Document Type : Research Article

Authors

• Maryam Tehrani ¹
• Hamze Khastar ²
• Akbar Hassanpoor ¹
• Razieh Rajabpoor ³

¹ Department of Human Resource Management, Faculty of Management, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

² Department of Business Management, Faculty of Management, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

³ Department of Human Resource Management, Faculty of Management, University of Kharazmi, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Purpose: Unethical behavior tarnishes organizational reputations, creates legal liabilities, and reduces public trust (Burke & Cooper, 2010). Meanwhile, within organizations, “[i]ncivility, bullying, and other bad behavior take a psychological, emotional, mental and physical toll on employees” (Porath, 2015, p. 254). Van Buren, Greenwood, and Sheehan (2011) exhort human resource managers to “take up the responsibility of being the advocates for ethical HRM analysis and practice within their organizations”. Human resource executives, too, call upon members of their profession to play a pivotal role in leading ethical practice (Boudreau, 2015). Yet, knowledge of the morally correct action does not dependably promote that action (Walker, 2004). Individuals also need to care about moral criteria more than other considerations (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Blasi, 1994; Rest, 1994). But even when members of organizations know the ethically correct course of action and want to behave accordingly, the negative personal consequences associated with ethical action may deter them. “A person may be morally sensitive, may make good moral judgments, and may place high priority on moral values, but if the person wilts under pressure, is easily distracted or discouraged, is a wimp and weak-willed, then moral failure occurs” (Rest, 1994, p. 24). Beyond the desire to pursue the principled path, members of organizations require ethical strength to reach their moral destination. In short, they often need moral courage to behave ethically(Comer & Sekerka, 2017). Considering the increasing importance of moral courage in organizations, the purpose of this article is to conceptualize and identify the antecedents and consequences of moral courage.



Design/Methodology/Approach: The current research is applied in terms of purpose and developmental in terms of its method, which was done in a mixed (qualitative-quantitative) way. In the qualitative part (meta- analysis), the research population is made up of all the studies conducted in this field, which were selected using the criterion-oriented purposeful sampling method. In this regard, after searching in scientific databases, 89 related studies were extracted and by examining them, the concept of moral courage and its antecedents and consequences were identified. Then, using Shannon's entropy method, weighting and ranking of indicators was done. The statistical population of a small part includes insurance staffs.



Research Findings: In this research, the categories related to the concept of moral courage are, respectively, moralism (1), determination (2), boldness (3), and the categories related to the antecedents of moral courage, respectively, individual factors (1), The impact of leadership (2), social environment (3), internal and external control (4), comprehensive support (5), and categories related to the consequences of moral courage, respectively, positive individual consequences (1), positive social consequences (2), negative individual consequences (3), are ranked. Regarding the ranking of themes, moral behaviors in the conceptualization of moral courage and individual attitudes in the antecedents of moral courage and personal injuries in the consequences of moral courage are more important than other themes.



Limitations & Consequences: This research was conducted only with a comprehensive review of the literature and the obtained model requires a field and operational investigation in an organizational platform.



Practical Consequences: Moral courage in the organization is influenced by various factors and has many consequences. Therefore, these factors and consequences should be identified and taken into consideration. The results of the present research can significantly help managers and employees of organizations to increase moral courage and improve organizational health.



Innovation or Value of the Article: Many researches have been done in the field of moral courage; In most of the conducted researches, the concept of moral courage in organizations has been discussed in the form of correlation and it shows what factors affect it and strengthen or weaken it in the organization, For example, individual features like gender(Tkachenko et al., 2018 ; Detert & Bruno, 2017), and what factors are affected by it, and in other words, what are its consequences and results; For example, increasing prosperity (Santisi et al., 2020). In various researches, factors affecting the formation of moral courage and its consequences have been mentioned in a scattered ways. Considering the importance of this issue and the important role that it has in the organizations, in this article, an attempt is made to conceptualize moral courage and identify and categorize its antecedents and consequences through a systematic and comprehensive review of previous researches. So Achieving a comprehensive model about Concept, antecedents and consequences of moral courage with meta-analysis method as a model for other researches, is value of the article.



Paper Type: Research Paper

Keywords

• Morality
• moral behavior
• courage
• moral courage
• meta-analysis
• Shannon entropy