Abstract
Little is known about consumer complaint behaviors (CCB) in developing countries, and even less is known about ethnic minority consumers’ adaptation and behaviors in these countries. Hence, this study will investigate the acculturation and CCB, including voice, exit, negative word of mouth, and negative electronic word of mouth, of Taiwanese ethnic people living in Argentina. The purpose of this paper was to examine the differences in CCB that the Taiwanese-Argentine and Argentine participants would exhibit when facing a restaurant service failure. It is also aimed at evaluating whether the acculturation modes—segregation, integration and assimilation—would influence their CCB. We conducted a 4 x 2 between-subject experimental design to address two research objectives using MANOVA and pairwise comparisons. Questionnaire results suggested that among all the complaint behaviors examined, there was a significant difference between the segregated and assimilated groups. The segregated Taiwanese-Argentine group had the lowest scores for CCB, the assimilated group had scores close to the Argentines, and the integrated group had mean scores that were between the segregated and the assimilated. The results implied that acculturation does have an effect on CCB and that all cultural levels were more inclined to exhibit the exit complaint behavior when facing a service failure.