Managing Intercultural Service Encounters

Global service sector growth and the contracting out of services have produced a complex business environment that has major challenges for corporate success. Nowhere is this more evident than in intercultural service encounters where the delivery of service standards has become integral to developing a competitive advantage and inducing customer loyalty. This chapter identifies the various aspects of service delivery that are significantly influenced by culture. The chapter explains the dimensions of culture that have been found by cross-cultural researchers to be essential to service delivery success and describes how cross cultural training can be used effectively in the international service sector.