to remedy their shortcomings or to bolster their performance. Keywords Service quality National culture Information delivery Hofstede dimensions Globe project 1 Introduction Nations culture significantly influences the perception of service delivery quality and also the behavior and interaction between a service provider and their customers (Winsted 1997; Donthu and Yoo 1998; Mattila 1999; Furrer et al. 2000; Tsikriktsis 2003; Laroche et al. 2004). Service failure as a consequence of misalignment of service delivery process between service provider and customers attributed mainly A. Gnanlet (&) Department of Management, Mihaylo College of Business and Economics, California State University at Fullerton, 800 N. State College Blvd, Fullerton, CA 92834, USA agnanlet@fullerton.edu H. M. Yayla-Kullu Department of Information Systems and Operations Management, Lally School of Management, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110 Eighth Street, Troy, NY 12180, USA yaylah@rpi.edu

2 136 A. Gnanlet, H. M. Yayla-Kullu toward culturally based differences in expectation abounds in global service literature. With examples ranging from McDonalds making vegetable patties using lard in India to Disneyland Paris not permitting wines within the theme park, service delivery systems has encountered culturally related service failures quite often. Scholars have extensively studied the impact of culture on management strategies (Hofstede 1980, 2001, 2012; Newman and Nollen 1996; Ford et al. 2003), focusing specifically on customers expectations in delivering services and products conducive to that culture (Winsted 1997; Donthu and Yoo 1998; Mattila 1999; Furrer et al. 2000; Tsikriktsis 2003). In addition, anecdotal evidence suggests that a nation s culture significantly influences employees behavior and communication when the service is being delivered. Airplane loss rate per million departures between 1988 and 1998 was 0.3 for United Airlines and 4.8 for Korean Air (Gladwell 2008). The primary reason attributed to the high loss rate was due to cultural barriers in the way communication is carried out in the cockpit rather than the safety procedures/ system errors. Subordinates at Korean Air would not contradict the captain, even though they believed the captain s actions were dangerous (Metters et al. 2010). As one former Korean Air pilot puts it, the captain is in charge and does what he wants, when he likes, how he likes, and everyone else sits quietly and does nothing (Gladwell 2008, p. 214). In this illustration we find that employees information transfer and communication in the service delivery process has been hindered by the employees national culture. In an international study of cultural values among 9,400 airline pilots in 19 countries, Merritt (2000) shows that there are extreme differences in cultural views of workplace communication. According to divergence theory national culture, not industrialized practice, drives values, and that even if the country becomes industrialized, the value systems in the workforce remain largely unchanged (Naor et al. 2010; Ralston et al. 1997). Even if organizations located within different societies do face similar contingencies and adopt similar models, deep-rooted cultural forces will still re-assert themselves in the way people actually behave and relate to each other (Child and Keiser 1979, p. 253). Culture impacts the process of designing and delivering services, including information-based services even when service providers attempt to standardize processes. Steinwachs (1999) posits that national culture (meaning patterns of thinking, feeling and potential behavior of people) can have an influence on the way people deal with information. In this paper, we study the effect of national culture (using Hofstede s five cultural dimensions and validating it using Globe s wider and more granular nine cultural dimensions) on the quality of information designed and delivered in service firms. According to Steinwachs (1999) information process is characterized by the transfer of the data (content) from the sender to the recipient (personnel channel), making use of a selected medium (infrastructural channel). Therefore, service firms use two common channels to transfer/deliver information: one, information delivered through a medium, called infrastructural channel, created by the service provider (e.g., IT, websites, media); and two, standardized information delivered to customers through communication of frontline employees called personnel channel. The presence of national culture in both information channels may affect the

3 Impact of national culture 137 effectiveness of service delivery. We define quality of information delivery as the degree to which information is effectively transferred between the service provider and the customers through multiple channels. However, to our knowledge, there is no literature that studies these relationships rigorously with a global dataset. We attempt to bridge the gap and understand the influence of nations culture on the quality of information delivery in service systems with specific application to airline industry. Airline industry strives to excel in service quality through standardization but at the same time protects the authenticity of the airlines country culture by employing majority of the workforce with the same cultural background. Uniforms for flight attendants or on-board menu may have an ethnic influence as part of the servicescape, but product offerings, and services through website, policies, and customer care are typically standardized across different countries to improve reliability of service quality. Hence any significance in results is very meaningful to determine the impact of culture beyond the notion of standardization. Also, majority of airlines workforce is hired from the country of origin. Local agents and ground staff maybe from the country where the airport is located but the flight staff (crew), the online support, the system development, the service process design, and executive management originates from where the airline is headquartered. Therefore, it is appropriate to study the manifestation of service provider s culture on the quality of information delivery using airline industry and so we test our model using a global airline dataset. 2 Literature review In this section, we review the literature and identify gaps between culture and information services, which we then attempt to bridge. 2.1 Quality of information delivery in services With the increased level of computing capabilities, information processing no longer acts as a competitive advantage or a support system for delivering products and services but is part of the service design and delivery to the customers. Customers expect increased communication and information delivery from the service provider and the frontline employees. Researchers use well-established ServQual to measure the service quality performance in managing and delivering information content to customers (Pitt et al. 1995; Parasuraman et al. 1988; Jiang et al. 2002). Kettinger and Lee (1994) indicated how researchers and practitioners are continuously improving user satisfaction of information services and found that along with the traditionally used user information satisfaction (UIS) measure, reliability and empathy dimensions of ServQual is required to determine user satisfaction for the information delivery service. To our knowledge, papers related to measuring information quality using ServQual or UIS or CSS (customer satisfaction survey) uses self-reported measures for quality of information delivered to both employees (IS professionals) and

4 138 A. Gnanlet, H. M. Yayla-Kullu customers (end users). We define quality of information delivery as the degree to which information is effectively transferred between the service provider and the customers through multiple channels. However, in the context of measuring service providers quality of information delivery, the culture in which the employees grew up will be confounded with the self-reported measures. National culture is based on norms, attitudes, beliefs, and rituals of a society and influences the behavior, thought process, and communication of employees who grew up in that culture. Leidner and Kayworth (2006) indicate that North American and Asian managers may have different philosophies in regard to the means by which they provide high-quality service to their stakeholders. Also, Burn et al. (1993) conclude that cultural values may influence the types of information issues perceived to be most critical by IT managers. Kettinger et al. (1995) find that ServQual for information system function is not universal/global but countries with cultures different from US such as Hong Kong and Korean culture have cultural dimensions different from Hofstede proving our point that self-reported measures have to be modified to account for cultural context or objective measures need to be derived. Steinwachs (1999) says that the information process is characterized by the transfer of the data (content) from the sender to the recipient (personnel channel), making use of a selected medium (infrastructural channel). Therefore, in this paper, to eliminate the possibility of confounding cultural influence in self-reported measures, the quality of information delivery is measured at the organizational level (through design of infrastructural systems) and at the employee level (through communication) using a rating system for the service provider (airlines in our case). These ratings are from an independent source trained to measure standards across multiple dimensions for airline industry and are free from any cultural specific biases. Details on the dataset are provided later Information delivery through infrastructural channel With globalization, MNCs have started modifying services including websites to cater to local culture and preferences. Ahmed et al. (2008) find that local culture has significant effect on website design and delivery. Loiacono et al. (2002) developed an instrument called WebQual similar to ServQual but it measures the satisfaction with website quality. Using these WebQual dimensions, Tsikriktsis (2003) evaluated the website quality expectations across Hofstede s cultural dimensions and found that masculinity (MAS) and long-term orientation (LTO) impact the website quality expectations of consumers. Lin (2010) also developed a construct of website quality that included functional needs of service, information quality, information relevance, perceived ease of use, and perceived usefulness. Airlines rely on websites as one of their primary infrastructural element to deliver pertinent, timely, and critical information to customers. Divergence theory (Naor et al. 2010) argues that national culture drives the values systems of the work force and any external practices may not influence these values. Therefore, based on divergence theory the process of developing and operationalizing the websites may be influenced by the culture of the employees and organization. We measure the construct of website quality using rankings from three items ease of use, product

5 Impact of national culture 139 information, and online check-in. Lin (2010) uses similar variables such as information quality, perceived ease of use although they are self-reported, perceptual measures from customers. Following the economic deregulation, airline industry has chosen in-flight content services as another channel to share and communicate information with customers. Alamdari (1999) conclude that in-flight entertainment contributes greatly to passengers satisfaction within the airline services, and in-flight entertainment services have the potential to generate future revenue. Aksoy et al. (2003) showed that in short-haul flights, in-flight entertainment activities emerged as a distinct service dimension for both foreign and domestic airline passengers, in particular, expectations of telephone call option, films and broadcasts, visual flight information, and various music options. Fourie and Lubbe (2006) found that in their decision to choose low cost carriers versus full-service carriers, price, frequency, and seat comfort had higher importance compared to airline entertainment. Chen and Chang (2005) found that in measuring service quality gap both managers perception and customers perception and expectation is significantly affected by in-flight entertainment materials and programs. Airlines are using in-flight entertainment systems as a differentiating tool to provide better information-based services and we measure the second construct quality of in-flight entertainment using quality ratings of two items onboard print media (which includes newspapers and magazines) and in-flight entertainment programs (such as videos and music streams). Operationalizing of the latent constructs is explained in Sect Information delivery through personnel channel In addition to technological communication, in-flight personnel (both flight attendants and pilots) frequently communicate pertinent information regarding safety procedures, flight logistics, to make the travel pleasant for customers. Though the policies and procedures maybe standardized, flight crew s delivery may differ from one culture to another. Pilots of eastern culture tend to avoid any risk and adhere closely to the standardized procedures while crew from individualistic western culture adds personal touches to the communication protocols. For example, a SouthWest Airlines flight attendant rapped the entire safety procedures to the beat generated by passengers. Therefore, the third construct we use to measure quality of information delivery using personnel channel is quality of inflight communication. It is measured using quality ratings from two items cockpit communication and cabin safety communication. Chong (2007) indicate that the first frontier in better branding is the necessity for internal communication and training for flight crew to portray values of the firms. Also, Chen and Chang (2005) found that cabin safety demonstration and passenger guidance by cabin crew significantly affect the perception expectation gap of service quality. 2.2 National culture Influence of national culture on customer interactions (Furrer et al. 2000; Tsikriktsis 2003; Laroche et al. 2004), manufacturing performance, and quality systems (Power

6 140 A. Gnanlet, H. M. Yayla-Kullu et al. 2010; Naor et al. 2010; Vecchi and Brennan 2011; Kull and Wacker (2010) have been very well researched. The widely used measures of national culture in these literatures are the five cultural dimensions of Hofstede (Hofstede 1980), nine cultural dimensions of global leadership and organization behavior effectiveness (GLOBE) project (House et al. 2004), and two dimensions of World values survey (Schwartz 1992). Both Hofstede and Globe project have not only been successfully utilized in culturally related research but also equally criticized for quantifying culture into few dimensions (Smith 2006) and creating aggregates using perceptual measures (Peterson and Castro 2006; Hofstede 2006; Javidan et al. 2006). Vecchi and Brennan (2011) say while existing research mainly adopts Hofstede s dimensions of national culture, Globe captures more comprehensively and less ambiguously the elements of national culture. For better illustration and higher validity of the results we use Hofstede and Globe cultural dimensions to explain the impact of culture on the quality of information delivery in service systems using infrastructural and personnel channels Hofstede cultural dimensions Hofstede (1980) contends that national culture is an important issue in management theory and indeed national culture has been identified as an important variable in many global studies. Hofstede characterizes five cultural dimensions: 1. Power distance (PDI) the extent to which less powerful members of organizations accept that power is distributed unequally, 2. Uncertainty avoidance (UAI) the extent to which a society feels threatened by uncertain situations and avoids these situations by providing career stability, establishing formal rules, and not tolerating deviant ideas, 3. Individualism (IDV) the extent to which people take care of themselves contrasted with a social fabric in which groups take care of the individual in exchange for his or her loyalty, 4. Masculinity (MAS) the extent to which dominant values are associated with the collection of money and things (masculine) contrasted with values associated with the caring for other and the quality of life (feminine), and 5. Long Term Orientation (LTO) the extent to which values are oriented toward the future such as thrift, persistence (Hofstede 1980, 2001, 2012). Shore and Venkatachalam (1996) indicate that among the original four dimensions which exclude LTO, power distance and uncertainty avoidance are emphasized by Hofstede in studying organizations within a culture. The empirical evidence suggests that a country s PDI UAI score best reflects the way decisionmaking power in organizations is distributed, rules and methods are followed, and uncertainty is accepted. They find that competitive environment and task congruency between different cultures play a critical role in information technology transfer between nations with different cultures Globe cultural dimensions The GLOBE research program is worldwide, multiphase, multi-method project started in 1993 intended to identify national and organizational culture and its effect on leadership styles in 62 societies. Project Globe developed, validated, and

7 Impact of national culture 141 Table 1 Definition of GLOBE culture dimensions Power distance Uncertainty avoidance Institutional collectivism (collectivism I) In-group collectivism (collectivism II) Assertiveness Gender Egalitarianism Future orientation Performance orientation Humane orientation The degree to which members of an organization or society expect and agree that power should be stratified and concentrated at higher levels of an organization or government The extent to which members of an organization or society strive to avoid uncertainty by relying on established social norms, rituals, and bureaucratic practices The degree to which organizational and societal institutional practices encourage and reward collective distribution of resources and collective action The degree to which individuals express pride, loyalty, and cohesiveness in their organizations or families The degree to which individuals in organizations or societies is assertive, confrontational, and aggressive in social relationships The degree to which an organization or society minimizes gender role differences while promoting gender equality The degree to which individuals in organizations or societies engage in future-oriented behaviors such as planning, investing in the future, and delaying individual or collective gratification The degree to which an organization or society encourages and rewards group members for performance improvement and excellence The degree to which individuals in organizations or societies encourage and reward individuals for being fair, altruistic, friendly, generous, caring, and kind to others Source: House et al. (2004, pp ) quantified 735 items into nine dimensions. Many of these dimensions have a direct mapping or a weak similarity to Hofstede. The nine dimensions and their definitions are shown in Table 1. Naor et al. (2010) found that organization culture with plants in eastern and western countries differ in three Globe dimensions (power distance, future orientation, and performance orientation). Vecchi and Brennan (2011) evaluated the inclination to use various quality management initiatives on nations culture interpreted as organizations culture. They found that low gender egalitarianism (GE) countries are more likely to engage in environmental performance programs in future; and high assertiveness countries are more likely to engage in quality improvement and control programs in the future. They find that Globe framework helps to identify countries that are conducive to implement quality management practices. In the following section, we develop hypotheses for the effect of Hofstede and Globe cultural dimensions on quality of information delivery measured by website quality, quality of in-flight entertainment, and quality of in-flight communication. 3 Theory building In this section, we build theory using existing literature to substantiate our model and hypotheses.

8 142 A. Gnanlet, H. M. Yayla-Kullu 3.1 Power distance (PDI) Power distance is a measure of the degree to which the less powerful members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. People in societies exhibiting a large degree of power distance accept a hierarchical order in which everybody has a place and which needs no further justification. In societies with low power distance, people strive to equalize the distribution of power and demand justification for inequalities of power (Hofstede 2012). Power distance is the degree to which members of an organization or society expect and agree that power should be stratified and concentrated at higher levels of an organization or government (Globe House et al. 2004). In high power distance cultures, individuals with status or position in the hierarchy wield considerable power; lines of authority and responsibility are clearly defined. Within these cultures, the employees have been conditioned to accommodate the direction and control of superiors without much emphasis to customerbased service delivery (Shore and Venkatachalam 1996). In a cross-cultural service recovery study in the airline industry, with high and low PDI cultures, Lorenzoni and Lewis (2004) found that the attitude of employees from high PDI culture in a service recovery situation was to seek counsel from boss and to defer knowledge/ information related issues to a person of superior position. People of high power distance show great reliance on centralization and formalization of authority and great tolerance for the lack of autonomy, which fosters inequalities in power and wealth (Hofstede 1980). Members of the organization or society with high power distance expect and agree that power should be stratified and concentrated at higher levels of an organization (House et al. 2004, p. 12). Those individuals from high PDI cultures accept power hierarchy, tight control, and vertical top-down communication (Donthu and Yoo 1998). Consequently, employees from high power distance culture portray the same characteristics when communicating or delivering information services to customers. Service providers, both organizations and employees from a higher PDI culture may assume these characteristics based on divergence theory (Naor et al. 2010). Therefore, they maintain a strict control in a service delivery situation by considering customers as weaker members of the society and themselves as powerful by virtue of possessing ascribed knowledge (Lorenzoni and Lewis 2004) for the solicited service. In eastern cultures, service providers (typically attributed with high PDI) work under the assumption Caveat Emptor (Buyer beware). On the other hand, in western cultures, the saying Customer is always right is the managerial norm. Also, based on the anecdotal evidence of Korean Air (presented in previous section) where line of communication among the employees has a strict protocol, high PDI may translate to procedurally oriented communication between the service provider and customers. In the context of information delivery in services, we hypothesize that service providers, both the organizations and employees that come from a high PDI culture would have the belief of superiority and strict lines of communication and no deviation from protocol. Hence, this may result in inferior communication/ information delivery for the customers.

9 Impact of national culture 143 Hypothesis 1.1 Service providers from higher power distance cultures provide lower quality websites. Hypothesis 1.2 Service providers from higher power distance cultures provide lower quality in-flight entertainment. Hypothesis 1.3 Service providers from higher power distance cultures provide less effective in-flight communication. 3.2 Uncertainty avoidance (UAI) The uncertainty avoidance dimension expresses the degree to which the members of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity. Countries exhibiting strong UAI maintain rigid codes of belief and behavior and are intolerant of unorthodox behavior and ideas. Weak UAI societies maintain a more relaxed attitude in which practice counts more than principles (Hofstede 2012). Uncertainty avoidance is the extent to which members of an organization or society strives to avoid uncertainty by relying on established social norms, rituals, and bureaucratic practices (Globe House et al. 2004). Donthu and Yoo (1998) say that customers from a culture of high uncertainty avoidance would hesitate to make decisions in uncertain situations. In other words, service providers, both organizations and employees avoid uncertainty through detailed planning and risk aversion. Such high uncertainty avoidance service providers prefer rules and procedures when delivering a service to customers. Deviation from the norm or rule is considered to be a high-risk situation. They believe that a high customer service is attained through standardization rather than a customized service delivery for each individual customer. Furrer et al. (2000) found that people from high uncertainty avoidance culture value assurance, reliability, responsiveness, and privacy much more than tangibles. Similarly, Tsikriktsis (2003) hypothesize that customers from high UAI culture prefer responsiveness and trust from websites for information transfer and less on visual appeal mainly because of risk aversion and the belief that sticking to rules and procedures will provide consistent and high-quality service. Newman and Nollen (1996) find that firms providing clear policies and direction for employees in a culture of high UAI perform better than employees from low UAI cultures. For example, flight crew from high uncertainty avoidance culture such as Japan or Russia do not communicate with passengers (to avoid any risk of deviating from protocol) unless otherwise needed which may lead to insufficient service. On the other hand, U.S. flight crews (both the pilots and flight attendants) provide information about the flight process, and also continuously update passengers on the current situation during flight delays. Similarly, websites of U.S. airlines provide higher transparency and access to a variety of information resources while websites of Indian airlines provide bare minimum information being non-committal to any policy or procedure. Therefore, service providers from high UAI cultures are risk averse when designing and delivering information-based services through infrastructural

10 144 A. Gnanlet, H. M. Yayla-Kullu (website quality, in-flight entertainment) and personnel channel (in-flight communication) to avoid potential liability associated in deviating from rules even at the cost of poor service quality. We hypothesize that service providers from high uncertainty avoidance cultures standardize the process and procedures and hence result in a less effective information-based service delivery process. Hypothesis 2.1 Service providers from higher uncertainty avoidance cultures provide lower quality websites. Hypothesis 2.2 Service providers from higher uncertainty avoidance cultures provide lower quality of in-flight entertainment. Hypothesis 2.3 Service providers from higher uncertainty avoidance cultures provide less effective in-flight communication. 3.3 Individualism (IDV) and Collectivism I & II The high side of this dimension, called Individualism, can be defined as a preference for a loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of themselves and their immediate families only. Its opposite, Collectivism, represents a preference for a tightly-knit framework in society in which individuals can expect their relatives or members of a particular in-group to look after them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. (Hofstede 2012). Institutional collectivism (collectivism I) is the degree to which organizational and societal institutional practices encourage and reward collective distribution of resources and collective action. In-group collectivism (collectivism II) is the degree to which individuals express pride, loyalty, and cohesiveness in their organizations or families (House et al. 2004). Globe project defines two cultural dimensions based on collectivism while Hofstede defines only one dimension for this construct. Institution collectivism or collectivism I from Globe project has direct inverse correspondence to individualism as defined by Hofstede (Vecchi and Brennan 2011). But in-group collectivism or collectivism II has a weak inverse association to individualism of Hofstede (Vecchi and Brennan 2011). In highly individualistic cultures, individuals believe that they are the most important unit in a society, and tend to take care of themselves first. As Furrer et al. (2000, p. 360) said we do not expect that the employees, also individualists, have the customers best interests at heart. Kettinger et al. (1995) posit that behavior of individuals from an individualistic society is based on presumed needs of individuals who seek their self-interest. Individualistic society does not reward teamwork and collaboration as highly as a collectivistic culture. While creating infrastructural elements, higher level of collaborative work between software engineers, developers, testers, and customers is required. Scholars have argued that high institutional collectivism provides greater teamwork, higher cooperative and cross-functional relationships that lead to better internal coordination of information

11 Impact of national culture 145 within the organization (Vecchi and Brennan 2011). Societal culture promoting teamwork and collective action may work together in creating better systems for information delivery to customers. Taking a collective institutional view may lead to better processes for providing high-quality information service delivery through infrastructural channels such as website and in-flight entertainment design and delivery. Hypothesis 3.1 Service providers from highly individualistic (collectivistic I & II) cultures provide lower (higher) quality websites. Hypothesis 3.2 Service providers from highly individualistic (collectivistic I & II) cultures provide lower (higher) quality of in-flight entertainment. In an individualistic society, individuals are appreciated for tasks that lead to higher self-performance even at the cost of societal welfare. Employees from this culture are self-assertive and find ways for individual accomplishment which may lead to better customer service. Employees from such cultures, who are in a position of direct contact with consumers, may customize the way information is shared with customers and provide individual flair in their service encounter. Considering the example of SouthWest flight attendant rapping safety procedures to gain the attention of passengers or pilots from U.S. airlines cracking a joke before take-off are common manifestations of an individualistic culture. With this in mind, we would like to look for evidence for a positive effect of service providers individualistic culture on the quality of in-flight communication. Similarly, cultures with high collectivism create pride, dignity, and higher level of self-identification with their culture which may lead to lower levels of service. Cultures that develop oneness emphasizing cohesiveness and homogeneity in a group may not be tolerant to diverse information needs of customers with varied expectations and experiences. Higher cohesiveness within group ideals may lead to lower quality of communication due to less tolerance to individualistic behavior. Hypothesis 3.3 Service providers from highly individualistic (collectivistic I & II) cultures provide more (less) effective in-flight communication. 3.4 Masculinity (MAS), Assertiveness, and Gender Egalitarianism (GE) Masculinity and femininity represents the dominant sex role pattern in the vast majority of both traditional and modern societies (Hofstede 1980, p. 277). House et al. (2004) in their Globe project found that Hofstede s discussion of masculinity had in fact two different dimensions and not a single construct. They created two cultural dimensions, assertiveness and gender egalitarianism, reflecting Hofstede s single measure of masculinity which is confounded by many items and lacks face validity (House et al. 2004, p. 13). The dual of Hofstede s masculinity/ femininity dimension is as follows. A society must decide whether to emphasize and reward behaviors that are stereotypical (assertiveness) and how to allocate social roles between the genders (gender egalitarianism).

12 146 A. Gnanlet, H. M. Yayla-Kullu Masculinity of Hofstede, in our view, is closely related to assertiveness dimension of Globe project based on the definition that an assertive society rewards masculine-oriented behaviors such as being assertive, high independence, and gogetter attitude. Masculine societies value male assertiveness, and feminine societies value female nurturance. Masculinity is habitually related to the cultural appreciation for self-assertiveness, self-efficacy, and acquisitiveness an orientation toward securing hard assets and tangible benefits (Khanin et al. 2012). Masculine customers emphasize performance, ambition, and independence, whereas feminine ones value quality of life, service, and interdependence (Donthu and Yoo 1998). Kettinger et al. (1995) explain that performance or the desire to achieve motivates individuals in a highly masculine society. When MAS is high, service providers and employees aggressively seek ways to improve their performance by providing high-quality service to customers. Kanousi (2005) conclude that in a masculine culture customers expect higher level of explanation (that is if the service provider explains to the customer in a clear and concise manner on why the problem occurred) and better tangibles in a service recovery situation. Tsikriktsis (2003) find that a masculine society emphasizes interactivity, design, and emotional appeal as a characteristic for website quality. Using similar reasoning, we hypothesize that employees from a highly masculine or assertive culture would place a high value for interaction, providing personalized information while delivering a service; and therefore, improve the information-based delivery process. Hypothesis 4.1a Service providers from highly masculine/assertive cultures provide higher quality websites. Hypothesis 4.2a Service providers from highly masculine/assertive cultures provide higher quality of in-flight entertainment. Hypothesis 4.3a Service providers from highly masculine/assertive cultures provide more effective in-flight communication. Hofstede in his 1980 study using IBM employees attributed the dimension of masculinity to the work goals of earnings, recognition, advancement, and challenge. In contrast, dimension of femininity was attributed to good working relationship with manager, cooperation among peers, and employment society. Hofstede (1980) chose the masculinity and femininity label, because it was the only one in which men and women in the IBM sample scored differently. This led to confounding of gender role differences in a society with the behavior/values of masculinity/ femininity in a society. In addition, the generational gap between these studies, Hofstede s initial study in 1980 and Globe project s phase I and II study started in 1993 but reported in 2004, may have lead to cultural evolution and changes in gender role versus gender behavior. Globe s gender egalitarianism represents the degree to which societies minimize gender role differences while promoting gender equality. In cultures with gender differentiated roles (that is lower gender egalitarianism), service jobs which requires traits such as caring, empathizing are not typically considered macho or male role. In those cultures service-oriented tasks are delegated to female members of the society. A male taking on a service

13 Impact of national culture 147 role is not valued in society. So, higher gender-defined roles within an organization can create disharmony and lead to lower tolerance in providing better customeroriented services including information services. Societies with high GE prescribe overlapping or egalitarian roles and encourage both sexes to participate equally in all roles. Societies with greater GE rely less on biological sex to determine the allocation of roles between the sexes (House et al. 2004, p. 344). With higher equality among genders there is a greater undifferentiated worker pool who works toward the betterment of the organization and improved service. Hypothesis 4.1b Service providers from higher gender egalitarianism cultures provide higher quality websites. Hypothesis 4.2b Service providers from higher gender egalitarianism cultures provide higher quality of in-flight entertainment. Hypothesis 4.3b Service providers from higher gender egalitarianism cultures provide more effective in-flight communication. 3.5 Long Term Orientation (LTO) and Future Orientation Long Term Orientation stands for the fostering of virtues oriented towards future rewards, in particular perseverance and thrift (Hofstede 2001, p. 359). Future orientation is the degree to which individuals in organizations or societies engage in future-oriented behaviors such as planning, investing in the future, and delaying individual or collective gratification (House et al. 2004, p. 12). Long term orientation (LTO) of Hofstede rooted in the teachings of Confucius measures the pragmatic, future-oriented perspective, and values acceptance of change, perseverance, thrift, and pursuit of peace of mind. Added later on to the other four dimensions, LTO was measured only for 23 countries. Scholars consider long term orientation to tap into the same conceptual construct of future orientation of Globe data. Employees from a culture of high long term orientation look forward to continuous growth and development with the organization and thereby provide high level of service quality for the betterment of the firm. Cultures with low future orientation have the capability to enjoy the moment and be spontaneous. They may show incapacity or unwillingness to plan a sequence in order to realize their desired goals. In contrast, cultures with high future orientation have a strong capability and willingness to imagine future contingencies, formulate future goal states, and seek to achieve goals and develop strategies for meeting their future aspirations (House et al. 2004, p. 285). A future-oriented culture encourages risk taking, tolerance toward error, and experimentation to improve process (Naveh and Erez 2004). A culture with high future orientation promotes continuous improvement (Naor et al. 2010) and focuses on planning ahead which may lead to coordinated and high-quality infrastructural systems. Also, employees taking higher risk and delaying personal gratification by helping customers with diverse needs will help improve the quality of the communication aspect of information services. Therefore, we hypothesize that culture with high future orientation will provide

14 148 A. Gnanlet, H. M. Yayla-Kullu high-quality information delivery through both infrastructural and personnel channels. Hypothesis 5.1 Service providers from higher future-oriented/long-term oriented cultures provide higher quality websites. Hypothesis 5.2 Service providers from higher future-oriented/long-term oriented cultures provide higher quality of in-flight entertainment. Hypothesis 5.3 Service providers from higher future-oriented/long-term oriented cultures provide more effective in-flight communication. 3.6 Performance orientation Performance orientation is the degree to which an organization or society encourages and rewards group members for performance improvement and excellence (House et al. 2004, p. 14). The last two cultural dimensions, performance orientation and humane orientation, were identified in the Globe project but were not conceptualized or measured by Hofstede. Performance orientation dimension is derived from the need for achievement concept. A culture of performance orientation values training and development, emphasizes results, rewards performance, values initiatives, has a can-do attitude, believes in hard work, and encourages goals (House et al. 2004, p. 245). Employees having a sense of urgency to accomplish and portraying a goal-directed behavior will allow both employees and service provider to deliver high-quality services. Naor et al. (2010) specify that a culture of performance orientation will have positive effect on performance. Also, performance-oriented culture values being direct, explicit, and to the point in communication creating an improved standards for effective communication. Therefore, cultures of high performance orientation will positively affect the quality of information delivered in service firms through both channels. Hypothesis 6.1 Service providers from higher performance-oriented cultures provide higher quality websites. Hypothesis 6.2 Service providers from higher performance-oriented cultures provide higher quality of in-flight entertainment. Hypothesis 6.3 Service providers from higher performance-oriented cultures provide more effective in-flight communication. 3.7 Humane orientation Humane orientation is the degree to which individuals in organizations or societies encourage and reward individuals for being fair, altruistic, friendly, generous, caring and kind to others (House et al. 2004, p. 13). The Globe study implicitly relates quality of life and social relations. The dimension of humane orientation manifests the way people treat one another. In a

15 Impact of national culture 149 humane society, individuals are motivated with the need for belonging and affiliation. Schwartz (1992) developed an instrument that represented the basic universal human values. The results showed bipolar dimensions of being selftranscendence (universalism and benevolence) and the other the self-enhancement (power and achievement). This duality portrays the opposition between humane orientation and task concerns. At the same time, humane orientation was confirmed as a basic value that is prevalent in all of the regions of the world (House et al. 2004, p. 571). All humans have basic goodness in them, but humane orientation measures benevolence over task orientation, over and above the basic human character of doing good. In a more humane society, we expect to see more interpersonal communication as opposed to technological intermediaries such as websites. So, in this dimension, we expect to see opposite effects. While we predict better quality inflight communications in a highly humane-oriented society, we posit that the nonhuman and technological aspects such as websites and the in-flight media have worse quality compared to other less-humane cultures. Hypothesis 7.1 Service providers from higher humane-oriented cultures provide lower quality websites. Hypothesis 7.2 Service providers from higher humane-oriented cultures provide lower quality of in-flight entertainment. Hypothesis 7.3 Service providers from higher humane-oriented cultures provide more effective in-flight communication. Table 2 shows the complete set of hypothesis. Figures 3 and 4 in Appendix depict the saturated model run using SEM. 4 Methodology 4.1 Sample This study tests our model of service provider s culture on the quality of information delivery using airline industry. Airlines aspire to standardize the service process across all countries to improve consistency and reliability in service quality. Also, majority of airlines workforce is hired from the country of origin. Even though some of the local agents and ground staff are from the countries where the airport is located, the flight staff (crew), the online support, the system development, the service process design, and executive management originates from where the airline is headquartered. Therefore, it is appropriate to study the manifestation of culture through the behavior of the service provider when designing and delivering information to customers in the airline industry. Our sample consists of 137 airlines based in 80 countries. However, cultural data are not available for all countries and so based on listwise deletion we ended with 119 airlines and 65 countries using Hofstede and 111 airlines and 58 countries using Globe measures. This represents about 50 % of the entire global population of firms (221 registered airlines) in this industry. As such, our final sample includes 111

16 150 A. Gnanlet, H. M. Yayla-Kullu Table 2 Summary of hypotheses Dependent variables/ independent variables Source Website In-flight entertainment In-flight communication Power distance Hofstede (-) (-) (-) Globe (-) (-) (-) Uncertainty avoidance Hofstede (-) (-) (-) Globe (-) (-) (-) Individualism Hofstede (-) (-) (?) Collectivism I Globe (?) (?) (-) Collectivism II Globe (?) (?) (-) Masculinity Hofstede (?) (?) (?) Assertiveness Globe (-) (-) (-) Gender egalitarianism Globe (?) (?) (?) Long term orientation Hofstede (?) (?) (?) Future orientation Globe (?) (?) (?) Performance orientation Globe (?) (?) (?) Humane orientation Globe (-) (-) (?) airlines representing proportionally large sample of the industry population, so as to improve confidence in the findings. In the following section we describe the quality ranking dataset, cultural dataset, and the operationalization of the variables in detail. 4.2 Variables Independent variables Hofstede s cultural dimensions (Hofstede 1980) of PDI, UAI, IDV, and MAS measured on a five-point scale were available for 65 countries in our dataset which brought down our sample size from 137 to 119. Hofstede had measured LTO for about 23 countries. Among the 119 airlines, 45 % of the data had missing values for LTO and listwise deletion would have led to very low sample size. Hence, we are unable to work with Hofstede s LTO dimension as done by several scholars (Vecchi and Brennan 2011; Wiengarten et al. 2011). However, we study the effect of LTO via the future orientation dimension of Globe dataset. See Tables 8 and 9 in Appendix for list of airlines and countries used in this study. Secondary data from Globe s nine cultural dimensions are taken from culture, leadership, and organizations: the globe study of 62 societies (House et al. 2004) using a seven-point scale. Since the number of societies is also limited in the Globe dataset, listwise deletion reduced our sample size from 137 to 111 airlines with 58 countries Dependent variables Quality assessments for the dependent (latent) variables in our model are obtained from Skytrax Research. Skytrax Research is a globally recognized, independent

17 Impact of national culture 151 professional audit organization that provides detailed quality analysis for over 800 different areas of product and service delivery in the airline industry ( They employ professional auditors to assess the quality of the work done in an airline, both onboard and in the airport terminals. They recognize airlines and airports through yearly awards based on Airline Quality Audit and World Airport Audit. Each airline s ranking is reviewed in-depth by professional auditors without any cultural bias. Annual quality ranking assigned to different service delivery areas range from 1 star to 5 stars. It is very important to note that these ranking are not based on customer feedback or reviews. Hence, culture of the customers has no impact/bias on the evaluation of service providers assessment. For airlines, gaining a Skytrax star-ranking or advancing to a higher ranking is a matter of reputation. Announcements are made through websites and press releases. Both overall star rankings and detailed quality assessment results are publicly available on the Skytrax website. These rankings have been studied in prior research (e.g., Tsantoulis and Palmer 2008; Han et al. 2012). In this study the Skytrax rankings on quality of information delivered by the airlines for the year 2011 is measured using a 5-point scale for seven items measuring three latent variables, website quality, quality of in-flight entertainment, and quality of in-flight communication as detailed below Website quality Website quality is the first construct that measures the quality of information delivery in service process using infrastructural channel. We define website quality as the extent to which an airline provides high-quality information-based services to customers through design, development and running of websites. Typically customer obtains information regarding airline products and services; real-time data regarding flight, reservations, check-ins through the airline website. Website quality is influenced by organizations ability to design and deliver an effective information system. Hence, we measure the extent to which an organization delivers informational services through this specific channel. The three items that are factored into Website quality latent variable are rankings of ease of use, product information availability in websites, and online check-in. They are 2011 quality rankings measured on a five-point scale. Lin (2010) uses similar variables such as information quality, perceived ease of use (although they are perceptual measures from customers while ours is objective assessments by industry experts) Quality of in-flight entertainment Quality of in-flight entertainment is defined as the extent to which informational based services are met through design and delivery of audio systems (music options), video systems (video-on-demand, computer games, destination information, financial services, shopping catalogues, exterior-view cameras), communication systems (telephones, power supplies), and availability of print media. Alamdari (1999) found that quality of in-flight entertainment significantly affects customers overall level of satisfaction. Depending on the ethnicity of the airlines the range of information available through these channels varies from one country to another and may affect the service delivery.