ABSTRACT

Limited research has examined how employees’ cultural competency may influence customers experience and behaviors. Building on social exchange theory, this study proposed and tested a model focusing on how guest gratitude mediated the relationships between three dimensions of servers’ cultural competency, cultural awareness, cultural knowledge, and cultural skills, on customers’ future behavioral intentions. Using empirical data collected from cross-cultural service encounters in luxury hotels in Australia, findings of the study revealed that cultural awareness and skills were significantly related to guest gratitude that, in turn, significantly influenced customers future behavioral intention. This study contributes to social exchange theory by adopting gratitude as a mediator in the reciprocal relationship between servers’ cultural competency and customer behavioral intentions. The study highlights the importance of training current hospitality employees and preparing future hospitality professionals. In particular, the findings emphasize the importance of enhancing hospitality employees’ cultural competency in cross-cultural service encounters.

摘要

有限的研究调查了员工的文化能力如何影响客户的体验和行为。本研究以社会交换理论为基础，提出并测试了一个模型，该模型侧重于客人的感激之情如何调节服务员的文化能力、文化意识、文化知识和文化技能三个维度之间的关系，影响顾客未来的行为意图。使用从澳大利亚豪华酒店的跨文化服务接触中收集的经验数据，该研究的结果表明，文化意识和技能与客人的感激之情显着相关，进而显着影响顾客未来的行为意图。本研究通过采用感恩作为服务员文化能力与客户行为意图之间相互关系的中介，对社会交换理论做出了贡献。该研究强调了培训现有酒店员工和培养未来酒店专业人士的重要性。特别是，研究结果强调了提高酒店员工在跨文化服务中的文化能力的重要性。