Intercultural service encounters (ICSE) involve interactions between customers and service employees from different cultures. These encounters increased tremendously in recent years due to explosive growth in international travel and immigration as a result of rapid globalization. These encounters can be perceived differently, in terms of expectations and outcomes. Researchers have attributed these difference to the cultural proximity or distance of the customer, it is the extent to which two cultures are different from each other. However, despite growing interest in crosscultural research in service literature, little research has brought thorough analysis on the effects of culture on customer perceptions, and understanding ways in which culture
shapes expectations of customers in ICSEs.
Researchers have found that ICSEs might be evaluated more positively than the ones involving a customer and employee from the same culture. They present their findings by using the zone of tolerance (ZOT), a framework used to illustrate a customer’s evaluation process of a service encounter to illustrate it, claiming an intercultural setting would result in the widening of the ZOT and resulting in more customer satisfaction. However, these studies only focused on tourists and exchange students with limited contact to the host culture during a short period of time. It was suggested that results might be different for respondents who were exposed to a culture for longer period of time, nonetheless, this was never empirically tested. This study attempts to address this gap by focusing on respondents in various stages of acculturation and lengths of exposure to the host culture, to explore what factors contribute to (re)shaping their expectations over time, and how this affects the foreign customer’s zone of tolerance.
Face-to-face interview facilitated with the critical incident technique (CIT) was chosen as the appropriate research method for this study. The transcribing of audio data resulted in 30.000 words available for analysis. The analysis yielded 16 categories consisting of a total of 115 codes based on 469 coded references. Incidents were categorized in three main categories based on the type of interaction, either negative,
positive or unusual. Negative categories of interactions included; different treatment due to different appearance, ignored attempt to speak Chinese, different service protocol, bad attitude, clingy staff, inflexible staff, and inefficient staff. Positive interaction categories were: staff going above and beyond, very friendly staff, and very honest staff. A third category apart was unusual incidents.
Findings of the study suggest a lowering of adequate expectation levels and widening of the ZOT, which confirms assertions made in previous studies. It also confirms previous hypotheses that were never empirically validated by showing that customer expectations change and new referential frameworks are established due to exposure to a new cultural environment. Finally, the research discovers that foreign
customers find it easy and are willing to learn and adapt to some new service process norms, but they resist adapting to other service and cultural service norms in encounters.
This offers significant new insight into the way customers reshape their expectations in ICSEs that goes beyond general assertions made by previous research.

Ajzen, I. (2001). Nature and operation of attitudes. Annual review of psychology, 52(1), 27-58.
Anderson, L. E. (1994). A new look at an old construct: Cross-cultural adaptation. International journal of intercultural relations, 18(3), 293-328.
Bao, G., & Zhang, S. (2011). The impact of culture values on customer perceptions of service encounter and reactions to service failure and recovery. Paper presented at the 2011 2nd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Management Science and Electronic Commerce (AIMSEC) Deng Feng, China.
Bennett, M. J. (1986). A developmental approach to training for intercultural sensitivity. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 10(2), 179-196.
Berry, J. W. (2005). Acculturation: Living successfully in two cultures. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 29(6), 697-712.
Bianchi, C. (2001). The effect of cultural differences on service encounter satisfaction. Paper presented at the 2001 AMA Winter Educator's Conference, Scottsdale, AZ.
Biernacki, P., & Waldorf, D. (1981). Snowball sampling: Problems and techniques of chain referral sampling. Sociological methods & research, 10(2), 141-163.
Bitner, M. J., Booms, B. H., & Mohr, L. A. (1994). Critical service encounters: The employee's viewpoint. The Journal of Marketing, 58(4), 95-106.
Bitner, M. J., Booms, B. H., & Tetreault, M. S. (1990). The service encounter: Diagnosing favorable and unfavorable incidents. The Journal of Marketing, 54(1), 71-84.
Breinlich, H., & Criscuolo, C. (2011). International trade in services: A portrait of importers and exporters. Journal of International Economics, 84(2), 188-206.
Brown, R., & Gaertner, S. (2008). Blackwell handbook of social psychology: Intergroup processes. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Chell, E. (2004). Critical Incident Technique. In C. Cassell & G. Symon (Eds.), Essential guide to qualitative methods in organizational research. London: Sage.
Chirkov, V. I., Lynch, M., & Niwa, S. (2005). Application of the scenario questionnaire of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism to the assessment of cultural distance and cultural fit. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 29(4), 469-490.
Corbin, J. M., & Strauss, A. (1990). Grounded theory research: Procedures, canons, and evaluative criteria. Qualitative sociology, 13(1), 3-21.
Davidow, W. H., & Uttal, B. (1988). Service companies: Focus or falter. Harvard Business Review, 67(4), 77-85.
DiCicco‐Bloom, B., & Crabtree, B. F. (2006). The qualitative research interview. Medical education, 40(4), 314-321.
Edvardsson, B. (1992). Service breakdowns: A study of critical incidents in an airline. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 3(4), 17-29.
Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1972). Attitudes and opinions. Annual review of psychology, 23(1), 487-544.
Flanagan, J. C. (1954). The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin, 51(4), 327-358.
Gremler, D. D. (2004). The critical incident technique in service research. Journal of Service Research, 7(1), 65-89.
Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and organizations. London: McGraw-Hill.
Ito, T. A., Larsen, J. T., Smith, N. K., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1998). Negative information weighs more heavily on the brain: the negativity bias in evaluative categorizations. Journal of personality and social psychology, 75(4), 887.
Johnston, R. (1995a). The determinants of service quality: Satisfiers and dissatisfiers. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 6(5), 53-71.
Johnston, R. (1995b). The zone of tolerance: Exploring the relationship between service transactions and satisfaction with the overall service. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 6(2), 46-61.
Kester, J. (2013). 2013 International Tourism Results and Prospects for 2014. from http://dtxtq4w60xqpw.cloudfront.net/sites/all/files/pdf/unwto_fitur_2014_hq_jk_2pp.pdf
Knox, P., Agnew, J. A., & McCarthy, L. (2014). The geography of the world economy. London: Routledge.
Kwan, A. Y., & Ofori, G. (2001). Chinese culture and successful implementation of partnering in Singapore's construction industry. Construction Management & Economics, 19(6), 619-632.
Liu, C.-H., & Lee, H.-W. (2008). A proposed model of expatriates in multinational corporations. Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, 15(2), 176-193.
Lysgaard, S. (1967). Arbeiderkollektivet. Norway: Universitetsforlaget.
Matsumoto, D. (1989). Cultural influences on the perception of emotion. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 20(1), 92-105.
Mattila, A. S. (1999). The role of culture in the service evaluation process. Journal of Service Research, 1(3), 250-261.
Michel, S. (2001). Analyzing service failures and recoveries: A process approach. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 12(1), 20-33.
Ng, S. I., Lee, J. A., & Soutar, G. N. (2007). Tourists’ intention to visit a country: The impact of cultural distance. Tourism Management, 28(6), 1497-1506.
Oberg, K. (2006). Cultural shock: Adjustment to new cultural environments. Curare, 29(2), 142-146.
Oliver, R. L. (1980). A cognitive model of the antecedents and consequences of satisfaction decisions. Journal of Marketing Research, 17(4), 460-469.
Oliver, R. L. (2010). Satisfaction: A behavioral perspective on the consumer. Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe.
Patterson, P. G. (1993). Expectations and product performance as determinants of satisfaction for a high‐involvement purchase. Psychology & Marketing, 10(5), 449-465.
Patterson, P. G., Cowley, E., & Prasongsukarn, K. (2006). Service failure recovery: the moderating impact of individual-level cultural value orientation on perceptions of justice. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 23(3),
263-277.
Pikkemaat, B., & Weiermair, K. (2001). The importance of cultural distance in the perception of evaluation of service quality. Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism, 2(1-2), 69-87.
Reimann, M., Lünemann, U. F., & Chase, R. B. (2008). Uncertainty avoidance as a moderator of the relationship between perceived service quality and customer satisfaction. Journal of Service Research, 11(1), 63-73.
Robbins, J. (1994). Equality as a value: Ideology in Dumont, Melanesia and the West. Social Analysis, 21-70.
Rust, R. T., & Miu, C. (2006). What academic research tells us about service. Communications of the ACM, 49(7), 49-54.
Ruyter, K. d., Perkins, D., & Wetzels, M. (1995). Consumer-defined service expectations and post purchase dissatisfaction in moderately-priced restaurants: A cross-national study. Journal of Consumer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction and Complaining Behavior, 8(0), 177-187.
Selmer, J. (1999). Culture shock in China?: Adjustment pattern of western expatriate business managers. International Business Review, 8(5), 515-534.
Sharma, P., Tam, J. L., & Kim, N. (2009). Demystifying intercultural service encounters toward a comprehensive conceptual framework. Journal of Service Research, 12(2), 227-242.
Shostack, G. L. (1985). Planning the service encounter. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
Singh, J., & Wilkes, R. E. (1996). When consumers complain: A path analysis of the key antecedents of consumer complaint response estimates. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 24(4), 350-365.
Sizoo, S., Plank, R., Iskat, W., & Serrie, H. (2005). The effect of intercultural sensitivity on employee performance in cross-cultural service encounters. Journal of Services Marketing, 19(4), 245-255.
Solomon, M. R., Surprenant, C., Czepiel, J. A., & Gutman, E. G. (1985). A role theory perspective on dyadic interactions: The service encounter. The Journal of Marketing, 49(1), 99-111.
Stauss, B. (1993). Using the critical incident technique in measuring and managing service quality. New York: Amacom.
Stauss, B., & Mang, P. (1999). “Culture shocks” in inter-cultural service encounters? Journal of Services Marketing, 13(4/5), 329-346.
Swidler, A. (1986). Culture in action: Symbols and strategies. American Sociological Review, 51(2), 273-286.
Tam, J., Sharma, P., & Kim, N. (2014). Examining the role of attribution and intercultural competence in intercultural service encounters. Journal of Services Marketing, 28(2), 159-170.
Vargo, S. L., & Lusch, R. F. (2004). Evolving to a new dominant logic for marketing. Journal of Marketing, 68(1), 1-17.
Ward, C., Okura, Y., Kennedy, A., & Kojima, T. (1998). The U-curve on trial: A longitudinal study of psychological and sociocultural adjustment during crosscultural transition. International journal of intercultural relations, 22(3), 277-
291.
Ward, C. A., Bochner, S., & Furnham, A. (2001). The psychology of culture shock. London: Psychology Press.
Warden, C. A., Liu, T.-C., Huang, C.-T., & Lee, C.-H. (2003). Service failures away from home: Benefits in intercultural service encounters. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 14(4), 436-456.
Warden, C. A., Stanworth, J., Chen, J., & Hwang, S. (2012). Strangers in strange lands: The importance of local observation in retail positioning. International Journal of Market Research, 54(6), 799-820.
Weiermair, K. (2000). Tourists’ perceptions towards and satisfaction with service quality in the cross-cultural service encounter: Implications for hospitality and tourism management. Managing Service Quality, 10(6), 397-409.
Winsted, K. F. (1997). The service experience in two cultures: a behavioral perspective. Journal of Retailing, 73(3), 337-360.
Wu, L.-W. (2011). Satisfaction, inertia, and customer loyalty in the varying levels of the zone of tolerance and alternative attractiveness. Journal of Services Marketing, 25(5), 310-322.
Yap, K. B., & Sweeney, J. C. (2007). Zone-of-tolerance moderates the service quality-outcome relationship. Journal of Services Marketing, 21(2), 137-148.
Zeithaml, V. A., Berry, L. L., & Parasuraman, A. (1993). The nature and determinants of customer expectations of service. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 21(1), 1-12.
Zhang, J., Beatty, S. E., & Walsh, G. (2008). Review and future directions of crosscultural consumer services research. Journal of Business Research, 61(3), 211-224.