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The paper discusses how the use of qualitative research can enrich an organisation's understanding of service quality. A Queensland state government organisation currently using SERVQUAL to measure service quality has adopted a combined qualitative and quantitative approach to gain a richer understanding of service quality from both client and staff perspectives. This has resulted in strategic insight as well as a better understanding of service quality implications by all parties.

This paper discusses an organisation's experience using the SERVQUAL instrument to measure service quality over a four year longitudinal study. The aim of the study was to validate the SERVQUAL instrument as a way to track changes in the organisation's standard of service quality, as well as to test the adaptability of the instrument for usage outside the United States and in a government service organisation. Results of the data analysis indicated that SERVQUAL is not a reliable instrument. Only three dimensions were found to be consistent and reliable.

This paper aims to analyze the limitations of the mainstream definition of artificial intelligence (AI) as a rational agent, which currently drives the development of most AI systems. The authors advocate the need of a wider range of driving ethical principles for designing more socially responsible AI agents.

The authors follow an experience-based line of reasoning by argument to identify the limitations of the mainstream definition of AI, which is based on the concept of rational agents that select, among their designed actions, those which produce the maximum expected utility in the environment in which they operate. The problem of biases in the data used by AI is taken as example, and a small proof of concept with real datasets is provided.

The authors observe that biases measurements on the datasets are sufficient to demonstrate potential risks of discriminations when using those data in AI rational agents. Starting from this example, the authors discuss other open issues connected to AI rational agents and provide a few general ethical principles derived from the White Paper AI at the service of the citizen, recently published by Agid, the agency of the Italian Government which designs and monitors the evolution of the IT systems of the Public Administration.

The paper contributes to the scientific debate on the governance and the ethics of AI with a critical analysis of the mainstream definition of AI.

This study aims to identify factors influencing the bank failure rate in the USA over the period from 1970 to 2014 with an emphasis on economic/financial factors on the one hand and on banking legislation on the other hand. Regarding the latter, this study empirically investigates four major banking statutes: the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977; the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980; the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991; and the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994. After adopting the technique of generalized method of moments (GMM), a robustness check in the form of autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) is undertaken. Overall, the estimations imply that the bank failure rate was a decreasing function of the percentage growth rate of real gross domestic product (GDP) and the real interest rate yields on both three-month US Treasury bills and 30-year fixed-rate mortgages and an increasing function of the real cost of funds. In addition, there is strong evidence that the bank failure rate was increased by provisions in the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 and the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980, whereas the bank failure rate was decreased as a result of provisions in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991 and the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994. Finally, there also is evidence that higher federal budget deficits elevated the bank failure rate.

After modeling the bank failure rate as a function of financial/economic variables and banking legislation, the times series from 1970 to 2014 is estimated by GMM and then by the ARCH techniques.

The results of the GMM and ARCH estimations imply that the bank failure rate in the US was a decreasing function of the percentage growth rate of real GDP as well as the real interest rate yields on both three-month US Treasury bills and 30-year fixed-rate mortgages and an increasing function of the real cost of funds. Furthermore, there is strong empirical support indicating that the bank failure rate was elevated by various provisions in the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 and in the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980, while the bank failure rate was reduced by certain provisions in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991 and the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994. There also is evidence that higher federal budget deficits increased the bank failure rate.

This study is the most contemporary (1970-2014) analysis of potential causes of the bank failure rate in the USA. The study also may be the first to apply the GMM and GARCH models to the problem. Also, some interesting policy implications are provided in the Conclusion.

Joanne Abbey

The paper sets out to provide a selected bibliography of books influential to the librarian's teaching and learning philosophy.

The paper introduces and annotates books identified by LOEX‐of‐the‐West 2006 attendees as influential to their instruction activities, teaching philosophy, or meaning of education.

The paper provides information about each source, including an introductory discussion on the classification of the titles into six major genres of instruction inspiration and four major (generic) philosophies of education and learning.

The information presented in the paper may be used by librarians and interested parties to solidify and broaden their own thoughts and values on who they are as an instructor.

Metaverse is an immersive technology that has transformed the way we connect, interact, and work, providing massive opportunities for different sectors. The prevailing trends in the metaverse encompass various aspects such as multi-user virtual environments facilitating real-time interaction between users and digital objects, the utilization of virtual and augmented reality (AR) technology to generate immersive and captivating experiences, social and gaming encounters, virtual currencies, data, and analytics for personalization and targeting of experiences, live streaming, e-commerce, and other related developments. AR is a key component of the metaverse. Because of its increased accessibility and interactivity, AR has the potential to operate as a bridge between the present and the future. AR superimposes the virtual objects in the real environment, enabling mixed-reality experiences that enable users to have immersive experiences.

This chapter examines the role of AR in metaverse platforms. It navigates through the multifaceted platforms within the metaverse and underscores its transformative potential in various sectors, fueled by the demand for remote working tools and the growing embrace of Web 3.0 technologies. It also explores the technical elements of integrating AR, providing a comprehensive explanation of how AR-enabled devices like glasses, headsets, and smartphones are used to generate immersive user experiences.

The existing literature on abusive supervision, defined as a perception by subordinates that their supervisor displays hostility toward them (but falling short of physical abuse), is deficient insofar as it fails to account for workgroup differences in employees' perceptions of abusive supervision. We therefore sought to study such differences, which refer to as “abusive supervision dispersion (ASD).”

We interviewed 40 employees from a variety of organizations in Australia, focusing on the role of affective events in ASD dynamics, with a view to understanding how this phenomenon relates to individual and team processes.

We found that ASD stimulates employees to harbor negative emotions and resentment toward their supervisor, causing them to perceive even positive events negatively. We found further that, while low ASD facilitates team-member exchange by forcing abused members to band together resulting in low team conflict, high dispersion facilitates formation of subgroups and high team conflict.

These findings illuminate the paradoxical nature of ASD and suggest that employees experience dispersion through three paradoxes: (1) dispersion paradox, (2) resentment paradox, and (3) team paradox. Overall, these findings suggest that subordinates' perceptions of high ASD are associated with detrimental impacts on team performance.

While it is essential to further research the growing diversity in western metropolitan cities, little is currently known about how the members of various ethnic communities acculturate to multicultural societies. The purpose of this paper is to explore immigrants’ cosmopolitanism and acculturation strategies through an analysis of the food consumption behaviour of ethnic consumers in multicultural London.

The study was set within the socio-cultural context of London. A number of qualitative methods such as in-depth interviews, observation and photographs were used to assess consumers’ acculturation strategies in a multicultural environment and how that is influenced by consumer cosmopolitanism.

Ethnic consumers’ food consumption behaviour reflects their acculturation strategies, which can be classified into four groups: rebellion, rarefaction, resonance and refrainment. This classification demonstrates ethnic consumers’ multi-directional acculturation strategies, which are also determined by their level of cosmopolitanism.

The taxonomy presented in this paper advances current acculturation scholarship by suggesting a multi-directional model for acculturation strategies as opposed to the existing uni-directional and bi-directional perspectives and explicates the role of consumer cosmopolitanism in consumer acculturation. The paper did not engage host communities and there is hence a need for future research on how and to what extent host communities are acculturated to the multicultural environment.

The findings have direct implications for the choice of standardisation vs adaptation as a marketing strategy within multicultural cities. Whilst the rebellion group are more likely to respond to standardisation, increasing adaptation of goods and service can ideally target members of the resistance and resonance groups and more fusion products should be exclusively earmarked for the resonance group.

The paper makes original contribution by introducing a multi-directional perspective to acculturation by delineating four-group taxonomy (rebellion, rarefaction, resonance and refrainment). This paper also presents a dynamic model that captures how consumer cosmopolitanism impinges upon the process and outcome of multi-directional acculturation strategies.