Airline service quality and visual communication Do Iraqis and Germans airline passengers’ perceptions differ? Dalia Suham-Abid and Natalia Vila-Lopez Faculty of Economics, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze differences in airlines service quality perceptions (service content) and visual communication styles (service form) between passengers from a high-context (HC) culture (Iraq) and from a low-context (LC) one (Germany). The theoretical support is based on Hall’s (1976) theory about cultural influences on consumers’ perceptions and on ethnocentric influences. Design/methodology/approach – In this study, the authors compared two groups of passengers from two countries ‒ Iraq (a high-context culture) and Germany (low-context culture) – that gave their opinions about two different airlines (Iraqi Airlines and Lufthansa). In total, 400 personal evaluations were obtained (100 for each company in each country). Findings – The results have demonstrated that, first, regarding service quality perceptions, both groups of passengers differ, not due to the cultural context, but due to the ethnocentristic feeling, that is service quality values are higher when the domestic company is evaluated in both countries. Second, regarding visual identity perceptions, the cultural context explains perception differences, because the Germans evaluations are higher for both, the foreign company and the domestic one. Originality/value – First, the authors have measured in the same study whether people from an LC culture differ from people from a HC culture with respect to how they perceive both the content of the service (the perception of service quality) and the form of the service (the perception of visual identity). In other words, the authors have compared not just the way a company delivers its services, but also how the company is visually presented. Second, the authors have studied a country that has seldom been analyzed from a marketing perspective, Iraq. Third, the authors have compared not just two cultures, but also two companies (a domestic one and a foreign one), in order to see if consumers tend to have more positive perceptions of a local company, regardless of the culture to which they belong. If this point is demonstrated, then some more implications related to ethnocentrism will be added for a better understanding of how to proceed in the international arena. Keywords Airlines, Cross-cultural, Service quality, Visual identity Paper type Research paper Introduction One of the main points of research has been the analysis of the varying perceptions of services among different cultures (Donthu and Yoo, 1998; Furrer et al., 2000; Liu et al., 2001; Basfirinci and Mitra, 2015). These studies suggest that companies must take into account the fact that consumers in different cultures perceive services and companies’ corporate visual identities differently, leading to different degrees of customer satisfaction. Thus, companies should adapt some aspects of their services marketing strategies if they want success in the global economy. As stated by Mattila (2000), despite the growing interest in cross-cultural research in the hospitality literature, little empirical research has been conducted on the effects of culture on consumers’ assessment of service quality. As this is a vast topic, this paper will focus on the differences in service quality perceptions (service content) and visual communication styles (service form), because a service company should not only provide an excellent quality service, it should also seem superior (Melewar et al., 2017). The TQM Journal Vol. 32 No. 1, 2020 pp. 183-200 © Emerald Publishing Limited 1754-2731 DOI 10.1108/TQM-04-2019-0105 Received 18 April 2019 Revised 1 July 2019 17 July 2019 Accepted 22 July 2019 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/1754-2731.htm On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest. 183 Airline service quality and visual communication