Managing behavioral intentions in diverse cultural environments: an investigation of service quality, service value, and satisfaction for American and Ecuadorian fast-food customers

This study reports a cross-cultural assessment of the effects of service quality, service value, and satisfaction on consumers' behavioral intentions. The study endeavors to extend recent advances in services marketing theory to the international level of analysis. A composite model of a service encounter is developed based on the literature cited and compared across 425 North American and Latin American fast-food customers. A number of significant findings are reported, including the empirical verification of the position that service value and satisfaction drive consumers' behavioral intentions in North America, whereas Latin Americans are found to emphasize satisfaction in their service assessments. These results indicate that American consumers tend to place more emphasis on the tradeoff between what they receive in the service encounter and what they have to give up to receive the benefit. Conversely, Latin American consumers place heightened importance on the more emotive satisfaction judgment. The immediate implication for practitioners in both regions is that North Americans should respond favorably to offerings that emphasize the quality of the meal relative to the expenditure required. Latin Americans, on the other hand, should respond to more emotional appeals that accentuate the pleasure derived from the encounter.