This study analyzes how consumers' level of ethnocentrism influences their perceived quality on an imported service. Design/methodology/approach: In order to do so, this study firstly utilizes five measurement items to assess consumers' level of ethnocentrism. Then, SERVQUAL (Tangibles, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, and Empathy) is employed to evaluate consumers' perceived quality on the imported service. Lastly, consumers' level of ethnocentrism and their evaluation on the imported service is comparatively analyzed in order to identify the relationship between the ethnocentric customers and their evaluation on the service. Starbucks was used as the sample of an imported service. The data was collected from general Korean consumers and a total of 220 respondents participated in the survey. Findings: As a result, Reliability, Responsiveness, and Empathy factors were empirically proved to have significant relationship between consumer's ethnocentrism and consumer's perceived quality of the imported service. Based on the results, this study suggests focusing on localization of Reliability, Responsiveness, and Empathy factors when an international company expands their market to the countries with high tendency of ethnocentrism, such as: South Korea, China and the United States of America.Research limitations/implications: The sample size that was used for this study is rather small and the survey was conducted and analyzed in relatively short time period. Also, if traditional Korean coffee shops can be compared to as Starbucks in the future study, more meaningful result will be drawn. Originality/value: By demonstrating that ethnocentrism influences consumers' purchase intentions in the decision-making process through Reliability, Responsiveness, and Empathy, this study re-emphasizes the importance of localization when expanding services to countries with high levels of ethnocentrism.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.