Bringing Cultural Diversity to Service Marketing Courses: A Servqual Exercise

Abstract

To meet AACSB’s commitment to the concept of diversity in people and ideas, business educators must integrate diversity-focused exercises and discussion into their curriculum. While some do, many educators may assume that topics of this nature are discussed elsewhere, such as in multicultural management or business ethics courses. Moreover, the activities provided in textbooks and teaching materials tend to focus on topics like understanding how culture influences consumer and team behaviors and the value of diversity in the workplace, while ignoring services marketing issues such as employee-to customer discrimination. The goal of this paper is to address these shortcomings in services marketing textbooks and classroom discussions by providing services as well as retailing educators with a cultural diversity exercise that they can employ in undergraduate, graduate, and executive MBA courses. This paper offers educators an easy-to-implement, active learning exercise that shows students how many consumers fail to obtain quality service in the marketplace. Through this exercise, students develop an appreciation for diversity and understand how to manage a service setting so that all customers receive optimal service quality. © 2015, Academy of Marketing Science.