Service excellence in the light of cultural diversity: the impact of metacognitive cultural intelligence

Abstract

Purpose 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. Design/methodology/approach 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. Findings 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. Originality/value 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.

Hype or hope? A new look at the research on cultural intelligence

“…Insert Table 5 about here CQ has been found to be an important moderator in various contexts, including expatriation (Froese, Kim, & Eng, 2016), business travel (Ramsey, Leonel, Gomes, & Monteiro, 2011), education (Jie & Harms, 2017), export (Magnusson, Westjohn, Semenov, Randrianasolo, & Zdravkovic, 2013), international study (Presbitero, 2016b;Volpone, Marquardt, Casper, & Avery, 2018), intercultural service encounters (Lorenz, Ramsey, Tariq, & Morrell, 2017), and intercultural teamwork (Rosenauer, Homan, Horstmeier, & Voelpel, 2016). In general, CQ strengthens the relationship between intercultural differences and cross-cultural adjustment and performance (Lorenz et al, 2017;Magnusson et al, 2013;Rosenauer et al, 2016) and diminishes the relationship between such differences and adaption problems as strain (Ramsey et al, 2011). For example, Rosenauer et al (2016) found that teams with higher national diversity have a better performance only when team leaders' CQ and task interdependence are high.…”

Diversity climate perceptions and its impact on multicultural team innovation and performance

“…Bogilovi c et al (2017) found that CQ attenuates the negative relationship between individual knowledge hiding and individual creativity. Furthermore, CQ positively moderated the relationship between perceived cultural differences and out-group status (Lorenz et al, 2017). Presbitero and Toledano (2018) H6.…”

Core self-evaluations and project managers' competencies: the moderating role of cultural intelligence

“…In general, studies have shown that cultural intelligence has many cognitive, emotional and behavioral consequences (Yari and Lankut, 2020;Sharma, 2019;Presbitero, 2020). Also, cultural intelligence has been found to be an important moderator in various contexts, including expatriation (Froese et al, 2016), business travel (Ramsey et al, 2011), education (Jie and Harms, 2017), export (Magnusson et al, 2013), international study (Presbitero, 2016;Volpone et al, 2018), intercultural service encounters (Lorenz et al, 2017) and intercultural teamwork (Rosenauer et al, 2016). For example, Rosenauer et al (2016) found that teams with higher national diversity have a better performance only when team leaders' CQ and task interdependence are high.…”