Human Resource Flexibility as a Mediating Variable Between High Performance Work Systems and Performance

Much of the human resource management literature has demonstrated the impact of high performance work systems (HPWS) on organizational performance. A new generation of studies is emerging in this literature that recommends the inclusion of mediating variables between HPWS and organizational performance. The increasing rate of dynamism in competitive environments suggests that measures of employee adaptability should be included as a mechanism that may explain the relevance of HPWS to firm competitiveness. On a sample of 226 Spanish firms, the study’s results confirm that HPWS influences performance through its impact on the firm’s human resource (HR) flexibility

Insights on the Google Online Marketing Challenge and its successful classroom implementation

The Google Online Marketing Challenge, a MERLOT online learning object available at http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=310448, is a global competition where students work with small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to create a practical and successful online marketing campaign using Google's key advertising product, AdWords. In the competition, students learn critical online marketing skills, including how to maximize targeted and relevant traffic to a client’s Website. Student teams employ marketing techniques to refine and improve the effectiveness of their AdWords campaign over a three-week competition period. The authors, who helped develop the Challenge and ran the Challenge in their classes, share insights and experiences about successful implementation of the Google Online Marketing Challenge in various course formats. The authors also highlight key findings from a survey of professors, students, and businesses that participated in the 2008 competition. While providing descriptive details of how the Challenge works, the primary focus of this paper is on how professors can confidently and effectively implement this teaching innovation as a stand-alone course, an element of a larger course, or as an out-of-class component

The components and impact of sponsored search

Sponsored search has dramatically influenced how people interact with the Web. It has funded the Web searching infrastructure that users have grown accustomed to and provided unparalleled reach, frequency, and control of marketing efforts and advertising campaigns. Sponsored search advertising has dramatically impacted search engines, consumers, and organizations, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future

Viral marketing: the use of surprise

Viral marketing involves consumers passing along a company's marketing message to their friends, family, and colleagues. This chapter reviews viral marketing campaigns and argues that the emotion of surprise often is at work and that this mechanism resembles that of word-of-mouth marketing. Examining the literature on the emotion of surprise, the chapter next explains how a surprise is created and shared. Overall, the chapter shows how surprise can be a useful tool in a viral marketing campaign. Lastly, conclusions of interest to managers are drawn

Updating and Integrating Core Outcome Sets for Localised, Locally Advanced, Metastatic, and Nonmetastatic Castration-resistant Prostate Cancer: An Update from the PIONEER Consortium

CONTEXT: Harmonisation of outcome reporting and definitions for clinical trials and routine patient records can enable health care systems to provide more efficient outcome-driven and patient-centred interventions. We report on the work of the PIONEER Consortium in this context for prostate cancer (PCa). OBJECTIVE: To update and integrate existing core outcome sets (COS) for PCa for the different stages of the disease, assess their applicability, and develop standardised definitions of prioritised outcomes. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION: We followed a four-stage process involving: (1) systematic reviews; (2) qualitative interviews; (3) expert group meetings to agree standardised terminologies; and (4) recommendations for the most appropriate definitions of clinician-reported outcomes. EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS: Following four systematic reviews, a multinational interview study, and expert group consensus meetings, we defined the most clinically suitable definitions for (1) COS for localised and locally advanced PCa and (2) COS for metastatic and nonmetastatic castration-resistant PCa. No new outcomes were identified in our COS for localised and locally advanced PCa. For our COS for metastatic and nonmetastatic castration-resistant PCa, nine new core outcomes were identified. CONCLUSIONS: These are the first COS for PCa for which the definitions of prioritised outcomes have been surveyed in a systematic, transparent, and replicable way. This is also the first time that outcome definitions across all prostate cancer COS have been agreed on by a multidisciplinary expert group and recommended for use in research and clinical practice. To limit heterogeneity across research, these COS should be recommended for future effectiveness trials, systematic reviews, guidelines and clinical practice of localised and metastatic PCa. PATIENT SUMMARY: Patient outcomes after treatment for prostate cancer (PCa) are difficult to compare because of variability. To allow better use of data from patients with PCa, the PIONEER Consortium has standardised and recommended outcomes (and their definitions) that should be collected as a minimum in all future studies