Customer service‐orientation of small retail business owners in Austria, The Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Slovakia, and Slovenia

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to test the feasibility of using a biodata inventory to measure service-orientation -one's disposition to be helpful, thoughtful, considerate, and cooperative -across cultures in a sample of 1,324 owners of businesses. Design/methodology/approach -Subjects in Austria, The Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Slovakia, and Slovenia are given the inventory in order to predict their on-the-job service-oriented performance. Findings -Within the samples, the service-orientation ratings are highly correlated with extroversion and openness to experience in all six countries, and agreeableness in five countries and conscientiousness in four countries. The correlations of these scales with service-orientation are as high as or higher than those generally obtained with measures of service-orientation with customer service representatives.Research limitations/implications -The analysis lends credence to the notion that serviceorientation may be effectively measured by biodata within small organizations across multiple cultures. Originality/value -This paper examines the utility of a personality-oriented biodata inventory for explaining levels of customer service-oriented performance across six countries. Little cross-country research has been done on the owners of business thus this paper helps to fill in gaps in the literature dealing with business owners and the importance of personality attributes to explain service-oriented performance.

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