An integrative framework of customers' perceived discrimination and its impact : an empirical study of tourists in Hong Kong

Abstract

Perceived discrimination has been referred to as the differential treatment of customers based on perceived group-level traits that produce outcomes favourable to 'in-groups' and unfavourable to 'out-groups' (Crockett, Grier, & Williams, 2003). Little attention has been paid to the formation of customers' perceived discrimination and its causes and consequences. The present research develops an integrative framework to examine customers' perceived discrimination. The model incorporates perceived cultural distance, intercultural competence, power distance, relative group status, individualism-collectivism, and anticipated discrimination to explain variance in perceived discrimination and its impact on tourist satisfaction and post-visit behavioral intentions. Questionnaire survey was conducted with 248 Chinese and 240 Caucasian tourists in Hong Kong to validate the proposed model. For both samples, the results show that anticipated discrimination is positively correlated with perceived discrimination. Moreover, tourist satisfaction mediates the relationship between perceived discrimination and post-visit behavioral intentions. However, variations in some relationships were found between the samples. Specifically, the interaction between intercultural competence and perceived cultural distance produced different results. In the Chinese sample, perceived cultural distance is positively correlated with anticipated discrimination only when intercultural competence is relatively high. In contrast, negative correlation is found when intercultural competence is relatively low. In the Caucasian sample, a negative correlation was found when intercultural competence is relatively high and vice versa. The interaction between power distance and relative group status is only significant in the Chinese sample. Particularly, relative group status is positively correlated with anticipated discrimination when power distance is relatively high. When power distance is relatively low, the relationship becomes insignificant. In addition, Chinese tourists who have more collectivistic cultural orientation were more dissatisfied with perceived discrimination; similar results were not found among Caucasian tourists. Additionally, age and race interactively affect tourist's perceived discrimination.