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Social media empower individuals to voice their opinions about issues that they perceive to be unacceptable. When many others add their opinions and large quantities of messages containing negative word-of-mouth suddenly spread online, an online firestorm occurs. By extending the situational theory of problem solving (Kim and Grunig, 2011) into the domain of online communication, this study aims to identify the drivers for participating in online firestorms.

With reference to a fictitious online firestorm trigger (i.e. perceived moral misconduct) posted on Facebook, a qualitative pre-study and quantitative online survey were conducted. Based on the responses of 410 participants, an ordinary least squares regression was modeled to examine the factors of participating in the online firestorm. Later, structural equation modeling was applied to test the model and gauge its fit with the data.

Participants' involvement recognition, perception of being collective actors and approval of slacktivism behaviors positively predicted their participation in the online firestorm, whereas non-anonymity hampered it.

The study's findings not only contribute to the current understandings of online firestorms but are also valuable for developing theory and forms of professional crisis management. Moreover, they offer insights into the factors of online communication environments that encourage users to voice their opinions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the construction of master narratives related to age, gender and entrepreneurship in the context of entrepreneurship education (EE) in Finnish higher education (HE). This is important as master narratives create and limit our understanding of entrepreneurship.

The data comprises 30 student interviews generated in one multidisciplinary Finnish university. The data were analyzed using narrative positioning analysis to examine what kinds of master narratives are (re)constructed in relation to age and entrepreneurship by Finnish university students and how gender intertwines with age in the construction of entrepreneurship.

Three aged and gendered master narratives were identified: (1) youthful, masculine, startup/growth entrepreneurship; (2) middle-aged feminine, expert entrepreneurship and (3) modest, feminine, senior entrepreneurship. The paper makes visible aged and gendered master narratives and cultural norms related to entrepreneurship in the context of EE and HE. Authors argue that the youthful, masculine startup/growth entrepreneurship is the hegemonic master narrative in the context of EE in Finnish HE. Femininity is mostly excluded from this master narrative.

The paper contributes to critical literature on entrepreneurship as an aged as well as gendered phenomenon in the context of EE and HE. So far research on entrepreneurship as an aged and gendered phenomenon in EE and in the context of HE has been virtually non-existent. Moreover, the theoretical and methodological focus on master narratives in entrepreneurship and EE literature is novel. The master narratives identified in the study show that HE students are not addressed equally in relation to entrepreneurship, but aged and gendered hierarchies are sustained.

Like other European countries, Germany is facing regional physician shortages, which have several consequences on patient care. This study analyzes how hospitals perceive physician shortages and which strategies they adopt to address them. As a theoretical framework, the resource dependency theory is chosen.

The authors conducted 20 semi-structured expert interviews with human resource officers, human resource directors, and executive directors from hospitals in the northwest of Germany. Hospitals of different ownership types, of varying sizes and from rural and urban locations were included in the sample. The interviews were analyzed by using qualitative content analysis.

The interviewees reported that human resource departments in hospitals expand their recruiting activities and no longer rely on one single recruiting instrument. In addition, they try to adapt their retaining measures to physicians' needs and offer a broad range of employment benefits (e.g. childcare) to increase attractiveness. The study also reveals that interviewees from small and rural hospitals report more difficulties with attracting new staff and therefore focus on recruiting physicians from abroad.

Since the staffing situation in German hospitals will not change in the short term, the study provides suggestions for hospital managers and health policy decision-makers in dealing with physician shortages.

This study uses the resource dependency theory to explain hospitals' strategies for dealing with healthcare staff shortages for the first time.