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Case Study: Emma’s research on Chinese cultural values and customer satisfaction

Emma, a British PhD student who has lived in China for two years, noticed that Chinese customers’ perception of service quality is very different from that of customers from the West. She started questioning both the applicability of Western concepts to Chinese customers as well as the validity of research instruments used by the researchers when investigating Chinese customers. Having discussed her research ideas with her supervisor and done some reading on the topic, she set her research aim as:

To investigate the influence of Chinese cultural values on customer satisfaction.

Advise Emma on articulating her research objectives and constructing her conceptual framework.

• Formulate the research objectives of the study by considering the theoretical concepts, possible research methodology, and the possible contributions of the study.
• Construct the conceptual framework of the study by considering the existing knowledge in the area, possible relationships between concepts, and the research gaps that this study responds to.