Flying To Quality: Cultural Influences On Online Reviews

764345
research-article2018
JTRXXX10.1177/0047287518764345Journal of Travel ResearchStamolampros et al.
Empirical Research Article
Journal of Travel Research
Flying to Quality: Cultural Influences

2019, Vol. 58(3) 496–511
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0047287518764345
https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287518764345
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Panagiotis Stamolampros1, Nikolaos Korfiatis1,

Panos Kourouthanassis2, and Efthymia Symitsi1
Abstract
Customers increasingly consult opinions expressed online before making their final decisions. However, inherent factors
such as culture may moderate the criteria and the weights individuals use to form their expectations and evaluations.
Therefore, not all opinions expressed online match customers’ personal preferences, neither can firms use this information
to deduce general conclusions. Our study explores this issue in the context of airline services using Hofstede’s framework as
a theoretical anchor. We gauge the effect of each dimension as well as that of cultural distance between the passenger and
the airline on the overall satisfaction with the flight as well as specific service factors. Using topic modeling, we also capture
the effect of culture on review text and identify factors that are not captured by conventional rating scales. Our results
provide significant insights for airline managers about service factors that affect more passengers from specific cultures
leading to higher satisfaction/dissatisfaction.
Keywords
electronic WOM, online reviews, service quality, airlines, cultural differences, structural topic model
Introduction This study explores how reviewers’ cultural values influ-

ence their provided online ratings and their textual justifica-
Do inherent cultural traits systematically affect customers’ tion. Personal culture is a predominant factor of service
online rating behavior? This is the main question we address expectation and evaluation in the travel and hospitality con-
in this article by employing a large data set of online reviews text (among others, Cheok, Hede, and Watne 2015; Mazanec
from airline passengers. Online reviews form an important et al. 2015; Nath, Devlin, and Reid 2016), and its relation to
source of information for both consumers and firms (Godes online communication has been validated in the context of
and Mayzlin 2004; Hennig-Thurau et al. 2004; Dellarocas, online social networks (Jackson and Wang 2013; Krishnan
Zhang, and Awad 2007; Dwyer 2007). With respect to travel and Lymm 2016; Sheldon et al. 2017). We perform a case
and hospitality services, extant studies substantiate their study in the airline industry to illustrate the relationship
importance as a way to capture service quality and satisfaction between reviewer cultural traits and online rating scores.
(Vermeulen and Seegers 2009; Sparks and Browning 2011). Based on a rich data set from TripAdvisor (557,208 reviews),
Online reviews help customers to mitigate their perceptions of where passengers evaluate their experience with a particular
risk and uncertainty before engaging in the service encounter airline, we explore passengers’ rating behavior from different
(Sparks and Browning 2011; Sotiriadis and Van Zyl 2013), perspectives controlling for flight and passengers’ character-
and as such, represent an important predictor of purchase deci- istics. We follow Hofstede’s (1984; Hofstede, Hofstede, and
sions and service loyalty (Tanford and Montgomery 2015; Minkov 2010) framework as a theoretical anchor to capture
Book, Tanford, and Chen 2016; Phillips et al. 2017). passengers’ cultural traits and relate them to the numerical
To improve the understanding of the behavioral patterns score of the review (most commonly referred in the literature
driving individuals to adopt online reviews and formulate as review valence). Furthermore, we employ the cultural dis-
review judgments, scholars rely on a combination of perfor- tance formalization of Kogut and Singh (1988) and introduce
mance and emotionally oriented stances that explain review the cultural incongruence as a factor that affects passengers’
behavior. This is done through the lenses of information
quality of the review (Filieri and McLeay 2014), service 1
University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom
quality features (Guo, Barnes, and Jia 2017), and review sen- 2
Ionio Panepistemio, Kerkyra, Greece
timent (Liang et al. 2015). Interestingly, the personal traits of
Corresponding Author:
the reviewer are hardly used as an explanatory factor with a Panagiotis Stamolampros, Norwich Business School, University of East
notable exception being the relation of the online review rat- Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom.
ings with the reviewer personality (Jensen et al. 2013). Email: P.Stamolampros@uea.ac.uk
Stamolampros et al. 497
negative online ratings toward airlines. Considering that Theoretical Background and
TripAdvisor allows reviewers to rate specific service factors Hypotheses Formulation
of their overall experience, we extend our analysis to the indi-
vidual aspects of the rating. To make the results of our analy- In highly competitive markets such as the airline industry,
sis more robust, we control for flight length, cabin class, and passenger satisfaction is a core element for corporate prof-
reviewer’s level of contribution to TripAdvisor. itability and sustainability (Chen 2008). Several studies
In addition to examining the effect of cultural traits and cul- report the connection between customer service, customer
tural distance on numerical ratings, we take advantage of recent satisfaction, and corporate profitability for airlines (Behn
applications of topic modeling in marketing research (Tirunillai and Riley Jr 1999; Steven, Dong, and Dresner 2012). The
and Tellis 2014; Guo, Barnes, and Jia 2017) to evaluate the literature tends to measure airline service quality through
impact of cultural traits on the textual content of reviews. To performance metrics, such as flight delays, customer com-
this end, we use the structural topic model methodology plaints, mishandled baggage, consumer satisfaction indi-
(Roberts, Stewart, and Airoldi 2016) that allows the inclusion ces, or survey questionnaires mainly based on SERVQUAL
of review metadata as covariates. In doing so, our study is (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry 1985, 1988), neglect-
novel from the perspective that it captures those service factors ing the importance of online reviews (see, e.g., Suzuki,
that are more important for each cultural dimension. Tyworth, and Novack 2001; Chen 2008; Keiningham et al.
Our study contributes to the literature in several ways. To 2014; Kuo and Jou 2014).
our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive study that Compared to other informational cues, online reviews
explores the effect of consumer cultural characteristics on come with several attractive advantages. First, they directly
online rating behavior manifested from both quantitative capture individual passengers’ perceptions of the service
(overall rating, service aspect rating) and qualitative aspects quality provided in contrast to aggregated operating perfor-
(review text). Furthermore, we add to the literature that tack- mance measures. Second, they offer access to a large pool of
les cultural differences and how these unfold in service passengers, which would require significant effort and cost
encounters by exploring the impact of the cultural distance to collect through surveys. Third, they allow users to provide
between the country of origin of the passenger and the ser- both quantitative and qualitative information, rating specific
vice provider on online ratings. To illustrate the importance aspects and describing their overall experience. The latter
of our findings we measure the degree of informational con- could be used to extract factors of customer satisfaction that
tent distortion caused by different response patterns, employ- are not captured accurately through abstract numerical scales
ing a within culture standardization of the overall satisfaction or they do not cover the whole spectrum of the multidimen-
with a carrier and gauging its effect on the global airline sionality of service quality (Tellis and Johnson 2007). Thus,
ranking. In doing so, we reveal the loss of information that is this study aims to extract insights from both the numerical
attributed to cultural differences, providing important mana- rating and the textual content of online reviews.
gerial implications for travel and hospitality stakeholders.
Contrary to the extant literature that focuses on the effect of
Cultural Effects on Customers’ Evaluation
culture on specific countries, this study is based on an exten-
sive sample which increases the statistical power of our anal- The importance of cultural differences with regard to the
ysis (passengers from 203 countries and territories). Our customers’ expectations of service quality has long been
empirical analysis also offers methodological novelty with established in the literature (Malhotra et al. 1994; Donthu
the introduction of the structural topic modeling, an exten- and Yoo 1998; Furrer, Liu, and Sudharshan 2000). Winsted
sion of Latent Dirichlet Allocation (Blei, Ng, and Jordan (1997) investigates service encounters of American and
2003), as a method to infer categories of interest for custom- Japanese consumers and reveals significant cross-national
ers through the analysis of the review text, and how these differences between factors that different nationalities value
categories change relative to cultural dimensions. more. Donthu and Yoo (1998), using Hofstede’s (1984) cul-
To this end, the rest of the article is organized as follows: tural dimensions, find that a customer’s cultural orientation
the next section summarizes the theoretical grounding and has a strong influence on her expectations about overall ser-
hypotheses formulation of the study. The description of the vice quality. Several other studies report significant effects
data used, the methodology followed, and our results are for different cultural dimensions (see, e.g., Crotts and
presented in the third section. In the fourth section, we pro- Erdmann 2000; B. S.-C. Liu, Furrer, and Sudharshan 2001;
vide an analysis of the service aspect discourse on the tex- Voss et al. 2004; Kim, Lee, and Mattila 2014). A similar
tual content of online reviews and propose an alternative stream of the literature connects cultural characteristics with
approach for the estimation of overall satisfaction, display- survey response patterns. For example, De Jong et al. (2008)
ing the effect of cultural differences on the ranking of air- report a positive relationship between extreme response val-
line carriers. The article concludes by discussing theoretical ues with individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and mascu-
and managerial implications as well as the limitations of linity. Although the effect of culture on service evaluation
the present study. has been investigated in the past, the impact of cultural traits
498 Journal of Travel Research 58(3)
on online reviews, a direct proxy of service quality, remains Hypothesis 1: Power distance has a positive effect on
unexplored. This is extremely important in the case of review review valence.
aggregators that accumulate reviews from an international
pool of reviewers, since the effect of cultural traits could be Individualism specifies a social framework where humans
significant, distorting online reviews’ informational content. take care only of themselves and their families as opposed to
collectivism where individuals promote tightly knit frame-
works and higher in-group integration in exchange for their
Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions
loyalty. Many studies have identified differences in service
Geert Hofstede’s work, with the use of a worldwide survey quality perceptions between individualists and collectivists
of thousands of employees in IBM, proposes a cultural (e.g., Maiyaki 2013; Sabiote-Ortiz, Frías-Jamilena, and
dimension framework of four dimensions that describe Castañeda-García 2016). In essence, individualism is associ-
cross-cultural communication and the effect of societal val- ated with higher service quality expectations. Customers
ues and culture on its members, namely, Power Distance, from countries with high level of individualism (e.g., United
Individualism (vs. Collectivism), Uncertainty Avoidance, States) are more likely to complain about disconfirmations in
and Masculinity (vs. Feminity) (Hofstede 1984). In subse- the perceived service quality (B. S.-C. Liu, Furrer, and
quent studies, this framework has been extended to include Sudharshan 2001; Kim, Lee, and Mattila 2014). We expect
two further dimensions, namely, long-term orientation (vs. that this behavior is also reflected when individuals evaluate
short-term orientation) and indulgence (vs. restraint) the service quality of airline companies. Thus, we formulate
(Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov 2010). Although alterna- the following research hypothesis:
tive frameworks exist, such as those derived from the
GLOBE study (House et al. 2004), Hofstede’s dimensions Hypothesis 2: Individualism has a negative effect on
are the most widely used proxies for measuring cultural review valence.
traits on a national or individual scale. We discuss the
hypothesized effect of each cultural dimension on review The uncertainty avoidance dimension measures individu-
valence below. als’ tolerance and comfort with ambiguity. High–uncertainty
Power distance refers to the extent to which the less pow- avoidance cultures (e.g., Belgium) tend to have more stress and
erful members of organizations and institutions expect and anxiety compared to low–uncertainty avoidance cultures (e.g.,
accept that power is distributed unequally. High–power dis- Sweden). Moreover, they take fewer risks and are more reluc-
tance cultures (e.g., Russia) tolerate inequalities and respect tant with new technologies compared to their counterparts with
the social hierarchy; low–power distance cultures follow a low–uncertainty avoidance values. Extant studies find that
more egalitarian philosophy when evaluating service out- online reviews may serve as a mitigation instrument to reduce
comes (e.g., Denmark). Differences in the service quality uncertainty in service encounters (Filieri 2015; Z. Liu and Park
perceptions of individuals from high– and low–power dis- 2015). With regard to cultural values, there is evidence that in
tance cultures, are derived from their perceptions about the order to alleviate the emotion of uncertainty and reduce post-
status and power of the service provider. For instance, Tam, purchase cognitive dissonance, individuals from high–uncer-
Sharma, and Kim (2016) highlight that individuals from tainty avoidance countries are more likely to praise good
high–power distance cultures are predisposed to accept the service quality but provide more critical feedback in cases of
status differences between a service provider and themselves poor service quality encounters compared to individuals from
because they view the service provider as more dominant low–uncertainty avoidance countries (Groschl and Doherty
compared to themselves. This attitude stems from service 2006; Tseng 2017). Donthu and Yoo (1998) posit that custom-
providers’ possession of resources, experience, and skills. ers with higher uncertainty avoidance, because of their risk-
Donthu and Yoo (1998) refer explicitly to airlines as an averse nature, search more the attributes of the product and
example of that kind of power. In their study, they report that service, and therefore have higher expectations. Voss et al.
consumers ranked low on power distance have higher overall (2004) also report a negative relationship among customer
quality expectations compared to consumers from countries evaluations and uncertainty avoidance. Additionally, Reimann,
that are ranked high on that dimension. Furrer, Liu, and Lünemann, and Chase (2008) find that clients from countries
Sudharshan (2000) also find that in higher–power distance with a higher degree of uncertainty avoidance are less satisfied
countries, customers are more likely to tolerate failures from than clients from lower–uncertainty avoidance countries when
the more powerful service providers. Low–power distance their service expectations are not met as a result of service
cultures, on the other hand, tend to underestimate asymme- defects. This is explained by the narrow zone of tolerance of
tries in the power balance between the service provider and customers of countries with higher degree of uncertainty avoid-
themselves. Therefore, we expect passengers from high–dis- ance. Consequently, we formulate the following hypothesis:
tance power countries to be less critical to airlines as they
accept their authority and expertise, and we formulate the Hypothesis 3: Uncertainty Avoidance has a negative effect
following research hypothesis: on review valence.
Service quality perceptions are reported to differ between scoring indulgence countries (e.g., Mexico) actively follow
masculine- and feminine-oriented cultures. Masculine-oriented their needs and desires whilst customers from low scoring
cultures (e.g., Japan) value achievement, success, and material- indulgence countries tend to value restraint (e.g., Estonia).
ism while feminine-oriented cultures adhere to a lifestyle that This behavior is also reflected in the use of online tools that
favors quality of life and interpersonal relations (e.g., Norway). enable social interaction. Restraint-oriented cultures exhibit
With respect to service evaluations, individuals from high-mas- a reluctance in using online social networks (Krishnan and
culine cultures have a stronger motivation to provide feedback Lymm 2016; Stump and Gong 2017), which may be attrib-
than those in more feminine cultures because they want to uted to their averseness to self-disclosure. Likewise, indul-
express their experience with the service provided to others gence and restraint are associated with emotional valence.
(Fang et al. 2013). Such individuals are more likely to com- Scholars report that indulgent cultures are happier than
plain about poor service quality than individuals from more- restrained ones (e.g., Park, Baek, and Cha 2014), with a more
feminine cultures because they are less tolerant of service positive attitude as they are more optimistic and more likely
failures, and they perceive themselves to have the power to to remember positive emotions. Individuals from restrained
confront service providers for the unsatisfactory experience or societies on the other hand, are less happy, less likely to
even terminate their future interactions with them (Torres, Fu, remember positive emotions and more pessimists (Hofstede,
and Lehto 2014; Van Vaerenbergh et al. 2014). In the specific Hofstede, and Minkov 2010). Consequently, either because
context of airline passengers, Crotts and Erdmann (2000) of a more positive (negative) stance in life, or a higher pos-
report that passengers from masculine societies are more likely sibility to recall the positive (negative) emotions from their
to report defector attitudes while passengers from feminine experience or even a more “open” (“closed”) attitude to a
societies are more loyal to specific airlines. As such, we expect service provider we expect that this difference is also mir-
that travelers from masculine-oriented cultures approach the rored to the emotional valence of their reviews. Thus, we
service evaluation process with a more critical perspective. formulate the following hypothesis:
Thus, we examine the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 6: Indulgence has a positive effect on review
Hypothesis 4: Masculinity has a negative effect on review valence.
valence.
Cultural norms influence both individuals’ expectations
Time orientation captures humans’ consideration of their and their perceptions of received service quality (Weiermair
future. Hofstede distinguishes between individuals that are 2000). The previous sections argue that cultural differences
willing to make sacrifices now for their long-term benefit (a between customers influence the degree of accumulated sat-
life strategy coined as “long-term orientation”) and individu- isfaction with service encounters and have an impact on
als who focus on achieving immediate gratifications than evaluation ratings. Nevertheless, the literature suggests that
waiting for long-term fulfillment (coined as “short-term ori- cultural differences between individuals and service provid-
entation”). Studies suggest that individuals from long-term ers may also be the cause of service conflicts, which may be
oriented cultures (e.g., South Korea) are less likely to pro- attributed to variations in their culturally biased standards.
vide negative feedback pertaining to the service experience Such conflicts are likely to be weaker when two cultures are
compared to short-term oriented individuals (e.g., those from similar than when they are diverse (M. Li 2014). Scholars
Argentina), because they are not willing to uphold the risk of measure the degree of dissimilarities between cultures with
compromising their long-term relationships with the service “cultural distance” (Ye, Zhang, and Yuen 2013; Cheok,
provider (B. S.-C. Liu, Furrer, and Sudharshan 2001; Ryu Hede, and Watne 2015). In service encounters where cultural
and Moon 2009). To the contrary, short-term oriented indi- distance is high, individuals may perceive mismatches in
viduals have higher expectations from service providers, their service expectations and actual service performance
and, as such, are expected to be more critical (Mazaheri, that are attributed to the deficiency of the service providers
Richard, and Laroche 2011; Meng and Mummalaneni 2011). to account for various cultural standards (Laroche et al.
In effect, long-term oriented individuals value loyalty with 2004; Paswan and Ganesh 2005). An essential proxy of cul-
the service provider (Bartikowski, Walsh, and Beatty 2011; tural difference is the difference between individuals’ and
X. R. Li et al. 2011) and we expect this behavior to be service providers’ countries of origin. Evidence in the litera-
reflected in their online ratings. Thus, we hypothesize: ture suggests that customers formulate stronger loyalty ties
toward service providers from the same country of origin
Hypothesis 5: Long-term orientation has a positive effect (Javalgi, Cutler, and Winans 2001; Thelen and Shapiro
on review valence. 2012). This is attributed to increased comfort perceptions
during the service encounter (Paswan and Ganesh 2005).
A final inclusion to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions is Therefore, we expect that airline passengers will favor air-
indulgence. Indulgence is interpreted as the degree to which lines from countries with similar cultural characteristics and
individuals can control their impulses. Customers from high we propose the following research hypothesis:
Table 1. Sample Characteristics. Table 2. Descriptive Statistics.
Variable M SD
Total number of airlines 489 Ratings per service category
Total number of reviews 557,208 Overall score 3.68 1.29
Total number of users 376,519 Seat comfort 3.46 1.11
Total number of countries (reviewers) 203 Customer service 3.75 1.34
Total number of countries (airlines) 147 Cleanliness 3.94 1.03
Number of reviews in English 254,424 Food and beverages 3.32 1.27
Average length of English review text (characters) 560.27 Legroom 3.45 1.14
Inflight entertainment / Wi-Fi 3.01 1.47
Value for money 3.66 1.23
Hypothesis 7: The cultural distance between passenger Check-in and boarding 3.81 1.25
and airline’s country of origin has a negative effect on Additional variables
review valence. Flight distance (kilometers) 4,215.10 3,784.09
Reviewer’s level of contribution 3.83 1.88
Overall score for economy class 3.64 1.29
Data, Methods, and Results Overall score for premium economy 3.92 1.22
Sample Overall score for business class 3.98 1.21
Overall score for first class 4.00 1.26
We collected reviews from TripAdvisor, the most popular
review aggregator that provides booking services to all Note: Rating scale is for 1 (minimum) to 5 (maximum) stars level of
satisfaction.
travel-related activities. TripAdvisor adopts a mixed model
that allows it to function as both an online travel intermedi-
ary and review aggregator, with its ratings used by hotels and 147 countries. Approximately half of the reviews in our sam-
restaurants worldwide as an indication of service quality. ple are in English (254,424), with an average text length of
Because of the lenient availability of data content to research- 560 characters. Table 2 provides a breakdown of the review
ers, TripAdvisor has been heavily used in the literature of valence in our sample by service aspect and cabin class, as
electronic word of mouth (e.g., see Crotts, Mason, and Davis well as additional metadata available for each review. The
2009; Pearce and Wu 2016). While TripAdvisor’s primary average overall rating for all reviews in our sample was rela-
offering to consumers comprises aggregating ratings of tively good (M = 3.68, SD = 1.29) and not substantially dif-
hotels and restaurants, the company has recently launched a ferent from the ratings given to the other aspects of the flight
section where passengers share and evaluate their flight experience.
experiences with a specific carrier. Therefrom, we gathered
all publicly available reviews until August 2017, comprising
a total of N = 557,208 reviews. In addition to the review text,
Dependent Variables and Controls
metadata containing information about passenger’s/review- The dependent variable used in our model (review score) is an
er’s country of residence, flight date, name of air carrier, ordinal Likert-type scale with values between 1 and 5 that cap-
route, cabin class (Economy, Economy Premium, Business tures the overall satisfaction of the passenger with the service
Class, and First Class), and an overall rating for the flight he or she received by an airline during a flight. The individual
experience (in an ordinal scale from 1 to 5), were also col- ratings for the various aspects of the flight were also employed
lected. Each rating is also accompanied by an optional rating as dependent variables to evaluate our theoretical model. We
(aspect rating) for eight specific aspects of the flight experi- obtained the values for the Hofstede dimensions using pas-
ence namely: (1) legroom, (2) seat comfort, (3) customer ser- sengers’ self-reported country of origin. We also controlled for
vice, (4) value for money, (5) cleanliness, (6) check-in and additional variables that could have an influence on the overall
boarding, (7) food and beverage, and (8) inflight entertain- rating or on the rating of a specific aspect, such as cabin class,
ment / wi-fi connectivity. Unlike other review aggregators flight distance, and reviewers’ (passengers’) level of contribu-
(e.g., Booking.com), TripAdvisor does not aggregate the rat- tion to TripAdvisor. Cabin class was coded as a categorical
ings given to individual aspects to form the overall score. variable with four levels (Economy, Economy Premium,
This allows us to evaluate our theoretical model not only on Business Class, and First Class). Flight distance was measured
the overall score but also on the individual ratings given for as the geographical distance (in kilometers) between the
various aspects of the flight experience. departure and the destination airport and was estimated via the
Table 1 provides the description of the characteristics of Haversine method using the coordinates (latitude and longi-
our sample. The 557,208 reviews in our data set are written tude) obtained from Google’s geolocation API. Finally,
by 376,519 passengers originating from 203 countries and reviewers’ level of contribution was sourced by the review
territories, providing ratings for 489 airlines registered in metadata, which are displayed on each review.
Table 3. Results of Ordered Logistic Regression for Each Aspect of the Rating Score with the Hofstede Dimensions, Controlling for
Flight Distance, Reviewer Expertise, and Cabin Class Upgrades.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

Power Distance 0.003*** 0.008*** 0.004*** 0.007*** 0.005*** 0.008*** 0.003*** 0.003*** 0.004***
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Individualism −0.003*** −0.001*** −0.000 −0.000 −0.003*** −0.000 −0.007*** −0.001*** 0.000
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Uncertainty −0.001*** −0.005*** −0.000 −0.003*** −0.003*** −0.008*** −0.001*** −0.003*** −0.002***
Avoidance (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Masculinity −0.001*** −0.003*** −0.003*** −0.002*** −0.003*** −0.002*** 0.001** −0.001*** −0.002***
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Long-Term −0.001* 0.003*** −0.001*** 0.001** −0.001** 0.004*** −0.005*** 0.001*** −0.001***
Orientation (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Indulgence 0.000 0.001*** 0.002*** 0.004*** −0.000 0.002*** 0.005*** −0.000 0.002***
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Flight Distance 0.104*** 0.114*** 0.112*** 0.123*** 0.316*** 0.137*** 0.603*** 0.053*** 0.099***
(0.003) (0.003) (0.003) (0.004) (0.004) (0.003) (0.003) (0.003) (0.004)
Reviewer Expertise 0.061*** 0.026*** 0.033*** 0.002 0.009*** 0.035*** 0.049*** 0.036*** 0.016***
(0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002)
Premium Economy 0.416*** 0.881*** 0.424*** 0.437*** 0.476*** 1.175*** 0.607*** 0.069*** 0.381***
(0.018) (0.019) (0.019) (0.021) (0.021) (0.019) (0.019) (0.019) (0.021)
Business Class 0.458*** 1.460*** 0.635*** 0.644*** 0.957*** 1.939*** 0.695*** 0.160*** 0.559***
(0.011) (0.012) (0.012) (0.014) (0.013) (0.013) (0.012) (0.012) (0.014)
First Class 0.644*** 1.811*** 0.874*** 0.690*** 1.105*** 2.174*** 1.141*** 0.182*** 0.824***
(0.024) (0.026) (0.027) (0.029) (0.029) (0.027) (0.026) (0.025) (0.030)
McFadden R2 0.36 0.38 0.36 0.35 0.36 0.39 0.39 0.36 0.34
AIC 1042181 938963 952187 696674 763882 932399 907991 966501 748988
LL −521076 −469467 −476078 −348322 −381926 −466184 −453981 −483236 −374479
Observations 359,424 334,263 334,668 265,998 254,234 333,994 301,051 331,334 266,754
Note: Standard errors are in parenthesis. Model specifications for dependent variables: (1) Overall Score, (2) Seat Comfort, (3) Customer Service, (4)
Cleanliness, (5) Food and Beverage, (6) Legroom, (7) Inflight entertainment / Wi-Fi, (8) Value for Money, and (9) Check-in and Boarding. AIC = Akaike
information criterion; LL = log likelihood.
*
p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.
Based on the work of Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov concern in any of our econometric specifications. The
(2010), we examined the effect of the six cultural dimensions on results reveal a significant positive effect of Power Distance
passengers’ ratings. To this end, we used ordered logistic regres- (β1 = 0.003, p<0.001), supporting hypothesis 1. The direc-
sion analysis with review ratings as dependent variables con- tion and significance of this effect is found to be similar
trolling for the variables discussed previously. Consequently, across all the service categories/aspects that are evaluated in
our econometric specification for the i-th review ric that belongs our model. Our results supported hypotheses 2 to 4, reveal-
to the rating category c had the following form: ing a significant negative effect for Individualism (β2 =
−0.003, p<0.001), Uncertainty Avoidance (β3 = −0.001,
ric = β 0 + β1PowerDistance + β 2 Individualism p<0.001), and Masculinity (β4 = −0.001, p<0.001). Similar
+ β3UncertaintyAvoidance effects are also reported for the individual service factors.
+ β 4 Masculinity + β5 LongTermOrientation Long-Term Orientation displays an opposite effect from the
4 examined hypothesis (i.e., hypothesis 5) though at a lower
+ β 6 Indulgence + β 7 m ∑CabinClass + β FlightDistance
m =1
8
significance level (β5 = −0.001, p<0.05). We find a positive
association for most tangible aspects such as seating and
+ β9 ReviewerExpertise + ε legroom while for more intangible aspects, such as customer
service and check-in, the direction is opposite. This is in line
The Effect of Cultural Dimensions on Passengers’ with the findings of Furrer, Liu, and Sudharshan (2000),
who describe that in long-term–oriented cultures, reliability,
Rating responsiveness, and empathy are extremely important while
Table 3 reports the results of each rating category. tangibles are not so necessary. With regard to hypothesis 6,
Multicollinearity was evaluated for all models using the results show that the effect of Indulgence is not significant
variance inflation factor and was not found to cause any to the overall rating (β6 = 0.000, p>0.05); however it has a
Table 4. Results of Ordered Logistic Regression for Each Aspect of the Rating Score with the Cultural Distance between the Country
of the Reviewer and the Country of the Airline Controlling for Flight Distance, Reviewer Expertise, and Cabin Class Upgrades.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

Cultural Distance −0.027*** 0.013*** −0.046*** −0.001 −0.001 0.016*** −0.069*** 0.081*** −0.056***
(0.003) (0.003) (0.003) (0.003) (0.003) (0.003) (0.003) (0.003) (0.003)
Flight Distance 0.044*** 0.035*** 0.080*** 0.066*** 0.261*** 0.067*** 0.579*** −0.022*** 0.072***
(0.003) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004)
Reviewer Expertise 0.059*** 0.023*** 0.029*** −0.003 0.007** 0.031*** 0.048*** 0.033*** 0.012***
(0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002)
Premium Economy 0.467*** 0.980*** 0.452*** 0.507*** 0.539*** 1.286*** 0.642*** 0.152*** 0.418***
(0.018) (0.019) (0.020) (0.022) (0.021) (0.019) (0.019) (0.019) (0.021)
Business Class 0.400*** 1.409*** 0.594*** 0.597*** 0.938*** 1.900*** 0.687*** 0.102*** 0.519***
(0.012) (0.013) (0.013) (0.015) (0.015) (0.014) (0.013) (0.013) (0.015)
First Class 0.508*** 1.703*** 0.792*** 0.618*** 1.008*** 2.112*** 1.089*** 0.147*** 0.797***
(0.025) (0.027) (0.028) (0.030) (0.029) (0.028) (0.027) (0.026) (0.031)
McFadden R2 0.42 0.43 0.41 0.40 0.41 0.43 0.44 0.41 0.40
AIC 961,026 864,056 878,645 644,736 703,765 860,972 833,048 888,949 692,672
LL −480,503 −432,018 −439,313 −322,358 −351,872 −430,476 −416,514 −444,465 −346,326
Observations 328,281 305,263 305,618 243,539 232,060 305,026 272,793 302,648 244,223
Note: Standard errors are in parenthesis. Model specifications for dependent variable: (1) Overall Score, (2) Seat Comfort, (3) Customer Service, (4)
Cleanliness, (5) Food and Beverage, (6) Legroom, (7) Inflight entertainment / Wi-Fi, (8) Value for Money, and (9) Check-in and Boarding. AIC = Akaike
information criterion; LL = log likelihood.
*
p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.
positive and statistically significant effect on most of the where D pi is the i-th Hofstede dimension for the country of
other service factors (apart from food and value for money the passenger p, Dai is the value for the same dimension for
categories where the effect is not significant). Thus, hypoth- the country of the airline a, and Vi denotes the variance of
esis 6 was partially supported. that dimension. The econometric model is estimated as
With regard to our control variables, both flight distance before, replacing the individual Hofstede dimensions with
and reviewer expertise had a positive effect. The effect of the the computed cultural distance.
former can be attributed to the fact that long-distance flights The results reported in Table 4 display a strong negative
are usually performed by bigger aircrafts and provide more association with the overall score (β = −0.027, p<0.001), sup-
services to passengers. On the other hand, reviewers who porting hypothesis 7. However, the impact varies with the
contribute less to TripAdvisor are likely to be those that post individual service aspects. More specifically, the relationship
for retaliation to service failures, in contrast to those that are is positive for legroom, seating, and value for money. However,
more active contributors to the platform. Lastly, we intui- service aspects that are more subject to cultural influences
tively found cabin class upgrades to result in more positive from the country of origin of the carrier, such as the interaction
rating because of the upgrade in level of service. with the personnel (customer service and check-in/boarding),
and inflight entertainment receive a lower rating on average
when the cultural distance between the passenger and the car-
Does the Cultural Distance between Passenger
rier increases. The same, though insignificant, direction could
and Airline Influence the Rating Behavior? be observed for the food category.
Hitherto, our results assessed the effect of each Hofstede
dimension on the overall rating as well as on specific service
The Effect of Cultural Dimensions on
factors. Considering that Hofstede dimensions can also be
used to explain not only individual cultural traits but also the Informational Content of Online
cross-national differences, we extended our analysis on how Reviews
cross-national differences impact the overall score and the Passengers’ ratings to a set of predefined service factors pro-
operational aspects captured by the ratings. To test this effect, vide useful information for airline managers but at the same
we computed the cultural distance using the Kogut and Singh time carry the limitation that the preselection of these catego-
(1988) formula as follows: ries constrain their informational content. Other factors that
(D ) may please or irritate the passengers that are not explicitly
2
1
6 − Dai
∑
pi
Distance pa = , defined on the rating scales cannot be captured. Textual anal-
6 n =1
Vi ysis allows us to overcome this limitation by exploring the
informational content of the review text. Using recent followed the text preprocessing workflow used in previous
advances in topic models, we explored how the textual con- studies in the literature (Tirunillai and Tellis 2014; Guo,
tent of a review varies with passengers’ cultural dimensions. Barnes, and Jia 2017) to prepare the text for our analysis.
Topic modeling has gained attention in marketing, tour- This included (a) word text tokenization, (b) elimination of
ism, and hospitality research (Tirunillai and Tellis 2014; numbers, punctuation marks, (c) removal of language stop
Guo, Barnes, and Jia 2017) as an important methodology for words (using the SMART stop-word list), as well as context-
exploring customer-provided textual information. In princi- specific stop words such as names of airlines and routes, and
ple, topic modeling is a set of unsupervised machine learning words with length under a specific threshold (number of
techniques that self-organize textual corpora in groups of characters <3), and (d) filtering of the remaining words using
topics evaluating how specific groups of words appear part-of-speech (POS) tagging to keep only nouns as well as
together using both volume and context as inputs. In our adverbs and adjectives (in order to capture sentiment). For
analysis, we consider recent advances in topic modeling and step (d), we used the Stanford NLP parser. After preprocess-
specifically structural topic models (Roberts et al. 2014; ing, the remaining words were lemmatized to group words
Roberts, Stewart, and Airoldi 2016). Structural Topic with the same root form and we filtered the terms, keeping
Modeling (STM) is a probabilistic topic modeling method those that appeared in at least 1% of the total reviews in our
where topic coverage and word distribution are inferred initial corpus (Neng). This produced a set of Nstm=184,502
using Bayesian techniques. It builds on established probabi- reviews that comprised our final corpus.
listic topic models such as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA)
(Blei, Ng, and Jordan 2003) or Correlated Topic Model (Blei
and Lafferty 2006) where documents (which in our case are
Estimating the Number of Topics
the review texts) represent a mixture of latent topics and each Our topic solution was estimated in R using the stm pack-
of these topics is described by a word distribution. age. Following Roberts, Stewart, and Tingley (2017), we
An essential difference of the STM method compared to ran an iterative process to select and evaluate the number
other topic models, such as LDA or Correlated Topic of topics using three criteria: (a) Heldout likelihood (a
Model, is that it allows the inclusion of document metadata measure on how the number of topics explains the overall
(or covariates). This novelty enables us to connect addi- variability in our corpus), (b) Exclusivity of topic words to
tional characteristics about a document with a documents’ the topic and (c) Semantic coherence of the topic structure.
degree of association with a topic (topical prevalence) and We used the recommended approach of initializing our
the degree of association of a word with a topic (topical estimation with spectral decomposition in addition to a
content), thus relaxing the highly restrictive assumption of seed vector (K) of the candidate number of topics rather
exchangeability that is found in LDA. Exchangeability than using Gibbs sampling on the Dirichlet distribution
assumes that all authors are equally likely to write a docu- (Lee and Mimno 2014). Considering that the primary
ment, while in STM the probability of topic prevalence metadata associated with review text is its numerical rat-
relates to other covariates. In our case, this allowed us to ing, we used the overall score as the primary covariate to
connect each Hofstede dimension with the topics derived estimate the topic solution that contained both positive and
from our analysis and reach useful conclusions about the negative aspects of the same topic in our final model. We
topics that are discussed more based on passengers’ cul- began with an initial number of Kmin = 8 topics as a seed
tural traits. value since this is the number of rating aspects that are
We followed a three-step process to perform our analysis provided by TripAdvisor on its review interface, and eval-
through STM. First, the text of each review was pre-pro- uated the heldout likelihood for a maximum of Kmax = 40
cessed to create an appropriate corpus for analysis. Second, topics in our sample.
we fit an STM model to identify the number of topics that The candidate topic solutions with the highest heldout
describe better the variability of the corpus and labeled them likelihood was then evaluated against the ratio of their
accordingly with the help of experts. Finally, we analyzed semantic coherence and exclusivity. Semantic coherence is a
the effect of Hofstede dimensions on the prevalence of the criterion developed by Mimno et al. (2011) that increases
topics obtained from our STM solution. We describe these based on the frequency of co-occurrence of the most proba-
steps in more details in the sections that follow. ble words in each topic of the topic solution. On the other
hand, exclusivity considers the mutual appearance of the
most probable words in more than one topic and can be used
Text Preparation for Analysis to evaluate overall topic quality for each candidate model. A
We constrained our analysis only to reviews written in combination of these criteria can be captured through the
English since our topic model approach works best with text FREX criterion (Roberts, Stewart, and Airoldi 2016), which
corpora in this language. From the total sample of N = considers a weighted harmonic mean of a word’s rank in
557,208 reviews, Neng = 254,424 reviews are in English and terms of exclusivity and frequency in a k-topic solution as
form the initial corpus that was used for our analysis. We follows:
Table 5. Labels, Distribution and FREX Score for the Top 7 Keywords in the Topic Solution.
No. Topic Label Proportion (%) Top 7 FREX Words

1 Delays 11.56 delay, minute, late, hour, due, connection, departure
2 Staff (Praise) 9.24 friendly, helpful, professional, efficient, clean, courteous, staff
3 Seating (Critique) 6.68 row, front, seat, uncomfortable, aisle, exit, window
4 Value for Money 6.59 good, overall, value, food, perfect, money, bit
5 Traveler Experience 5.97 many, best, domestic, past, job, need, possible
6 Staff (Critique) 5.94 attendant, water, stewardess, old, steward, terrible, passenger
7 Check-in/Boarding 5.91 check, luggage, hand, security, easy, queue, allowance
8 Mode of Travel 5.82 trip, return, direct, stop, family, home, non
9 Inflight Entertainment 5.42 entertainment, movie, screen, inflight, selection, average, quality
10 Service Failure/Response 5.22 phone, email, credit, call, agent, card, change
11 Staff Assistance 5.16 crew, cabin, holiday, special, child, nothing, much
12 Ticket Cost 5.01 low, price, budget, cheap, cost, cheaper, fare
13 Food/Beverage 4.86 coffee, snack, meal, drink, sandwich, free, tea
14 Baggage Policy 3.46 bag, carry, charge, line, checked, fee, item
15 Business Class 3.03 flat, lounge, business, class, bed, sleep, access
16 Wi-Fi Connectivity 2.64 wifi, free, board, duty, app, hassle, access
17 Economy Premium 2.16 economy, premium, comfort, upgrade, difference, section, worth
18 Legroom (Praise) 2.06 leg, plenty, extra, lot, comfortable, seating, bit
19 Legroom (Critique) 1.86 room, space, enough, tall, foot, amount, bit
20 Frequent Flyer 1.41 flyer, mile, world, member, traveller, point, part
−1 Estimating the Effect of Cultural Dimensions on

 
 ω 1− ω  Review Text
FREX k ,u = +  ,
 ECDF  βk ,u /
∑
k

β j ,u  ECDF ( β )
k ,u 

Having estimated our topic model solution, we evaluated the
  j =1   effect of each cultural dimension on the prevalence of the
topics in our corpus. To achieve that, we regressed the topic
where k ∈ K is the k-th topic, u is the word under consid- proportions for the estimated topic solution with each of the
eration, β is the word distribution for this topic, and ω a Hofstede cultural dimensions controlling at the same time
prior used to impose exclusivity (in our case it was equal for the review score and all the controls used in our previous
to 0.7). specification. This allowed us to draw proportional odds
After considering the above criteria, we selected a K = 20 from the conditional expectation of topic prevalence given
topic solution to describe the variability of our corpus given the metadata associated with this review. In our case, this
the relationship between heldout likelihood, semantic coher- corresponded to the loading of a particular review on a topic
ence, and exclusivity. The final output comprised 184,502 using the differential effect of its associated metadata
reviews and a 413-word dictionary. For the labeling of the (Hofstede’s dimensions).
topics, two experts with experience in dealing with airline Figure 1 displays the expected change of topic propor-
customer service were recruited to evaluate each topic of the tions for low and high values of each of the Hofstede dimen-
optimal topic solution and assign a label. Both experts agreed sions, providing interesting insights for the cultural effects
that the selected topic solution had a high degree of coher- on the review text. In the continuum of the Power Distance
ence in terms of the top loading reviews and assigned mutu- dimension, passengers from more–power distance societies
ally acceptable labels. Table 5 provides the estimated topic are more critical to staff and more prone to complain about
solution along with the words with the highest FREX score baggage fees, delays, and service recovery failures. As we
and the assigned labels. approach the other extreme, passengers are more willing to
For each topic, we estimated the expected proportion by praise the staff and they are very appreciative of staff assis-
averaging the loading of each document on the topic solution tance and in-flight services such as food/beverage and enter-
over the total documents in the final corpus. As can be tainment. A very similar picture is observed at the continuum
observed in the third column of Table 5, delays and staff of the Individualism cultural dimension. On the other hand,
praise are the topics with the highest prevalence. Other sig- Uncertainty Avoidance, Indulgence, and Masculinity display
nificant topics refer to service failure recoveries such as smaller marginal effects on topic prevalence as they lie closer
refund after a flight is canceled, customer service complaints, to the dotted line which represents zero effect. More specifi-
and critiques toward the staff. cally, ticket cost has the highest change (increase) in topic
Figure 1. Proportional odds on topic prevalence for each of the Hofstede dimensions. Zero effects are marked with a dotted line. For
each figure, topics are plotted across the continuum (low to high) of the values of the respective Hofstede dimension. Horizontal axis
shows the increase (decrease) in topic prevalence for the plotted topic per unit of each Hofstede dimension.
prevalence for Uncertainty Avoidance, value for money ri − mean ( rc )

exhibits the highest change (decrease) for Indulgence, while yr = ,
staff praise and staff assistance have the strongest effects for dispersion ( rc )
Masculinity. Finally, the effect of Long-Term Orientation is where ri was the observed rating (overall score) of the
quite strong and when moving from short-term– to long- reviewer i that was standardized by the overall mean and dis-
term–oriented cultures, passengers are more sensitive to persion of all reviews (rc) submitted to TripAdvisor by review-
check-in/boarding, price, and value for money. Moving on to ers from the same country (within-country standardization).
the opposite extreme for this dimension, passengers are more This approach is widely used when dealing with cross-cultural
sensitive to extra fees and the general baggage policy of the response biases (Fischer 2004). To ensure the same level of
carriers. variation for the within-country used sample, we used a thresh-
old considering only reviews submitted by passengers coming
Cultural Bias Correction and Its Effect on Airline from countries that account for at least 0.5% of our total sam-
ple. A second filtering rule required that airlines have at least
Ranking 0.5% of total reviews. This resulted in a sample of 37 interna-
Our results reveal a robust influence of the cultural charac- tional airlines that are used to rank them based on the overall
teristics on both the numerical and textual part of the score and the standardized overall score. To evaluate the loss
reviews. Considering that online reviews stem from an of information in this ranking due to cultural influence, we
international pool of reviewers with different cultural employed Kendall’s tau rank correlation coefficient to check
backgrounds, cross-cultural differences may distort the the concordance among the ranking pairs. Our results indi-
informational content derived from online reviews. Not cated a strong (τ=87%) and significant (T = 946, p<0.000)
accounting for this distortion may lead to misinterpreta- coefficient of concordance. However a level of disagreement
tions especially for deducing general conclusions about the is also revealed, suggesting that when passengers’ cultural
quality of a service provider. In this section, we study the traits are not taken into consideration, this can lead to a distor-
magnitude of that distortion on the quality overall ranking tion of the ranking information extracted from the passenger
of airlines based on the provided review ratings. In particu- reviews. Table 6 shows the top 20 airlines ranked by the over-
lar, we gauged the difference between the overall ranking all score (column A) and the standardized overall score (col-
of airlines between the raw and standardized ratings that umn B). The differential effect of the dispersion in the ranking
consider the country of origin of the reviewer. The overall of each airline (Δ Rank) is shown in the final column. We
standardized satisfaction of the reviewer (y) was estimated should note here that the results are similar when we apply
as follows: different sampling filters or use the whole sample.
Table 6. The Effect of Cultural Differences on the Ranking of Airlines Based on Online Reviews.
Airline Raw Rank (A) Airline Standardized Rank (B) Δ Rank (A – B)

Azul 1 Emirates 1 −3 ↓
Singapore Airlines 2 Southwest Airlines 2 −1 ↓
Emirates 3 Singapore Airlines 3 +2 ↑
Southwest Airlines 4 Azul 4 +2 ↑
Jet2.com 5 Jet2.com 5 0
Aeroflot 6 JetBlue 6 −6 ↓
JetBlue 7 Qatar Airways 7 +1 ↑
Qatar Airways 8 Virgin Atlantic Airways 8 +1 ↑
Virgin Atlantic Airways 9 Turkish Airlines 9 +1 ↑
Turkish Airlines 10 Lufthansa 10 +1 ↑
Avianca 11 KLM 11 +3 ↓
KLM 12 Aeroflot 12 +1 ↑
Lufthansa 13 Cathay Pacific 13 +3 ↑
Jet Airways 14 Avianca 14 −1 ↓
Cathay Pacific 15 Jet Airways 15 +2 ↑
LATAM Airlines 16 Qantas 16 −3 ↓
Qantas 17 Delta Air Lines 17 +1 ↑
Delta Air Lines 18 Norwegian 18 +1 ↑
Norwegian 19 LATAM Airlines 19 +1 ↑
Aerolineas Argentinas 20 Transavia 20 >–1↓
Conclusion, Implications, and and the accumulated perceived satisfaction from the service
Limitations quality. This implies that passengers are more satisfied from
airline companies that are more closely associated with their
Summary of Contribution cultural values. As such, this study contributes to the litera-
ture that relates culture and service satisfaction in the broader
Our study contributes to the ever-growing stream of litera-
travel and hospitality context (Laroche et al. 2004; Reisinger
ture on online reviews and electronic word of mouth
and Crotts 2010; M. Li 2014) and provides deeper insights
(Purnawirawan et al. 2015; Book, Tanford, and Chen 2016;
on the specific behavioral patterns exhibited by individuals
Choi et al. 2016; Phillips et al. 2017; Symitsi, Stamolampros,
from different cultures paving the way for the development
and Daskalakis 2018) by providing new insights into how
of atypical service quality profiles based on passengers’ cul-
cultural traits might affect evaluations in the context of
tural orientations. We summarize the theoretical and practi-
online ratings for service encounters. While the majority of cal contributions of our study in the following sections.
studies in electronic word of mouth consider the case of
product evaluations from a single country, our study of air-
line ratings provides an analysis of reviews using a pool from Theoretical Implications
international passengers examining ratings across multiple Our study provides further evidence to the body of literature
countries. We also examine the existence of such effects on tackling the impact of cultural traits on service evaluations in
postpurchase evaluations and not on the selection process, multiple service contexts (e.g., Groschl and Doherty 2006;
which is the primary focus of the extant literature. Although Torres, Fu, and Lehto 2014; Sabiote-Ortiz, Frías-Jamilena,
such dynamics may exhibit a significant effect on the infor- and Castañeda-García 2016; Stamolampros and Korfiatis
mational content of online reviews, they have remained 2018; and many others). However, we empirically demon-
rather unexplored. strate that these associations may exhibit fluctuations when
Our findings show that there are variations in airline pas- considering the discrete constituent service quality features
sengers’ perceived service quality satisfaction, based on the and the cultural distance between the passenger and the ser-
differences in their inherent cultural values. These differ- vice provider. Specifically, although extant studies have doc-
ences are reflected not only on the overall perceived satisfac- umented that at an interpersonal level, cultural dispositions
tion regarding the service quality of an airline company, but may directly affect the extent to which individuals attribute
also on all individual aspects (e.g., perceived satisfaction service achievements (or failures) to the provider (Weiermair
from staff, food, seat comfort, cleanliness). Interestingly, our 2000; Laroche et al. 2004), cultural similarities (or diver-
findings also document a negative association between the gences) between individuals and service providers can alle-
cultural distance of the passenger and the airline company viate (or reinforce) these perceptions of service satisfaction
(dissatisfaction). Notably, our analysis showcases that cul- adapted communication/ marketing strategies, and personal-
tural distance plays an important role in determining dissat- ized features in the website of the airline, including its cen-
isfaction not only to the overall service experience, but also tral reservation system, based on passenger cultural values/
to all individual service quality dimensions that relate to differences.
interpersonal interactions (i.e., check-in, boarding, and cus- Along with this line, our content analysis of prevalent ser-
tomer service). vice quality features per cultural dimension may inform the
Moreover, this study provides a more in-depth under- development of cultural passenger clusters. Indeed, our anal-
standing in explaining the effect of cultural values on service ysis suggests that passengers from high power and individual-
evaluation by considering not only the numerical part (review ism countries give emphasis to intangible service quality
score) but also the textual content of online reviews. Such an traits, such as baggage policies and delays, while passengers
approach has been overlooked by existing studies, which from masculine and long-term orientation countries give
focus primarily on the statistical dependence between cul- emphasis to service quality traits that relate to interpersonal
tural values and online ratings (Fang et al. 2013; interactions and overall value. Since the cultural trait of a pas-
Purnawirawan et al. 2015). Our methodological stance uti- senger stems from the amalgamation of all individual cultural
lizes a novel text mining approach to determine which ser- dimensions, identifying the prevalent service quality features
vice quality features are evaluated more favorably by each per cultural dimension may be used by airline managers for
cultural dimension, thus enriching the cross-cultural research further improving the respective service offerings per passen-
on services evaluation with an alternative approach. gers’ cultural cluster. This kind of information could also be
used for airlines to explore new markets. A first step before
any expansion to new routes could be to understand what pas-
Managerial Implications sengers in those markets value more and evaluate the fitness
Our study has significant implications for practitioners in of carrier’s marketing mix based on these insights.
the aviation and travel and hospitality sector. Online Our findings also reveal a distortion in the informational
reviews provide a valuable tool for managers to efficiently content of online reviews as a result of cross-national differ-
explore customer preferences as well as firms’ strengths ences. Firms, customers, and policy makers should be cau-
and weaknesses in their service encounters. From that per- tious to the interpretation of raw data deriving from online
spective, using online reviews as a performance measure- reviews as the mean overall rating (or its dispersion) can be
ment tool compared to standard methods of measuring explained partially by different rating patterns. Therefore, in
customer-perceived service quality such as SERVQUAL case of an international pool of reviewers, the informational
(Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry 1985, 1988), airlines content should be weighted by appropriate measures to elim-
are able to extract more context-specific and detailed inate such influences. Finally, review aggregators that accu-
information from much larger samples. Even though tradi- mulate opinions from an international pool of reviewers
tional survey-based methods (relying on questionnaires) should employ alternative measures that consider cross-
provide a valid source of information, they come at a cost national differences in response patterns for revealing the
as they require time, careful sample selection procedures, true quality of a product or service.
and resources, and at the same time are usually constrained
to a limited (though representative) number of respon-
dents. At the same time, review text could be used to
Limitations
extract factors of customer satisfaction that may not be Nonetheless, our study is not without limitations, which are
able to be measured through survey scales. directly derived from the nature of online reviews. Several
Our analysis also exposes several dynamics that affect biases have been established in the literature of e-WOM
passengers’ perceived quality related to airline services and such as self-selection (X. Li and Hitt 2008), and response
more importantly the influence of cultural factors. We dem- biases (Hu, Zhang, and Pavlou 2009). Online reviews could
onstrate that the cultural background of passengers has a be subject to manipulation (Choi et al. 2016). Nonetheless,
significant impact on their perceived expectations and over- primary data offers the opportunity to elicit and control for
all satisfaction from the service encounter. In the context of customers’ personal characteristics, which are sparsely
an airline, operation managers need to collect upfront infor- available on online reviews. Therefore, we are not able to
mation about the cultural values of their customers, pinpoint control for several demographics factors (such as sex, age,
whether there are differences or commonalities with the level of education, etc.). Second, our analysis is not per-
inherent cultural values of the service provider, and deter- formed in the highest micro-level (e.g., comparing the eval-
mine when adaptation may be necessary for regional or uation of different types of customers within the same flight
global interpersonal service approaches. This passenger- or route), as we do not have enough observations for this
driven approach may dictate the design of a plethora of ser- type of analysis. However, by controlling for cabin class
vice interventions, such as tailored interpersonal interactions and duration of the service encounter (in the form of flight
and associated before, in-, and after-flight service offerings, distance), we alleviate such concerns. Third, Hofstede’s
dimensions, that capture cultural traits and the cultural dis- written in other languages, thus excluding possible influ-
tance with the service provider, are aggregate measures. ences from non-English speakers.
Within-country variation exists, and individual responses Overall, our study by simultaneously assessing the impact
could be more representative of the actual culture of a cus- of culture on both the numeric and the textual part of online
tomer (see, e.g., Donthu and Yoo 1998). Nonetheless, our reviews provides evidence about the influence inherent fac-
large sample size allows us to infer unbiased results as it tors such as culture exercise on the criteria and the weights
can be assumed to be representative of the whole popula- individuals use to form their expectations and evaluations.
tion and not the result of outliers from the within-country Therefore, customers who rely on online reviews to make
variation. Last, our estimated topic model is restricted only their decisions should be cautious that not all opinions
to reviews that are in English and do not consider reviews expressed online match their personal preferences.
Appendix: Top 10 Countries in Our Data set and Their Corresponding Hofstede Values.
Total Number Power Uncertainty Long-Term

of Reviews Distance Avoidance Individualism Masculinity Orientation Indulgence
United States 70,054 40 46 91 62 26 68
United Kingdom 50,578 35 35 89 66 51 69
Italy 22,069 50 75 76 70 61 30
France 20,543 68 86 71 43 63 48
Australia 19,890 36 51 90 61 21 71
Brazil 18,680 69 76 38 49 44 59
Argentina 16,278 49 86 46 56 20 62
Canada 14,903 39 48 80 52 36 68
Germany 12,222 35 65 67 66 83 40
Spain 11,399 57 86 51 42 48 44
Declaration of Conflicting Interests Behavioral Intentions for Air Passengers: Evidence from
Taiwan.” Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
42 (4): 709–17.
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Cheok, Jason, Anne-Marie Hede, and Torgeir Aleti Watne. 2015.
“Explaining Cross-Cultural Service Interactions in Tourism
Funding with Shenkar’s Cultural Friction.” Current Issues in Tourism
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, author- 18 (6): 539–60.
ship, and/or publication of this article. Choi, Sungwoo, Anna S. Mattila, Hubert B. Van Hoof, and Donna
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Tested: The Impact of Online Hotel Reviews on Consumer neering from Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden.
Consideration.” Tourism Management 30 (1): 123–27.
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PhD in information systems and MSc in informatics from Athens
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University of Economics and Business, Greece.
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with Service Quality in the Cross-Cultural Service Encounter: School, University of East Anglia. She holds a PhD in finance from
Implications for Hospitality and Tourism Management.” Managing the University of East Anglia and MSc in accounting and finance
Service Quality: An International Journal 10 (6): 397–409. from Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece.

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764345

Empirical Research Article

Journal of Travel Research

Flying to Quality: Cultural Influences

Panagiotis Stamolampros1, Nikolaos Korfiatis1,

Introduction This study explores how reviewers’ cultural values influ-

Table 1. Sample Characteristics. Table 2. Descriptive Statistics.

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

No. Topic Label Proportion (%) Top 7 FREX Words

−1 Estimating the Effect of Cultural Dimensions on

prevalence for Uncertainty Avoidance, value for money ri − mean ( rc )

Airline Raw Rank (A) Airline Standardized Rank (B) Δ Rank (A – B)

Total Number Power Uncertainty Long-Term

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