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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.

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.

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.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to understand when, how, and why service employees adapt the service encounter to meet the values and expectations of culturally disparate customers.

The authors tested the hypothesized framework utilizing a scenario-based experimental study. In total, a sample of 296 prospective restaurant service employees were asked to evaluate their willingness to adapt their behavior when faced with cultural differences as well as out group status. Furthermore, respondents were asked to assess their level of metacognitive cultural intelligence.

The authors found that both perceived cultural differences and out group status positively affect the service employee’s willingness to adapt their behavior. Further, cultural intelligence (CQ) positively moderates one of those two direct relationships.

The authors extend the literature on the service-adjustment process, as well as the managerial implications of service adjustment. The study is among the first to introduce the role of the service employees’ CQ in adaptation to an intercultural service encounter.

Drawing on the person-environment fit theory, in this paper the authors aim to propose and test a moderated mediation model that examines the relationships among proactive personality and job performance, cultural intelligence and emotional intelligence.

The authors collected the multisource data from a total of 120 hotel service employees and the employees' immediate supervisors. The authors used the PROCESS, an SPSS macro, to conduct multiple regression analyses to test this moderated mediation model.

The results suggest that cultural intelligence mediates the relationship between proactive personality and job performance during cross-cultural service encounters. Furthermore, the indirect effect of proactive personality on job performance during cross-cultural service encounters via cultural intelligence is stronger for service employees who are high in emotional intelligence.

This study has several implications for hospitality management in terms of developing effective strategies to foster cultural and emotional intelligence of service employees and improve the employees' performance.

Considering the limited number of studies showing why, how and in which situations personality can enhance performance, this study contributes to the literature by revealing the effect of proactive personality on the performance of service employees through important constructs such as cultural intelligence and emotional intelligence.

The purpose of the study is to explore the impact of cultural values on perceptions of service encounter quality by examining the potentially mediating role of service encounter expectations.

A questionnaire was designed to collect data from 30 cosmetic clinic patients in Tehran, Iran. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the convergent and discriminant validity of the scales. Moreover, path modeling and bootstrapping were implemented using Smartpls 2.0 (M3) software to analyze the collected data and to assess the research model (Figure 1).

Cultural values have a significant impact on both expectations and perceptions of service encounter quality. Moreover, findings show that expectations of service encounter quality have an impact on perceptions of service encounter quality. The mediating role of service encounter expectations was confirmed.

There are additional issues that should be addressed about different aspects of service encounters in developing countries. Moreover, subcultures provide attractive context for service quality perception research; subcultures comprise a large consumer market having its own cultural values that future research could examine.

Healthcare service providers should understand the cultural values of patients that may differ by social demographic characteristics. Providing a service that enhances patient cultural values might enhance success in the plastic surgery market, because such surgery may assist one in gaining recognition and improving their relationships with others. Clinic managers should consider Iran as a developing country, with its considerable young population having modern self-oriented demands, should be a desirable market for cosmetics and beauty care products.

Using the concept of Schwartz’s basic human values model to assess consumers’ cultural values and its impact on service encounter quality was the study’s main contribution. Moreover, it is among few studies conducted in the cosmetic surgery industry in a developing country’s context.

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.