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Proposes to provide practicing managers and academic researchers with a framework that will help them to understand better the nature of domestic inter‐cultural service encounters.

Social identity theory is used to demonstrate how salient identity cues such as physiognomy, linguistic, and behavioral differences are likely to influence customer expectations during initial and subsequent encounters between domestic customers and culturally distant service providers.

The framework developed, and the associated propositions, provide practicing managers with insights into how domestic service customers are likely to respond to domestic inter‐cultural service encounters.

Domestic intercultural service encounters have special practical implications for staffing policy and training requirements in service organizations (e.g. there may be ethical and legal challenges for service organizations that refuse to hire service providers unless they can demonstrate competence in the domestic language, customs, etc., or because of visible salient cultural identity cues).

Existing service encounter frameworks do not address the role that cultural identity plays in service exchange relationships. The value of this paper is that it uses cultural identity theory to extend an existing model that examines the nature and determinants of customer expectations of service. This extension enhances managers' understanding of service exchange relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a new measure called the “culture cushion” to account for the inherent positivity surrounding the inter‐cultural tourist experience.

The first study involved the identification of items for the culture cushion construct and included a semi‐structured questionnaire and a panel discussion. The second study assessed unidimensionality and the convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity of the culture cushion dimensions. Respondents were asked to answer questions about a specific international consumption experience and responded to scale items measuring the culture cushion construct.

A two‐dimensional measure of culture cushion was found to predict satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Judgments were more positive when the encounter was novel relative to previous experiences.

Additional studies involving travel locations other than those used in this study should be conducted to investigate alternate effects of the culture cushion.

A major motivation of recreational tourists traveling internationally includes the ability to observe and participate in activities that are culturally unique. Firms that cater to international tourist clientele should focus on operationalizing country‐specific cultural aspects of the experience to enhance overall perceptions.

The international tourist operates within a dual country framework, using his/her own cultural “lens” to notice the uniqueness of the foreign culture while striving to understand and participate in authentic encounters. The culture cushion construct offers a novel measure of the positivity that occurs in culturally unique inter‐cultural experiences.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a theoretical framework, the holistic mental model process, with major contextual factors (cultural, situation, cognitive and affective contexts) to help better understand tourists’ perception and evaluation of intercultural tourists–tour guide service encounters.

Summary tables of an extensive literature review of previous empirical studies relating to intercultural service encounters, service encounter and service quality to help derive the holistic mental model process framework are included.

Gaps from the previous literature were identified along with in-depth explanations as to how a holistic mental model process can be applied to tourists evaluating intercultural tourist–tour guide service encounters and the service quality of their overall travel experience.

The current conceptual framework of the holistic mental model process targets specifically on the intercultural tourists–tour guide service encounters. More in-depth empirical studies can be conducted focusing on specific variables of the intercultural tourist–tour guide service encounters and on the factor differences between specific cultures.

This research has practical implications for travel agencies and tourism companies. Travel agencies and tour companies can apply the holistic mental model process framework to examine and analyze the influential variables between tourists and tour guide (i.e. cultural differences, etiquette, norms and behaviors), thus design better tour guide training programs accordingly.

Service encounter is a social activity that is influenced by the social environment. To achieve the best service quality, all parties, including tourists, tour guide, tour companies, host community, must understand cultural differences; work together in coordination and cooperation.

This is the first study that provides an in-depth holistic mental model process by integrating major contextual factors to examine tourists’ evaluation of intercultural service encounters between themselves and tour guides.

The purpose of this paper is to present a review of the literature within the fields of public librarianship, social exclusion and empathy.

The cross‐disciplinary review involved the consultation of material from disciplines including library and information management, politics, social policy and social sciences, cultural studies, psychology, management and organizational theory. It was structured according to the following themes: exclusion, inclusion and social policy, social inclusion in public services and the cultural sector, the role of public libraries in social inclusion and professional empathy and the public library service. Findings –The concept of social inclusion remains at the core of public library policy and strategy, and is embedded in contemporary social theory. Conflicting views have emerged as to the perceived and actual role of the public library in combating social exclusion, with a need expressed for research to be conducted that bridges the gap between the “philosophical” interpretations of community librarianship and the more practical, “real world” studies, in order to fully understand the concept of community librarianship. A critical link is made between social inclusion and public librarianship to professional empathy.

The paper provides an edited version of the overall literature review, yet it is felt that it would be of theoretical and practical relevance and value to the professional and academic communities.

Empathy is a relatively new concept in librarianship research, and prior to the study of which this review forms a part only limited findings have been available.

This study aims to investigate whether and how strongly cultural (mis)matches influence immigrant customers’ satisfaction, as well as if this relationship is mediated by cultural or service employee performance attributions. In addition, the authors test whether attributions differ depending on the service delivery outcome (success vs failure).

The 2 (origin of service employee: Austria or Turkey) × 2 (service delivery outcome: success or failure) scenario-based experiment includes 120 Turkish immigrant customers in Austria.

Contrary to previous research, the results indicate that in an immigrant customer context, cultural (mis)match does not influence customer satisfaction. The service delivery outcome is a boundary condition. With a positive service delivery outcome, immigrant customers attribute the results to the cultural background of the employee if it is the same as their own, but they attribute success to employees’ performance if they belong to the immigration destination culture. For negative service delivery outcomes, neither cultural nor performance attributions arise.

This study is the first to focus specifically on immigrant customer behavior in a high-involvement service context. The results challenge the predictions of social identity theory and the similarity-attraction paradigm and highlight that the immigrant context is unique. In this context, attributions play a key role in determining customer satisfaction.

A significant body of research has now been accumulated in the intercultural service encounter (ICSE) literature. However, no study to date has provided scholars and practitioners with a systematic review to map and better understand the ICSE domain.

To fill this gap, the authors systematically review and critically examine the state of academic research on ICSE.

Based on a systematic review of 31 journal articles published over the last two decades, the results illustrate that ICSE research is a vibrant and rapidly growing stream of the broader international business domain, and it is topically and methodologically diverse. This review also identifies significant knowledge gaps related to the adoption of different theoretical orientations by researchers examining ICSE at different levels of analysis, a lack of contextual positioning, as well as poor methodological rigor.

Based on the findings, the authors introduce a multilevel and multidisciplinary conceptual framework that integrates the concepts of emotional intelligence (EI) and intercultural communication competence (ICC) as the key variables that explain trust development during the interaction between two key culturally different stakeholders: service providers (employees) and service receivers (customers). Finally, the authors discuss the contributions and implications for both academics and practitioners.

The article “Culture shocks” in inter-cultural service encounters was published in 1999. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the scientific discussion about this issue has developed and which open research questions are still awaiting solutions.

The main contributions of the original article are evaluated in the light of the current state of research. Simultaneously, the scientific development is commented on the basis of the original theoretical and empirical insights.

The original article belongs to those that initiated an extraordinary development of the research field. Aspects of inter-cultural encounters have found increasing attention in service marketing research. However, some fundamental problems of inter-cultural studies are still unresolved, and some of the theoretical and management oriented stimuli of the 1999 paper still seem worthy of consideration.

The retrospective analysis gives insight into the scientific development of the research on inter-cultural service encounters. It identifies relevant development lines, new perspectives and open questions for future research.

Service customers perceive quality in the moment of interaction with the service provider. In times of globalization, it is important for a growing number of service companies to ask if the perceived service encounter quality differs among customers from different cultures. Particularly needed is information about whether problematic “culture shocks” occur in service encounters due to culture‐bound expectations and perceptions. To answer this question, a model of inter‐cultural service encounter quality is presented. In order to test the assumption of “culture shocks” in inter‐cultural service encounters, an empirical study applying the critical incident technique (CIT) was conducted. The unexpected results of this study lead to a further development of the model presented. This gives insights into why, and under which circumstances, inter‐cultural encounters are perceived as less problematic than intra‐cultural encounters. Finally, managerial implications and open research questions are discussed.

This study aims to develop a model based on attribution theory and intercultural literature to explain the underlying customer satisfaction process in intercultural service encounters.

In-depth interviews were used to develop an understanding of customer experience and evaluations in intercultural service encounters. A quasi-experiment with 236 customers was used to empirically examine the relationships between perceived culture distance, cultural attribution, intercultural competence and customer satisfaction.

Perceived culture distance is positively related to customer satisfaction, with cultural attribution mediating the relationship between perceived cultural distance and customer satisfaction, and partially mediating the moderating effect of intercultural competence on the relationship between perceived culture distance and customer satisfaction.

This study focuses on cultural attribution in intercultural service encounters. It is acknowledged that there are other attribution dimensions such as stability and controllability which may interact with perceived culture distance and influence subsequent customer satisfaction evaluation. Future research should consider these various dimensions and examine their mediating role in customer satisfaction.

It is recommended that service firms educate their customers of diverse cultures about local norms and practices, and proactively manage their expectations throughout the service experience.

Despite the growing importance of intercultural service encounters, the findings of the relationship between perceived cultural distance and customer satisfaction are mixed. This study contributes to the literature by advancing our theoretical knowledge and empirical evidence of the role of cultural attribution and intercultural competence in intercultural service encounters.

This paper aims to examine the role that personal cultural orientations play in customer attributions in intercultural service encounters.

A conceptual model was developed depicting the relationships between service delivery outcome, personal cultural orientations and customer attributions. Data were collected from 640 Chinese and Western customers using scenario-based experiments in a restaurant context to assess the hypothesized relationships in the model.

The findings show that compared to service delivery success, customers tend to hold service employee and firm responsible for service delivery failure rather than themselves and cultural differences. Moreover, personal cultural orientations partially moderated the influence of the service delivery outcome on customer attributions.

Future research could adopt different methodologies such as critical incident techniques and surveys to replicate the study.

Service firms are recommended to design programs to influence customer attributions such as “customer education programs” and “customer appreciation programs” to achieve high customer satisfaction.

This study examines the differences in customer attributions between successful vs unsuccessful service delivery. It also sheds light on the potential moderating role of personal cultural orientations on the relationship between service delivery outcome and customer attributions.