The Roles of Forgiveness towards Repurchase Intentions from a Cross Cultural Perspective

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between forgiveness towards repurchasing intentions from a cross cultural perspective. The study was conducted in the airline industry where customers believed the airline service was not up to expectations. The survey used questionnaires to collect data from Thai and European passengers who had perceived failure of service experienced in the international airline. The result of this study found that Thai and European customers have a different degree of collectivism and forgiveness. Collectivism culture has a positive effect to forgiveness and repurchase intention. Furthermore, customer forgiveness has a positive relationship with the customer’s intention to repurchase. More specifically, the study incorporates customer forgiveness as a mediator, thus forgiveness can be influenced by cultural values and can perform the role as a coping strategy by the customer to release negative emotional responses from a service failure and open a gate of opportunity for a customer repurchase intention.

Keywords

• airline
• collectivism culture
• forgiveness
• repurchase intention
• service failure