The Effect of Communication Skills of Public Library Librarians of Khuzestan Province through mediation by Cultural Intelligence on Customer Relationship Management

Kohi Rostami, Mansor; Ghazizadeh, Hamid; Moori Bakhtyari, Negar

doi:10.22055/slis.2019.24537.1439

The Effect of Communication Skills of Public Library Librarians of Khuzestan Province through mediation by Cultural Intelligence on Customer Relationship Management

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Mansor Kohi Rostami ¹

hamid Ghazizadeh ²

Negar Moori Bakhtyari ³

¹ Corresponding Author: Assistant Professor. Information Science & Knowledge, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran

² Assistant Professor. Information Science & Knowledge Payam Noor University. Velenjak. Tehran. I.R.Iran

³ Expert responsible for the libraries of the General Directorate of Public Library of Khuzestan Province

https://doi.org/10.22055/slis.2019.24537.1439

Abstract

Background and Objectives: The philosophy of the existence of libraries is to serve the people, and according to very Pundits, the most important philosophy of the library is "service to society and humanity". Since the customer is the pulse of the life of public libraries, the main goal of customer relationship management in public libraries is to attract and retain customers to public libraries. Customer relationship management is influenced by many factors in public libraries and in this diverse cultural environment. In this research, we focused on two variables of communication skills and cultural intelligence in customer relationship management. Today, public libraries are looking for librarians who can function as groups in a multicultural environment. On the other hand, they have the ability to communicate continuously with people from different cultures. So it's necessary to be familiar with different cultures and to communicate properly with other cultures. For this purpose librarians of public libraries need communication skills and cultural intelligence. This research is carried out in the public libraries of Khuzestan province, a province considered as a miniature of ethnic and cultural diversity. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of communicative skills of librarians in public libraries of Khuzestan province through mediation by cultural intelligence on Customer Relationship Management.
Methodology: The research method is survey. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and partial least squares method were used to test the hypotheses and model fitness. The statistical population of this study is 380 librarians of general libraries in Khuzestan province. According to Morgan table, 181 people participated as a sample in research. In the design of the proposed research model, independent variable communication skills; cultural intelligence as intermediary variable and customer relationship management as a dependent variable. Measurement tools are three questionnaires, Ang's cultural intelligence (2004), Barton's Communication skills (1990) and Customer Relationship Management (Sin and et al. 2005). Cronbach's alpha method was used to measure the reliability of research tools. The Cronbach's alpha value of the questionnaires represents a good reliability of the research tool. In this study, to analyze the data from Smart PLS software and SPSS Software Used.
Findings:The results of single-sample t-test showed that the mean score of communication skills, cultural intelligence and customer relationship management was significantly lower than the cut score (p <0.001), which shows that The research sample is in a disadvantaged position in terms of communication skills, cultural intelligence and customer relationship management. There is a significant difference between librarians in librarianship and non-librarianship in terms of communication skills, cultural intelligence and customer relationship management. The correlation coefficients of communication skills on cultural intelligence, communication skills, and intuitive intelligence on customer relationship management were 0.817, 0.495 and 0.229, respectively, which was statistically significant in the level of error and with probability 95.9 can be said that communication skills and cultural intelligence are effective on customer relationship management. Also, the results of t-sobel test confirmed the role of mediator of cultural intelligence in relation to communication skills and customer relationship management. The findings also showed that the level of significance was less than 0.01 and less than 0.05. On the other hand, the amount of T statistics, which is 4.49 and 1.96, is 95% confident. Cultural intelligence has a mediating role in communication skills and customer relationship management. Given that

values for all components are greater than 0.35, the predictive power of the model is good, and the whole model is well suited to predicting the corresponding values. The fitting results of the model also showed that the values of fitness indices obtained at the desirable level indicate that the fitting of the proposed model is desirable.
Discussion: Communication skills and cultural intelligence are crucial to the functioning and management of effective communication between clients in public libraries. The cultural diversity of public library users is one of the major issues librarians face. The role of the librarian as an intermediary between the library and library users and the acquisition of communication skills and cultural intelligence is very important in managing communication with clients in public libraries that are connected with a diverse society with diverse needs. Due to this complexity, librarians of public libraries need to have a high level of cultural intelligence and communication skills for communicating with clients. It is suggested that managers and planners of public libraries should pay close attention to the important role of cultural intelligence and communication skills in interactions.

Keywords

Public Library

Communication Skills

Customer Relationship management

Cultural Intelligence

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