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Sorenson Best Paper Award Recipient CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES OF SERVICE QUALITY AND RISK IN AIR TRANSPORTATION

This study examines customer perceptions of services provided by commercial airline companies across cultures. The effectiveness of existing measures of service quality in predicting customer satisfaction and intention to repatronize the services is also assessed. U.S. and Korean customers are compared in terms of their service quality perceptions, satisfaction and repatronage intentions based on SERVPERF, industry-based measures and various types of perceived risks. SERVPERF is a widely-used set of multi-dimensional measures of customer evaluations of service quality. Survey results indicate that: (1) U.S. passengers are generally more satisfied with their airline service than Korean customers on most of the SERVPERF dimensions; (2) Korean passengers are generally more satisfied with bumping procedures whereas U.S. participants feel more satisfied with the airline's baggage handling, operations/safety and connections; and (3) U.S. passengers perceive higher levels of performance and financial risks in choosing an airline whereas Koreans feel greater social risk. Results also suggest that U.S. customers consider service reliability, in-flight comfort and connections as the key factors in determining satisfaction with airline service whereas Korean passengers generally regard reliability, assurance and risk factors as predictors of satisfaction. The determining factors of customer intention to repatronize the airline are reliability and empathy for U.S., and reliability and overall risk for Korean customers. The SERVPERF scale is demonstrated to be applicable in cross-cultural studies and seems to offer some predictive ability for satisfaction and repatronization of services. Overall findings suggest that implementing a simple service standardization across different countries can be risky in the international airline industry since consumers in different countries view the merits and faults of the same service differently.