The Impact of Intercultural Communication Competence on Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction

Abstract

This article aims to better understand the impact of intercultural communication competence (ICC) on personal interaction (PI) and customer satisfaction (CS) in grocery retailing. Measurement of the constructs and their interrelationships were examined based on structural equation modeling. Although numerous researchers have studied the topic of service quality (SQ) and CS, none of those studies has explored the critical role of ICC and integrated the construct into their SQ and CS models. Intercultural notions are acknowledged as key determinants to improve our understanding on this phenomenon and provide an impetus for further research.

KEYWORDS:

• intercultural communication competence
• customer satisfaction
• retailing
• service quality
• Malaysia