Airline service quality and visual communication: Do Iraqis and Germans airline passengers’ perceptions differ?

The purpose of this paper is to analyze differences in airlines service quality perceptions (service content) and visual communication styles (service form) between passengers from a high-context (HC) culture (Iraq) and from a low-context (LC) one (Germany). The theoretical support is based on Hall’s (1976) theory about cultural influences on consumers’ perceptions and on ethnocentric influences.

In this study, the authors compared two groups of passengers from two countries ‒ Iraq (a high-context culture) and Germany (low-context culture) – that gave their opinions about two different airlines (Iraqi Airlines and Lufthansa). In total, 400 personal evaluations were obtained (100 for each company in each country).

The results have demonstrated that, first, regarding service quality perceptions, both groups of passengers differ, not due to the cultural context, but due to the ethnocentristic feeling, that is service quality values are higher when the domestic company is evaluated in both countries. Second, regarding visual identity perceptions, the cultural context explains perception differences, because the Germans evaluations are higher for both, the foreign company and the domestic one.

First, the authors have measured in the same study whether people from an LC culture differ from people from a HC culture with respect to how they perceive both the content of the service (the perception of service quality) and the form of the service (the perception of visual identity). In other words, the authors have compared not just the way a company delivers its services, but also how the company is visually presented. Second, the authors have studied a country that has seldom been analyzed from a marketing perspective, Iraq. Third, the authors have compared not just two cultures, but also two companies (a domestic one and a foreign one), in order to see if consumers tend to have more positive perceptions of a local company, regardless of the culture to which they belong. If this point is demonstrated, then some more implications related to ethnocentrism will be added for a better understanding of how to proceed in the international arena.