Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (One Year)), 15 credits / 22,5 HE credits
Date: May 2009
Program: International Marketing (Master’s Program)
Authors:
Ahsin Raza Email: ara08003@student.mdh.se
Mahshid Norouzi Afshar Email: mni08002@student.mdh.se
Tutor: Tobias Eltebrandt
Title: The Relationship between Demographics, Language, Culture, Level of Acculturation & Service Quality Expectations
Problem Statement: How important is the customers’ ethnic background, culture and level of acculturation when choosing a provider of financial services?
Purpose: Do the demographics, language, culture and level of acculturation affect the service quality expectations of Pakistani and Iranian ethnic groups and influence their decisions about selecting their banks?
Chosen cities: Stockholm, Västerås, Eskilstuna
Method: Primary data was mainly based on qualitative data gathered from questionnaires. Responses from questionnaires were collected from the Iranian and Pakistani immigrants living in three chosen cities of Sweden: Stockholm, Västerås and Eskilstuna.
Secondary data was from some books, articles and the official website of Migrationsverket. This information was used to support the findings.
Conclusion: We agree to Rajagopalan and Heitmeyer (2005) who stated that researchers found different ethnic groups in their dissimilar ability to acculturate and difference in acculturation level within an ethnic group. For the Iranian group, the authors came to this conclusion that demographic, language, culture and level of acculturation have some effects on the perceived service quality and the level of satisfaction and expectations of customers from their banks; still, the effect of these factors in comparison with the effect of so many other factors like interest rate and fees in the banking system, is not noticeable.
Our study results highlights the different behaviors of Pakistani and Iranian ethnic groups toward service quality expectations based on language, culture and acculturation factors. For Pakistani group, we found that demographic, language, culture and level of acculturation do affect on service quality expectations. Our results also indicate that all the determinants of acculturation vary regarding their influence on customer behavior. Finally, we described some other important factors along with the selected indicators which influence the decision making process.
Key Words: demographics, language, culture, Acculturation, service quality
Abbreviations:
ISG >> Iranian Sample Group
PSG>> Pakistani Sample Group
2009. , p. 57