Culture and service qualityexpectations

Evidence from Generation Y consumers inMalaysia

Karen KuehSwinburne University of Technology, Sarawak, Malaysia, and

Boo Ho VoonUniversiti Teknologi MARA, Sarawak, Malaysia

Abstract

Purpose – The main purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of individual-level culturaldimensions on Generation Y consumers’ expectations of service quality.

Design/methodology/approach – Service quality and individual-level cultural values weremeasured using existing scales from the literature. Factor analysis was conducted to verify thefactor structures of both constructs while structural equation modeling was employed to examine themeasures for cultural values and service quality dimensions.

Findings – Four out of the five hypotheses are supported and the last one is partially confirmed interms of directional support. Service quality expectations are positively related to uncertaintyavoidance and long-term orientation but negatively related to power distance. Masculinity andcollectivism did not have a significant relationship. Service quality was found to be a three-factorconstruct consisting of tangibles, reliability and responsiveness/empathy/assurance. Cultural valueswere confirmed to consist of five dimensions according to Hofstede’s typology. Generation Yconsumers are found to be low in power distance and have high expectations of service quality.

Research limitation/implications – The main limitations are that the study did not distinguishbetween different types of full-service restaurants in its analysis and the sample consisted ofundergraduate students only.

Practical implications – The findings indicate the importance of measuring individual-levelcultural values which may be used as a segmentation variable to guide service delivery and resourceallocation.

Originality/value – The study contributes to the scant research on service quality amongGeneration Y consumers in developing countries. It also assesses the five-factor structure of theSERVQUAL scale in a new country setting, that is, Malaysia.

Keywords Customer services quality, Culture, Food service, Malaysia

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionThe importance of the services sector in the world economy is growing. As countriesbecome more developed and income levels rise, the observable trend, known as the“hollowing out effect”, is that the emphasis of economic activity shifts from theagricultural and manufacturing sectors to services (Lovelock et al., 2004). This makesresearch on services increasingly important and relevant to the developing economiesin Asia which have enjoyed relatively high economic growth rates in the past decade.The East Asia and Pacific region now accounts for 19 percent of global output (World

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Managing Service QualityVol. 17 No. 6, 2007pp. 656-680q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0960-4529DOI 10.1108/09604520710834993

Bank, 2007). As such, a better understanding of consumer service expectations in theregion is potentially valuable to both marketing practitioners and researchers. In thisstudy, we focus on the youth segment because they represent a significant market inAsia. The number of young people aged 15-24 years in Asia has grown from 648million in 1995 to 729 million in 2006, comprising 18.4 percent of the population (USCensus Bureau, 2006). Also known as Generation Y or millenials, youths of thisgeneration have significant spending power and wield considerable clout in purchasedecisions for their family as well as being savvy consumers themselves (HarrisInteractive, 2003; O’Donnell, 2006; AC Nielsen, 2006; Wilson, 2007). They are thereforelegitimate targets of research in services marketing (e.g. Yoon and Niehm, 2006;Rugimbana, 2007).

Existing marketing literature also indicates that Generation Y is a key customersegment for foodservice, not just in terms of market size but also due to their lifestyleand consumption habits. Having grown up with takeout food, they eat out frequently,are more adventurous in trying new restaurants compared to older diners and seekenvironments that make them feel welcome with products and facilities that suit theirneeds (Gale, 2007; Hume, 2007). In spite of this, empirical studies on the serviceexpectations of Generation Y consumers in the foodservice industry are few and therole of consumers’ personal cultural values in this context has not been explored. Thishighlights an area that warrants further study because prior research suggests thatculture has an impact on consumers’ expectations in service encounters (Winsted, 1997;Donthu and Yoo, 1998; Mattila, 1999; Furrer et al., 2000; Laroche et al., 2004; Imrie,2005; Kanousi, 2005; Kong and Jogaratnam, 2007, Tsoukatos and Rand, 2007). Thepresent study expands the understanding of service quality to the Generation Y marketin foodservice and a new country setting, that is, a developing Southeast Asian country(Malaysia) by examining the influence of individual level cultural values on serviceexpectations. It therefore also contributes to the existing literature on servicesmarketing in developing countries which is still sparse.

One of the challenges in research on the relationship between culture and servicequality is the measurement of cultural values. While Hofstede’s (2001) dimensions havebeen widely employed in many studies involving culture, the majority of them quotecountry-level measurements of national culture from Hofstede’s work withoutobtaining updated measurements of cultural values. Using national-level measures ofculture ignores the variability in cultural values among individuals in a country (Yooand Donthu, 2002). It also disregards differences in cultural values between differentage groups within the same country. Thus, there is a need to identify suitableinstruments to measure individual-level cultural values. Research in this area isnoticeably absent other than a handful of studies (e.g. Donthu and Yoo, 1998; Furreret al., 2000; Yoo and Donthu, 2002; Kanousi, 2005), and the scales that have beenproposed lack follow-up studies to provide additional empirical validation. In addition,little has been done to empirically test the factor structure of Hofstede’s culturaldimensions as the majority of marketing research studies rely on his measurements ofnational culture without collecting primary data on cultural values. The first objectiveof this study is therefore to provide empirical evidence in order to establish thereliability and validity of a measurement instrument for personal cultural values in thecontext of marketing research. The psychometric properties of a scale previously

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developed by Yoo and Donthu (2002) are assessed and at the same time, the factorstructure of Hofstede’s dimensions is empirically verified.

The second objective of this study is to validate the use of the SERVQUAL scale(Parasuraman et al., 1988) as a measurement model for the service quality expectationsof young Malaysian consumers in foodservice. This study assesses whether areplication of the SERVQUAL scale in the current context produces the theoreticalfive-factor model. Although the SERVQUAL instrument has been widely used tomeasure service quality in a variety of industries, its development and validation tookplace mainly in the USA and other Western countries. Scales that work in Westerncultures may not perform comparably in other cultures (Malhotra et al., 1996; Smithand Reynolds, 2001; Ueltschy and Krampf, 2001; Ueltschy et al., 2002) and efforts toreplicate the factor structure of SERVQUAL have not always been successful insamples from Asian countries (e.g. Kettinger et al., 1995; Raven and Welsh, 2004; Arasliet al., 2005; Jabnoun and Khalifa, 2005). SERVQUAL as a measurement of servicequality therefore requires ongoing validation in different cultural settings.

The third objective is to examine the relationship between individual-level culturalvalues and service quality expectations among young Malaysian foodserviceconsumers. Malaysia is chosen as a sample case of a developing, Asian country anddiverse cultural setting. There are 4.6 million youths in Malaysia aged 15-24 yearsrepresenting 19 percent of the population (US Census Bureau, 2006). The Malaysianeconomy has been experiencing strong growth with real gross domestic product (GDP)expanding by 5.9 percent in 2006, an improvement from 5.2 percent in 2005 (CentralBank of Malaysia, 2006). Growth is expected to remain strong in 2007 at 5.6 percent(Malaysian Institute of Economic Research, 2007). The services sector is an importantcontributor to economic growth, expanding by 6.5 percent in 2006. The wholesale andretail trade, hotels and restaurants sub-sector was the largest contributor to GDPwithin the services sector. Its share of GDP rose from 12.1 percent in 1980 to 14.2percent in 2005 (Public Bank, 2005). For the last quarter of 2006, the hotels andrestaurants sub-sector experienced a growth rate of 5.2 percent (Aseansources.com,2006). Research shows that the demand for food away from home (FAFH) has ahigh-income elasticity in Malaysia (Radam et al., 2006). This underscores theimportance of the foodservice industry to the economy as both living standards andconsumer incomes continue to rise (Euromonitor International, 2007). Eating out iscommon in Malaysia as a result of relatively cheap food prices and the wide variety ofcuisine. It is also becoming an indispensable part of the youth lifestyle as they seekconvenience, time saving and relaxation by patronizing foodservice outlets. Due to theimportance of the youth market in this industry, it appears worthwhile to explore theservice expectations of this segment in relation to their cultural values.

Literature reviewService qualityService quality is a central issue in services marketing and has been discussed in anumber of writings (e.g. Lewis and Booms, 1983; Gronroos, 1984) even before thewell-known SERVQUAL research by Parasuraman et al. (1985). It is generally agreedthat service quality is more difficult for consumers to evaluate as compared to thequality of tangible goods. It is therefore not surprising that service researchers havelisted a variety of service quality determinants (e.g. Albrecht and Zemke, 1985;

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Parasuraman et al., 1985; Gronroos, 1990; Johnston, 1997). Sasser et al. (1978) arguedthat service performance could be categorized into three levels, namely, material,facilities, and personnel. They suggested that evaluation of service quality should bebased on the manner the service was delivered. Gronroos (1984) postulated two typesof service quality: technical quality (i.e. what the customers actually received from theservice), and functional quality (i.e. the manner in which the service is delivered). Morerecently, he proposes that service quality can be described in terms of professionalismand skills, attitudes and behaviour, accessibility and flexibility, reliability andtrustworthiness, service recovery, servicescape, reputation and credibility (Gronroos,2000). Lehtinen and Lehtinen (1991) suggested that service quality is produced throughthe interaction between the customers and elements of the service organization. Theyclaimed that there are three service quality dimensions, namely, physical quality,corporate quality and interactive quality. The last dimension recognizes that servicequality arises from the interaction between the service provider and service receiverand is therefore necessary to supplement the customer-centered view of service qualitywhich has been the dominant paradigm to date (Svensson, 2006).

Despite the variety of proposed definitions, the SERVQUAL model (Parasuramanet al., 1985, 1988) remains the most widely adapted and tested conceptualization ofservice quality. According to the model, service quality can be measured by comparingthe service expectations of customers with their perceptions of actual performance. TheSERVQUAL instrument uses 22 questions to measure both expectations andperceptions covering five service dimensions, namely, reliability, responsiveness,tangibles, assurance and empathy (Parasuraman et al., 1988). Reliability refers toaccurate, dependable and consistent performance of the service. Responsiveness meansbeing prompt and willing to serve the customer. The physical service aspects such asappearance of employees, equipment and facilities are classified as tangibles. Thedimension of assurance comprises the competence, courtesy and credibility of staffwhich generate customer trust and confidence. Lastly, empathy involves caring andpersonalized attention as well as understanding customer needs and convenient accessto the service.

The SERVQUAL instrument has been widely applied in studies covering a varietyof service industries such as healthcare, public services, higher education,telemarketing, and banking. There are also applications in different culturalcontexts (e.g. Johnson and Sirikit, 2002; Kassim and Bojei, 2002; Arasli et al., 2005;Jabnoun and Khalifa, 2005, Voon, 2006). Nevertheless, it has generated criticisms interms of its basic methodology and conceptualization (Cronin and Taylor, 1992). Teas(1993) questions the validity of the way SERVQUAL conceptualizes and measuresexpectations while Babakus and Boller (1992) identify the use of gap scores andmixed-item wording as two of the major problems. Furthermore, different industriesvary in terms of the service quality dimensions that are relevant (Carman, 1990;Babakus and Mangold, 1992). As such, the instrument may need to be adapted for usein different industries or settings.

Nonetheless, SERVQUAL remains popular whereby many researchers have used itas the starting point in measuring service quality. There have been numerous studiesinvestigating service quality in the foodservice industry (e.g. Stevens et al., 1995) thatapplied or adapted the gap model of Parasuraman et al. (1985) which measures qualitybased on the differences or gaps between customer’s expectations and their perceptions

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of the service performance. In the specific context of the hospitality industry such asrestaurant services, extensions of SERVQUAL are also found. For instance, Stevenset al. (1995) adapted SERVQUAL to the restaurant industry and called it DINESERV.Based on a survey of casual dining, fine dining and quick-service restaurants, theyfound that reliability was most important among restaurant consumers, followed bytangibles, assurance, responsiveness and empathy. The SERVQUAL instrument wasalso applied by Johns and Tyas (1996) to the catering sector where their findingsrevealed that competitive differentiation among food caterers was based on promptservice, reliability, staff behaviours and attractive appearance of facilities, food andstaff. Heung et al. (2000) adapted the DINESERV scale to study desired service levels,adequate service levels and perceived performance in four types of restaurants(Chinese, casual dining, full service and quick service) in an airport in Hong Kong.They found that regardless of the type of restaurant, customers desired convenience inoperating hours, cleanliness, politeness, courtesy, well-dressed employees and readablemenus.

These studies show that the SERVQUAL dimensions have been found to be usefuland relevant in studying service quality in the restaurant industry. However, theyfocus largely on the measurement of service quality for service improvement purposes.What remains poorly researched is how consumers’ cultural orientations influencetheir evaluations of service quality.

Culture and the link with service evaluationsMany authors have attempted to present a concise meaning of what culture is. Forinstance, according to Gupta (2003, p. 69):

. . . culture may be defined as a way of life, cultivated beliefs, learned behaviours, sharedmental programmes, compelling ideologies, and inter-related symbols whose meaningsprovide a set of orientations for members of a society, and are transmitted by them.

Robbins and Stylianou (2001, p. 3) on the other hand offer the following definition:

Culture can be defined as a shared set of values that influence societal perceptions, attitudes,preferences, and responses.

In addition to these, there are a multitude of other definitions and interpretations ofculture. As acknowledged by Kale (1991), the many definitions offered by the literaturepresent difficulties in arriving at a universally-accepted definition of culture.Nonetheless, implicit in many of these definitions is the fact that culture influences thebelief system and perceptions of consumers, and subsequently, their behaviour. In thecontext of marketing, consumers’ cultural values affect their expectations andperceptions of products or services, and therefore, their purchase choices and buyingbehaviour. Companies therefore need to consider the influence of culture in the waythey serve their customers and market their products. Indeed, there have been manystudies showing the influence of culture on advertisements (Cho et al., 1999; Bang et al.,2005), corporate web sites (Robbins and Stylianou, 2001; Singh and Matsuo, 2004;Singh et al., 2005), new product acceptance (Yeniyurt and Townsend, 2003; Singh,2006), retailers’ perceptions of personal selling (Fam and Merrilees, 1998), servicerecovery expectations (Poon et al., 2004; Kanousi, 2005), consumer complaint behaviour(Liu and McClure, 2001) and evaluations of service encounters (Winsted, 1997; Mattila,1999; Stauss and Mang, 1999).

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In attempting to capture and explain systematic differences between cultures ofdifferent societies, culture-level cultural frameworks are necessary to provide arigorous basis for research (Steenkamp, 2001; Singh et al., 2005). One of the earliestones was by Hall who discussed cultural differences in terms of time, space,communication context and friendships (Hall, 1960; Schneider and Barsoux, 2003).More recently, Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (1998) proposed three dimensionsof culture, namely, relationship with nature, people and time. However, Hofstede’sframework is the only one that has received widespread empirical application anddespite the fact that Hofstede originally studied the work values of IBM employees, itspopularity and usefulness in international marketing studies is well documented (Kale,1991; Cho et al., 1999; Steenkamp, 2001; Singh et al., 2005).

Hofstede defines culture as “the collective programming of the mind thatdistinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others” (Hofstedeand Hofstede, 2005, p. 4). From 1967 to 1973, he collected responses to over 116,000questionnaires distributed to IBM employees in 20 languages and 72 countries. Fromthese, the cultural dimensions of power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidanceand masculinity were derived. In the 1980s, a fifth dimension of long-term orientationwas added based on the Bond’s Chinese Value Survey (Hofstede, 2001).

There is evidence to suggest that cultural dimensions have a significant effect onconsumers’ evaluations of service encounters. Mattila (1999) found that Asian leisuretravelers had higher service expectations and desired greater levels of personalattention due to larger power distance. Consequently they gave poorer ratings of briefroutine service encounters as exemplified by the check-out service at a hotel comparedto Western travelers who had lower expectations of personalized service delivery.Winsted (1997) studied the types of behavioural dimensions which restaurantcustomers would use to evaluate service encounters and found differences betweenAmerican and Japanese consumers. In line with the greater emphasis on the role of theindividual and equality of status in American society, the American samplehighlighted behaviours related to friendliness, promptness, being personal andauthentic and having a positive attitude. On the other hand, due to high statusconsciousness and group orientation, Japanese consumers emphasized behaviourssuch as caring, kindness and formality. The study indicated that customers in differentcountries evaluate good service in different ways and therefore, measures and scalesdeveloped in one culture may not always work as well in other cultures.

Liu and McClure (2001) investigated cross-cultural differences in consumercomplaining behaviour between an individualist culture, the USA, and a collectivistculture, South Korea. They found empirical evidence that dissatisfied consumers in acollectivist culture are less likely to voice their dissatisfaction compared to consumersin an individualist culture, but are more likely to engage in private behaviours (eitherexit or negative word-of-mouth). This was seen as being consistent with the norms incollectivist cultures to avoid public expressions of negative emotions in order to saveface and maintain group harmony as well as to avoid unnecessary interactions without-groups such as businesses.

Poon et al. (2004) compared attributions on negative service encounters betweenCanadian and Chinese consumers and found that these were significantly affected bycultural values. Chinese consumers, being more fatalistic, are more likely to believethat the service firm does not have control over the negative event and therefore, they

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need more assurance (through explanations and compensation) that the event will notrecur.

Laroche et al. (2004) did a cross-cultural comparison of perceptions of service qualityand satisfaction for a dental service between Canada, Japan and the USA. They foundthat under conditions of low service performance, Japanese respondents reportedsignificantly higher service quality perceptions and satisfaction than Canadian orAmerican respondents. This was attributed to the desire in collectivist cultures tomaintain harmony in relationships, thereby inhibiting the expression of negativeemotions such as dissatisfaction. The study further noted that due to differences inresponse styles and interpretation of items, not all measures of service quality andsatisfaction are equivalent across cultures.

A few studies have explicitly utilised Hofstede’s framework of cultural dimensions.Kanousi (2005) examined the effect of Hofstede’s dimensions on service recoveryexpectations and found that individualism, masculinity and long-term orientation didaffect certain aspects of service recovery expectations. Malhotra et al. (1994) assertedthat there would be differences in service quality perceptions between customers indeveloped and developing countries due to differences in the economic andsocio-cultural environment and also hypothesized that power distance andcollectivism would be related to the service quality dimensions of competence,courtesy, communication and credibility. A follow-up study by Malhotra et al. (2005)found empirical support for many of these hypotheses.

In one of the few studies to relate Hofstede’s cultural dimensions to service qualitydimensions using the SERVQUAL scale, Donthu and Yoo (1998) tested the effect ofpower distance, uncertainty avoidance, collectivism and long-term orientation on bankconsumers’ expectations of service quality. Masculinity was not tested as the authorsdid not feel it would have any strong relationship with service expectations. Theyfound that customers with higher service quality expectations were those who wereshort-term oriented, individualistic, low on power distance and high on uncertaintyavoidance. Low power distance consumers also had higher expectations of reliabilityand responsiveness while individualistic customers had higher expectations ofempathy and assurance.

Furrer et al. (2000) extended Donthu and Yoo’s (1998) study to investigate thecorrelation between each of Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions with the fiveSERVQUAL dimensions in relation to banking services and used these to identify fivedifferent customer segments based on their service quality expectations. Their studyfocused on weak customers who were frequent users of the service and more oftenserved by a female employee. Their results showed that weak customers in large powerdistance cultures placed less importance on reliability, empathy and responsiveness.This is because weak customers do not expect much and are more tolerant of failurefrom powerful service providers. As for individualist customers, it was found that theyemphasize reliability, responsiveness and tangibles but because of their greaterself-confidence, they have less need of assurance or empathy. There was little empiricalevidence in the study to show that masculinity had any significant effect on servicedimensions other than a weak positive relationship with tangibles and a negativerelationship with responsiveness. For customers of high uncertainty avoidance infrequent service situations, all dimensions of service quality except tangibles areimportant to reduce uncertainties of service failure. For long-term oriented customers,

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reliability and responsiveness were found to be important whereas assurance andtangibles are of less importance due to the expectations of close and enduringrelationships with service providers. A limitation of this study as acknowledged by theauthors themselves is that their findings are restricted to frequent service situationsinvolving weak customers and female service providers. To advance knowledge in thearea, further research needs to be conducted in other service settings.

Tsoukatos and Rand (2007) conducted a similar study as Furrer et al. (2000) inGreek retail insurance. They characterised the industry as involving infrequent servicesituations with weak customers who were mainly served by female employees.Tangibles were excluded from the study as it was felt to be unimportant in Greek retailinsurance. They found power distance, masculinity and uncertainty avoidance to beinversely related to reliability, responsiveness and assurance. Long term orientationwas only significantly related to reliability while uncertainty avoidance had nosignificant correlation with any dimension of service quality. While their study alsofound that the importance of service quality dimensions is affected by the culturalprofiles of customers, there is a limitation in the methodology used. There was noattempt to confirm the factor structure of Hofstede’s dimensions and the relationshipsbetween the dimensions of service quality and culture were examined using Pearson’scorrelation. Our study employs a more rigorous methodology using structural equationmodeling to verify the dimensions of the cultural values and service quality constructsas well as the relationships between them.

Theoretical framework and research hypothesesIn Malaysia, foodservice premises include restaurants, street stalls and pubs/bars.Restaurants may be either limited-service or full-service facilities and involve limited,medium-contact encounters between customers and service providers. Inlimited-service restaurants, customers give their orders at a counter and payimmediately (Davis and Steward, 2002). In the Malaysian context, this includesfast-food chains such as McDonald’s and Pizza Hut as well as cafeteria-style outlets.Full-service restaurants have table service and generally have more elaborate diningamenities and decor (Davis and Steward, 2002). This study examines expectations forfull-service restaurants as the type of service and facilities provided in suchestablishments fit better with the SERVQUAL instrument.

Power distancePower distance is “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions andorganizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally”(Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005, p. 46). In large power distance societies, hierarchy andinequalities among people are both expected and desired. There tends to be moreinequalities in power and wealth. The powerful are entitled and expected to have statussymbols and privileges while the less powerful are expected to be dependent on themore powerful.

According to Donthu and Yoo (1998), service providers generally have some degreeof power over their customers. In the case of restaurant services, customers aredependent on the service provider in terms of the expertise and equipment used in mealpreparation and table service. Indeed, Generation Y customers depend on therestaurant as an alternative to preparing their own meals. Higher power distance

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customers are more willing to accept being dependent on someone with more powerthan them in a certain situation. They will therefore have more respect for therestaurant employees, be more tolerant of service failure and consequently have lowerservice quality expectations compared to low power distance customers (Donthu andYoo, 1998).

H1. Power distance will be negatively related to all dimensions of service quality(tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy).

Individualism and collectivismIndividualist societies are those in which “the interests of the individual prevail overthe interests of the group” (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005, p. 75). They are characterizedby self-orientation, identity based on the individual, low-context communication,emotional independence from institutions or organizations, emphasis on individualachievement, privacy and autonomy. In contrast, collectivist societies emphasizebelonging to in-groups to which one is expected to remain loyal throughout one’slifetime. It is considered important to maintain social harmony and to avoid directconfrontation. Collectivist customers desire harmony and interdependence in socialrelationships (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005). They will therefore be more tolerant ofmistakes and have lower expectations of reliability but will have a greater need for theservice provider to show empathy, assurance and responsiveness. They will also havea greater need to be assured of the quality of service by using tangibles as surrogateevidence.

H2. Collectivism will be negatively related to reliability but positively related totangibles, responsiveness, assurance and empathy.

MasculinityMasculinity and femininity are defined by Hofstede as referring to “the dominantgender role patterns (Hofstede, 2001, p. 284) in society. Masculine societies emphasizeassertiveness and material success in men while women are supposed to be moretender and caring. Masculine cultures stress ambition, results and rewards based onperformance. Feminine cultures are more concerned with equality, welfare, quality oflife, compromise and negotiation.

Furrer et al. (2000) hypothesized that masculinity would affect service expectationsdepending on whether the service provider is male or female. Nonetheless, thishypothesis was not fully supported by their findings. We believe that the gender of theservice provider is less important than the type of values required by the job itself. Asstated by Hofstede and Hofstede (2005), jobs in which human contact is at the corerequire feminine values regardless of whether the employee is a man or woman. In thecase of restaurants, feminine values such as friendliness, caring and helpfulness arerequired from both male and female service providers, and customers would not expectpoorer service just because the employee is a male.

H3. Masculinity will not be significantly related to any of the service qualitydimensions.

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Uncertainty avoidanceUncertainty avoidance refers to “the extent to which the members of a culture feelthreatened by ambiguous or unknown situations” (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005, p.167). High uncertainty avoidance societies have a need for rules to reduce ambiguity,prefer structure in organizations and relationships, have low tolerance for behaviorsand ideas that are different and have more resistance to change.

Furrer et al. (2000) claim that in frequent service situations, customers seek toreduce perceived risks of service failure rather than to reduce ambiguity. Tangibles aretherefore less important in reducing these risks. We argue that even in frequent servicesituations, there is still the uncertainty that future service will not be of the samequality compared to what the customer has received in the past. This is likely to be thecase for services such as restaurants which involve medium to high-level of humancontact where it is more difficult to maintain a consistent level of service quality.Tangibles play a role in assuring customers that the service quality is beingmaintained. If the appearance of facilities and staff has deteriorated, this could verylikely cause customers to begin doubting the quality of the service itself. Forrestaurants, the physical environment is a key component of the service experience.Customers are therefore likely to use tangibles together with the other service qualitydimensions as a means to reduce their uncertainty regarding the quality of the service,regardless of the frequency of the service situation. In this regard, it is expected thathigh uncertainty avoidance customers will have higher expectations in all servicequality dimensions as they are more cautious and do not like unpleasant surprises.

H4. Uncertainty avoidance will be positively related to all dimensions of servicequality (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy).

Long-term orientation (Confucian dynamism)The fifth dimension, long-term orientation, was originated from a survey of Chinesevalues conducted on university students in 22 countries (Chinese Culture Connection,1987). Long-term oriented societies look towards the future and value perseverance,thrift, adaptiveness, self-discipline, virtue and having a sense of shame. Short-termoriented societies are more oriented towards the past and present whereby their normsinclude belief in quick results, social pressure to spend, concern with personal stabilityand valuing freedom, achievement and truth. Long-term oriented consumersemphasise perseverance and sustained efforts (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005). Asthey are future-oriented, they will also look for evidence that it is worthwhile to returnto the same service provider in future. As such, they will have higher expectations ofservice quality in all dimensions.

H5. Long-term orientation will be positively related to all dimensions of servicequality (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy).

Figure 1 summarises the theoretical framework for the variables to be examined.

MethodologyThis paper presents the findings of an exploratory study carried out in Malaysia. Themain purpose was to examine the influence of individual-level cultural dimensions onGeneration Y consumers’ expectations of service quality, specifically in the foodserviceindustry. The structured questionnaire survey method was used to collect data on the

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self-evaluated cultural values (independent variable) and service quality expectations(dependent variable).

Research instrumentThe individual-level cultural values were operationalised using Yoo and Donthu’s(2002) 26-item scale which adapted Hofstede’s work-oriented items of national culture.The scale has been found to display adequate reliability and validity in measuringHofstede’s dimensions of culture at the individual level (Yoo and Donthu, 2002). Thecultural values items for power distance, collectivism, masculinity and uncertaintyavoidance were evaluated on a seven-point Likert-type scale anchored as 1 ¼ Stronglydisagree and 7 ¼ Strongly agree while the Confucian dynamism items were evaluatedas 1 ¼ Strongly unimportant and 7 ¼ Strongly important.

Service quality expectations were assessed based on the 22 items of theSERVQUAL scale using a seven-point scale ranging from 1 ¼ Strongly disagree to7 ¼ Strongly agree. The version used was adapted to the restaurant industry by Yunand Hing (1995). Expectations are defined as “predictions of what is likely to happen”(Walker, 1995, p. 6) and form the standards against which actual performance will bejudged (Bearden and Teel, 1983). In this study, the type of expectations measured ispredictive expectations or what is likely to happen rather than normative expectationsor what should happen (Boulding et al., 1993; Spreng et al., 1996). This is in line withthe revised SERVQUAL questionnaire in which the authors of SERVQUAL changedthe original “should” terminology to “would” because they acknowledged thatmeasuring “should” expectations might result in unrealistically high scores(Parasuraman et al., 1991).

Data collectionThe data for this structured questionnaire survey was collected from studentsattending pre-university and undergraduate programmes at two Malaysianuniversities (one private and one public university). These youths were intentionally

Figure 1.Dimensions of culturalvalues and service qualityexpectations

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chosen as they were good representations of the Generation Y within the appropriateage group. No mature student was included in the study. Aside from this, these studentsamples also constitute a reasonably homogenous group from a demographicstandpoint in terms of occupation, education level and age (Furrer et al., 2000; Larocheet al., 2004; Kanousi, 2005). The survey instrument was in English as this is the mainmedium of instruction for the students who participated in the survey. A total of 470self-completion questionnaires were distributed to the randomly selected classes ofstudents. The personal-contact method was used and lecturers were responsible for thedistributions. Only students who were willing to participate in the survey were giventhe questionnaire. The duly completed questionnaires were returned to pre-assignedcollection boxes. Hence, the whole data collection process was anonymous. After twoweeks of fieldwork, a total of 240 usable questionnaires were obtained and the responserate was 51.1 percent. The sample consisted of 61 males (25.4 percent) and 179 females(74.6 percent).

Results and analysisThe data collected was first carefully screened for missing values. Seven cases withrandomly missing values were found whereby these cases were deleted as theycomprised less than 5 percent of the sample (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2001). Univariateoutliers were identified as those with standardized scores exceeding 3.29 (Tabachnickand Fidell, 2001). These were cases with extreme scores that nonetheless appeared tobe a legitimate part of the sample, therefore they were retained but steps were taken toreduce their impact by changing the score on the outlier by one unit larger (or smaller)to be less deviant. This is considered a viable method of dealing with univariateoutliers since the measurement of variables is often arbitrary to begin with(Tabachnick and Fidell, 2001). Mahalanobis distance was computed to check formultivariate outliers. Only a minimal number of cases were found and these wereretained as deleting a large number of outliers may risk limiting the generalizability ofthe results (Hair et al., 1998). Furthermore, transformation or score alteration may notbe effective for multivariate outliers as it is the combination of scores on two or morevariables that is aberrant rather than the score on a particular variable (Tabachnickand Fidell, 2001).

The data was also screened for normality using critical values for skewness andkurtosis. Kurtosis was not found to be a significant problem. On the other hand, a largenumber of variables were skewed. This is not surprising because for samples thatcome from the same cultural background, some degree of homogeneity would beexpected in their responses. In other words, their responses for cultural values wouldbe expected to cluster around a certain value on the scale. For instance, collectivisticsocieties would be expected to have above-average ratings on the collectivism scalerather than a normal distribution. Likewise, if culture affects service qualityexpectations as hypothesised, groups that are culturally similar should have similarlevels of service quality expectations, hence the service quality responses would alsonot be normally distributed. As such, instead of transforming the data, bootstrappingwill be used to generate parameter estimates since it does not require the assumption ofnormality (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2001).

To assess the factor structure, exploratory factor analysis was conducted. Principalcomponent method was used with varimax rotation for the cultural values scale while

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oblique rotation was used for the service quality scale as the dimensions are expectedto have inter-correlations (Parasuraman et al., 1988; Babakus and Boller, 1992; Croninand Taylor, 1992). Items with factor loadings above 0.4 (Hair et al., 1998), eigenvaluesgreater than 1.0 (Hair et al., 1998) and factors with at least three indicator items(Anderson and Gerbing, 1988; Baumgartner and Homburg, 1996) were retained.Variables with similar loadings on more than one factor were deleted (Hair et al., 1998),as were items that did not conceptually belong to the factor. Coefficient alphas anditem-to-total correlations were computed each time items were deleted (Flynn andPearcy, 2001, Choi et al., 2004).

A three-factor structure for the service quality scale was obtained explaining 53.91percent of the overall variance. The responsiveness, assurance and empathy itemsloaded onto the same dimension. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of samplingadequacy was 0.906, higher than the recommended value of 0.6 and above (Tabachnickand Fidell, 2001) while the Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant at p , 0:001,thus indicating that the sample size was adequate for factor analysis. The items on thecultural values scale loaded as expected onto five dimensions corresponding to thetheory and explaining 59.68 percent of the variance. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measureof sampling adequacy was 0.784 and the Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant atp , 0:001 indicating the suitability of the sample for factor analysis. Table I shows thescale reliabilities and factor loadings obtained from the exploratory factor analysis. Allthe individual scales met the minimum reliability threshold of 0.70 (Nunnally andBernstein, 1994; Hair et al., 1998). Descriptive statistics of the service quality andcultural values items are reported in Appendices A and B respectively.

The exploratory factor analysis was then followed by a confirmatory factor analysisto further evaluate and refine the scales (Gerbing and Anderson, 1988). Items withstandardized loadings below 0.50 were eliminated while maintaining a minimum ofthree indicators per dimension. These consisted of item 1 for tangibles, item 7 forresponsiveness/ assurance/empathy and item 1 for collectivism. The final resultsindicate a reasonable level of fit as a number of fit statistics were within the generallyacceptable limits: x2¼860.57, df¼601, x2 /df¼1.432, p , 0:001; CFI¼0.92; TLI¼0.91;IFI¼0.92; RMSEA¼0.043; SRMR¼0.058. Bollen-Stine bootstrap p ¼ 0:074, thus themodel is accepted at the 0.05 significant level. Table II shows the standardized loadingsfor the scale items.

The hypotheses are tested through the intercorrelations of the constructs in themeasurement model. As shown in Table III, power distance is negatively correlatedwith all dimensions of service quality ranging from 0.0160 (p , 0:05) to 0.341(p , 0:001). This supports H1. Both collectivism and masculinity are not significantlyrelated to all the dimensions of service quality. This provides support for H3 but onlydirectional support for the dimensions of responsiveness/assurance/empathy andtangibles in H2. Uncertainty avoidance and Confucian dynamism are all significantlyand positively correlated with all the service quality dimensions. Therefore, H4 and H5are supported.

Discussion and implicationsThis study contributes to our larger understanding of culture and service quality in anumber of areas (see Tables IV and V. First, it underscores the importance of obtainingindividual-level measurements of cultural values rather than relying on country-level

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Scale itemsCronbach

alphaItem-to-totalcorrelation

Factorloadings

Cultural valuesCollectivism 0.7231. Sacrifice self-interest for the group 0.433 0.6562. Stick with the group even through difficulties 0.509 0.7103. Group welfare is more important than individual

rewards 0.630 0.8264. Group success is more important than individual

success. 0.493 0.723Uncertainty avoidance 0.8431. It is important to have instructions spelled out in detail 0.541 0.7162. It is important to closely follow instructions and

procedures 0.670 0.7883. Rules/regulations are important to me 0.713 0.8284. Standardized work procedures are helpful 0.666 0.7675. Instructions for operations are important 0.665 0.755Masculinity 0.7981. It is more important for men to have a professional

career 0.618 0.7732. Men solve problems with logical analysis, women with

intuition 0.708 0.8193. Solving difficult problems usually requires an active

forcible approach which is typical of men 0.628 0.7394. There are some jobs that a man can always do better 0.514 0.691Power distance 0.8321. People in higher positions should make most decisions

without consulting people in lower positions 0.586 0.6932. People in higher positions should not ask the opinions

of people in lower positions too frequently 0.613 0.6753. People in higher positions should avoid social

interaction with people in lower positions 0.705 0.8064. People in higher positions should not delegate

important tasks to people in lower positions 0.611 0.7475. People in lower positions should not disagree with

decisions made by people in higher positions 0.647 0.805Long-term orientation 0.7551. Careful management of money (thrift) 0.461 0.6242. Going on resolutely in spite of opposition (persistence) 0.482 0.7073. Personal steadiness and stability 0.613 0.7414. Long-term planning 0.610 0.7365. Working hard for success in future 0.460 0.663Overall coefficient alpha 0.798

Service quality expectationsTangibles 0.7441. Modern-looking equipment 0.453 0.7972. Visually attractive physical facilities 0.627 0.7663. Neat appearance of staff 0.498 0.5274. Visually attractive materials 0.621 0.703

(continued )

Table I.Reliability and factor

analysis on culturalvalues and service

quality expectations

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scores. This is because although Malaysia was ranked No. 1 in terms of power distancein Hofstede’s country scores (Hofstede, 2001), the power distance scores in this study(in Table V) were below the mid-point of the scale (mean of 3.14) and were in fact thelowest among all the cultural dimensions. The discrepancy is not surprising given thatHofstede’s data was collected from 1967-1973 and was based on samples of IBMemployees whereas our sample consists of young consumers in 2007. Fam andMerrilees (1998) also found differences between Hofstede’s 1970 measures and data oncollectivism which they collected in 1995 for Australia and Hong Kong. They foundthat in comparison to Hofstede’s scores, Australia was becoming more collectivistwhile Hong Kong was becoming more individualist. Similarly, Tsoukatos and Rand(2007) discovered differences between their measurements of individual level culturalvalues and Hofstede’s scores. Since country scores may vary from the score of aspecific segment in the society (Kale, 1991), our study has highlighted the need forresearchers to collect contemporary data on cultural values of individuals. In line withthis, the present study has supplied evidence to validate the use of an instrument tomeasure individual-level cultural values. Yoo and Donthu’s (2002) scale was found toprovide reliable and valid measures of cultural values. In addition, Hofstede’s culturalframework has been given empirical support through this study in which the culturalvalue items loaded as expected onto the theoretical five factors. We have thereforeanswered the call for more precise measurements of culture which is especiallyrelevant given the global nature of services in the current marketplace (Tsoukatos andRand, 2007).

The failure of the SERVQUAL dimensions to fit the five-factor structure is in linewith previous literature (Buttle, 1996), especially the tendency for overlap between thedimensions of responsiveness, empathy and assurance (Asubonteng et al., 1996). In thepresent study, all three dimensions loaded onto the same factor resulting in athree-factor solution. Previous studies have also produced three-factor structures. Forinstance, Arasli et al. (2005) found three dimensions, namely, tangibles,

Scale itemsCronbach

alphaItem-to-totalcorrelation

Factorloadings

Reliability 0.7731. Genuine interest in solving customers’ problem 0.598 0.8082. Performs service right the first time 0.584 0.7143. Provides service at the time it promises to do so 0.604 0.6374. Error-free service 0.525 0.408Responsiveness, assurance and empathy 0.8601. Prompt service 0.614 0.6062. Willingness to help 0.631 0.6953. Never too busy to respond to requests 0.553 0.5874. Customers feel safe in their transactions 0.561 0.5625. Knowledge to answer customers’ questions 0.592 0.6876. Individual attention to customers’ needs 0.659 0.6877. Convenient operating hours 0.461 0.5798. Personal attention 0.611 0.8599. Have customers’ best interests at heart 0.609 0.624Overall coefficient alpha 0.896Table I.

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Scale itemsStandardized

loadings

Cultural valuesCollectivism1. Stick with the group even through difficulties 0.4782. Group welfare is more important than individual rewards 0.9223. Group success is more important than individual success 0.677Uncertainty avoidance1. It is important to have instructions spelled out in detail 0.6182. It is important to closely follow instructions and procedures 0.7233. Rules/regulations are important to me 0.7424. Standardized work procedures are helpful 0.7825. Instructions for operations are important 0.775Masculinity1. It is more important for men to have a professional career 0.7112. Men solve problems with logical analysis; women with intuition 0.8113. Solving difficult problems usually requires an active forcible approach which is

typical of men 0.7544. There are some jobs that a man can always do better 0.572Power distance1. People in higher positions should make most decisions without consulting people

in lower positions 0.6652. People in higher positions should not ask the opinions of people in lower positions

too frequently 0.6873. People in higher positions should avoid social interaction with people in lower

positions 0.8044. People in higher positions should not delegate important tasks to people in lower

positions 0.6835. People in lower positions should not disagree with decisions made by people in

higher positions 0.700Long-term orientation1. Careful management of money (thrift) 0.5392. Going on resolutely in spite of opposition (persistence) 0.5143. Personal steadiness and stability 0.7404. Long-term planning 0.7885. Working hard for success in future 0.515Service quality expectationsTangibles1. Visually attractive physical facilities 0.6532. Neat appearance of staff 0.7293. Visually attractive materials 0.760Reliability1. Genuine interest in solving customers’ problem 0.7342. Performs service right the first time 0.6823. Provides service at the time it promises to do so 0.6854. Error-free service 0.634Responsiveness, assurance and empathy1. Prompt service 0.6772. Willingness to help 0.6953. Never too busy to respond to requests 0.6074. Customers feel safe in their transactions 0.6055. Knowledge to answer customers’ questions 0.6396. Individual attention to customers’ needs 0.7227. Personal attention 0.6398. Have customers’ best interests at heart 0.666

Table II.Standardized factor

loadings for culturalvalues and service

quality expectations

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empathy/responsiveness and reliability. The assurance dimension was eliminated.Zhou (2004) also discovered a three-factor pattern comprising tangibility, empathy/responsiveness, and reliability/assurance. A possible explanation is that thedimensions of empathy, responsiveness and assurance as they are currentlymeasured by the SERVQUAL items lack adequate discriminant validity, leadingrespondents to consider them as conceptually similar (Smith, 1999). This issue is raisedonce again in the context of Generation Y restaurant consumers in Malaysia. Whileprevious research on the use of SERVQUAL in the restaurant industry has found thescale to be useful, our findings suggest the need for further refinement of the individualscale items, especially those relating to the dimensions of empathy, responsiveness andassurance. The implication for both service researchers and practitioners is that futureefforts to measure service quality, particularly in different cultures, should payattention towards improving the validity of the instrument. It is likely that this willrequire the amendment or replacement of existing items and the inclusion of additionaldimensions that may be more culturally meaningful.

PDI COLL MAS UAI LO

Tangibles 20.341* 0.049 20.092 0.336* 0.424*Reliability 20.338* 0.092 20.115 0.445* 0.627*Responsiveness/assurance/empathy 20.160** 0.106 0.014 0.348* 0.366*

Notes: *p , 0.001; **p , 0.05PDI¼Power distance, COLL¼Collectivism, MAS¼Masculinity, UAI¼Uncertainty avoidance,CD¼Confucian Dynamism

Table III.Relationships betweendimensions of culturalvalues and servicequality expectations

Mean Standard deviation

Tangibles1. Modern-looking equipment 5.22 1.362. Visually attractive physical facilities 5.74 1.043. Neat appearance of staff 6.00 1.064. Visually attractive materials 5.64 1.00Reliability1. Genuine interest in solving customers’ problem 5.90 1.122. Performs service right the first time 5.93 1.033. Provides service at the time it promises to do so 5.99 1.014. Error-free service 5.84 1.18Responsiveness, assurance and empathy1. Prompt service 5.83 1.192. Willingness to help 5.51 1.273. Never too busy to respond to requests 5.79 1.214. Customers feel safe in their transactions 5.64 1.135. Knowledge to answer customers’ questions 5.30 1.206. Individual attention to customers’ needs 5.57 1.127. Convenient operating hours 5.69 1.198. Personal attention 5.22 1.399. Have customers’ best interests at heart 5.58 1.19

Table IV.Measure of servicequality expectations

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Our findings also add to the growing body of empirical evidence confirming thegeneral conclusions of previous researchers who have noted that service expectationsvary across cultures. We found partial support for our initial contention that culturalvalues influence consumers’ service quality expectations. With the exception ofmasculinity and collectivism, the other cultural dimensions were significantly relatedto service quality expectations. Based on the results provided by our data, GenerationY consumers with lower power distance, higher uncertainty avoidance and higherConfucian Dynamism had higher service quality expectations. A study conducted

MeanStandarddeviation

Collectivism1. Individuals should sacrifice self-interest for the group that they

belong to 4.11 1.662. Individuals should stick with the group even through difficulties 4.67 1.573. Group welfare is more important than individual rewards 4.82 1.444. Group success is more important than individual success 4.68 1.57Uncertainty avoidance1. It is important to have instructions spelled out in detail so that I

always know what I’m expected to do 5.24 1.262. It is important to closely follow instructions and procedures 5.28 1.193. Rules/regulations are important because they inform me of what

is expected of me 5.33 1.174. Standardized work procedures are helpful 5.40 1.205. Instructions for operations are important 5.73 1.14Masculinity1. It is more important for men to have a professional career than it is

for women 3.95 2.112. Men usually solve problems with logical analysis; women solve

problems with intuition 4.28 1.793. Solving difficult problems usually requires an active forcible

approach which is typical of men 4.33 1.634. There are some jobs that a man can always do better than a

woman 4.96 1.66Power distance1. People in higher positions should make most decisions without

consulting people in lower positions 3.49 1.882. People in higher positions should not ask the opinions of people in

lower positions too frequently 3.27 1.833. People in higher positions should avoid social interaction with

people in lower positions 2.46 1.734. People in higher positions should not delegate important tasks to

people in lower positions 3.30 1.755. People in lower positions should not disagree with decisions made

by people in higher positions 3.17 1.76Long-term orientation1. Careful management of money (thrift) 5.74 1.212. Going on resolutely in spite of opposition (persistence) 5.15 1.153. Personal steadiness and stability 5.85 1.074. Long-term planning 6.02 1.065. Working hard for success in future 6.04 1.07

Table V.Measure of cultural

values

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among Asian youths found that they are increasingly sophisticated and materialisticconsumers with growing affluence and self-confidence (Yasue and Gu, 2001). Hofstedeand Hofstede (2005) suggest that power distance declines as wealth and educationlevels increase. This implies that Asian youths are therefore likely to be lower in powerdistance. Empirical support for this has been provided by our study where the powerdistance scores for our sample were the lowest compared to the other culturaldimensions. These results indicate that the Generation Y consumer in Asia is likely tohave higher expectations of service quality and should encourage managers andemployees in the restaurant industry to improve service delivery to this segment asthey represent the future market with a potentially high customer life time value ifrepeat business can be generated. In addition, our study reveals that all aspects ofservice quality are important to this segment as all the dimensions of service qualitywere significantly related to power distance, uncertainty avoidance and ConfucianDynamism. Generation Y consumers expect prompt and reliable service with visuallyappealing facilities and well-groomed staff. They also desire service employees to becourteous, caring and competent. Along with Furrer et al. (2000) and Tsoukatos andRand (2007), our findings affirm that culture influences evaluations of service qualityand therefore suggests the relevance of culture as a segmentation variable to guideservice delivery strategies and resource allocation.

Limitations and directions for future researchThis study has several limitations which provide avenues for future research. Due tothe exploratory nature of this study, our research did not differentiate between specifictypes of full-service restaurants such as casual dining and fine-dining. Limited-servicerestaurants have also been excluded. Follow-up studies to verify our findings shouldfocus on more specific sub-sectors of the restaurant industry. We have used auniversity student sample as a proxy for the Generation Y market. However, thisexcludes other age groups also falling under Generation Y such as youngerschool-going teens. The generalizability of our findings should therefore be treatedcautiously pending further studies examining a broader range of Generation Yconsumers with larger and more representative sample sizes.

Our study did not examine potential moderators of the relationship between culturalvalues and service quality expectations such as gender. Furthermore, as suggested byMattila (1999), the extent to which cultural background influences evaluations ofservice encounters may depend on factors such as purchase motivation, taskcomplexity and type of customer contact. Incorporating these variables in futureresearch would greatly assist service practitioners to assess the degree of culturalcustomization required in a particular type of service encounter.

This study has also shown that a well-validated measurement instrument forservice quality in the restaurant industry is still lacking. Despite some efforts towardsdeveloping a scale to measure restaurant service quality (e.g. Bojanic and Rosen, 1994;Knutson et al., 1995; Johns and Tyas, 1996; Soriano, 2003), none of the proposedinstruments have been properly validated in follow-up studies. Our research suggests aneed to develop localized versions of the SERVQUAL instrument with culture-specificitems in order to improve the validity of the measurement instrument across cultures.

Contrary to our expectations and prior research (Donthu and Yoo, 1998; Furrer et al.,2000), collectivism was not significantly related to service quality dimensions in this

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study. Although our finding is supported by Tsoukatos and Rand (2007), ourconclusions on this issue must necessarily remain tentative till further research canclarify the conflicting results with previous studies. It may be instructive to use otheritems to measure collectivism. For instance, our study did not differentiate betweenhorizontal and vertical collectivism and individualism (Triandis, 1993; Triandis andGelfand, 1998). Future studies to verify and extend our findings could also employalternative measures of cultural values based on frameworks other than Hofstede, forinstance, Schwartz’s value dimensions (Ng et al., 2007).

In addition, this study focused only on the restaurant industry. As such, ourfindings need to be validated in other types of service industries. Finally, an extensionof this study would be to conduct a cross-national replication examining how culturalvalues affect service quality expectations among consumers from different countries.

ConclusionThis exploratory study contributes to the under-researched area of service qualityexpectations in relation to the important market segment of young consumers indeveloping countries. Besides, we have validated a measurement instrument forindividual-level cultural values and established the need for cultural adaptation of theSERVQUAL scale in the context of the Malaysian restaurant industry. Moreimportantly, this study has also examined the influence of culture on the servicequality expectations of Generation Y consumers. It has discovered that this segment islow in power distance and therefore likely to have high service expectations. In general,our findings highlight the importance of understanding the cultural background ofconsumers in designing strategies for effective service delivery and customer serviceexpectation management.

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About the authorsKaren Kueh is a Lecturer in the School of Business at Swinburne University of Technology(Sarawak Campus). Her research interests focus on cultural values, service quality and websitequality. She has published in the Australasian Marketing Journal and a number of local as wellas international conferences. She has also co-authored a case study in Services Marketing: AnAsia-Pacific and Australian Perspective (4th edition). Karen Kueh is the corresponding author andcan be contacted at kkueh@swinburne.edu.my

Boo Ho Voon is a marketing lecturer in the Faculty of Business Management at UniversitiTeknologi MARA Sarawak, Malaysia. His research interests include marketing research, marketorientation and service quality. He has published papers in international journals andconferences. His ServEx scale can help to diagnose and improve service excellence orientation ofservice organisations.

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