Cultural influences on IS service quality perceptions

While Information services function’s (ISF) service quality is not a new concept and has received considerable attention for over two decades, cross-cultural research of ISF’s service quality is not very mature. The author argues that the relationship between cultural dimensions and the ISF’s service quality dimensions may provide useful insights for how organisations should deal with different cultural groups. This paper will show that ISF’s service quality dimensions vary from one culture to another. The study adopts Hofstede’s (1980, 1991) typology of cultures and the “zones of tolerance” (ZOT) service quality measure reported by Kettinger & Lee (2005) as the primary commencing theory-base. In this paper, the author hypothesised and tested the influences of culture on users’ service quality perceptions and found strong empirical support for the study’s hypotheses. The results of this study indicate that as a result of their cultural characteristics, users vary in both their overall service quality perceptions and their perceptions on each of the four dimensions of ZOT service quality.