Personality Traits of Service Providers and Customers' Perceiptions of Service Quality: The Case of Air Cargo Services in the United Arab Emirates

Abstract

The debate of whether personality traits of service providers affect customers' perceptions of service quality has produced conflicting evidence. This paper examines this issue with an application in the air cargo industry in the UAE. We hypothesized no effect of personality traits on overall service quality or any of its dimensions.We used two questionnaires to collect our data from a sample of 220 service providers and customers of the air cargo industry in the UAE. Collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, and regression analysis. While the results of the reliability analysis indicate the soundness of the two questionnaires, the results of the regression analysis failed to reject the hypothesized no relationship between personality traits of service providers and overall customers' perceptions of service quality or any of its dimensions in the air cargo industry.