Search results

Executive courage is an important cultural variable that influences the survival of a business organization in an increasingly competitive global business environment. This study presents the results of an empirical cross‐cultural investigation of executive courage. Forty American and 29 Arab executives participated in the study. Nine hypotheses were tested. Results indicated that the two samples exhibited significant differences with regard to their perceptions of the dimensions of executive courage, the role of executive courage in today's business organization, the relative importance of personal growth and personal courage, and the interaction between executive courage and the organizational reward system. It is concluded that executive courage is a positive cross‐cultural force, deserving careful consideration by researchers and practitioners. It is also concluded that business organizations can best serve their need for survival by rewarding those who seek to do the right things, rather than those who do the expected things right.

Nonprofit organizations face challenges recruiting volunteers for morally important activities that may generate fear, such as firefighting, aid work and delinquent counseling. The purpose of this study is to examine how voluntary organizations can instill the virtue of courage among potential volunteers and motivate them to participate in such activities.

Three experimental studies examined how fear, hope and courage relate to the likelihood of volunteering. Study 1 investigated how integral hope (hope related to the context, i.e. hope emanating from volunteering activities) and incidental hope (hope unrelated to the context, i.e. a general hopeful feeling) affect volunteering intentions when there is low vs high fear. Study 2 examined whether courage mediated the effects of hope on volunteering intentions when there is low vs high fear. Study 3 replicated the findings in a different volunteering context.

Integral hope (but not incidental hope) in the face of high fear generates courage leading to intentions to volunteer. Both integral hope and incidental hope motivate volunteering intentions through positive affect (but not through courage) in low fear contexts.

The hypothetical volunteering scenarios and the gender distribution in the samples restrict the external validity of the findings. Family background in volunteering was not controlled for. Moral courage, physical courage and psychological courage were not separately measured.

Nonprofit organizations recruiting volunteers for risky voluntary activities that induce high fear should use integral hope in their marketing communications to instill courage among potential volunteers. For voluntary activities that are not very risky and generate low levels of fear among potential volunteers, nonprofit organizations can recruit volunteers through communications that use either integral hope or incidental hope.

This research shows that hope and fear are critical emotions in relation to courage – an essential virtue for volunteers. Courage is manifested when there is high fear and integral hope. Findings contribute to the research literatures on the marketing of volunteering and the moral psychology of courage.

Narcissism is characterized by grandiosity, and it is included in the Dark Triad with Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Narcissism relates to many detrimental outcomes, but a growing stream of research has investigated beneficial outcomes of the Dark Triad. The authors continue this stream of research by assessing the relation of narcissism with social courage behaviors, which are prosocial actions with personal social risks. The authors propose that this relation is mediated by self-deceptive enhancement and subjective invulnerability and also test these relations while including the other Dark Triad dimensions.

The authors perform two survey studies to investigate our research questions. The first utilizes a cross-sectional approach, whereas the second utilizes a time-separated approach.

The results of this study show that narcissism has an indirect effect on social courage via both mediators, and it also produced a significant direct effect. Machiavellianism and psychopathy did not produce any reliable effects on social courage – whether direct or indirect.

The authors support that a “dark” trait relates to a “bright” outcome, but also that a bright outcome relates to a dark trait. These findings link the narcissism and social courage to novel theoretical frameworks, such as those associated with ethical decision making and self-regulation, which opens many directions for future research on both constructs.

The current article addresses two recent calls for novel research: the study of courage as well as positive outcomes of negative traits. It also adds much-needed nuance to current research on narcissism and courage.

This paper aims to examine the impact of two psychological drivers, namely, psychological capital (PsyCap) and moral courage on internal audit effectiveness (IAE) and whether there is a substitution effect or complementary role of these psychological factors on IAE in the Tunisian setting.

IAE is measured using managers’ perceptions of the internal audit function based on 157 responses received from managers, while the remaining variables (including PsyCap and moral courage) are based on 157 internal auditors’ responses.

Findings suggest that PsyCap has a positive and significant impact on IAE, while moral courage has an insignificant impact on the same variable. Accordingly, PsyCap and moral courage are not playing a complementary role in improving IAE, and PsyCap substitutes for moral courage in increasing IAE. A battery of checks using interaction terms between moral courage and PsyCap corroborate these findings.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study fills one of the major research gaps in the auditing literature by emphasizing the role played by PsyCap in improving IAE. The findings may have policy implications for top firm management, especially when recruiting internal auditors who should enjoy efficacy, hope, resilience and optimism to help the organization achieve its strategic objectives and increase its performance.

Workplace social courage is a courageous behavior that can damage the actor's social relationships, social image and accrue face-loss costs. Sometimes, it is difficult to differentiate courageous behavior from incivility that predicts higher levels of psychological distress. While workplace social courage is widely discussed in the management literature, less is known about the conditions under which individuals are more or less likely to exhibit courageous behaviors. Given the theoretical considerations, in the present study, the authors consider two indicators of quality of life, which are life satisfaction and happiness, and set the aim of the study as to investigate the relationships between organizational justice and two dimensions of quality of life – life satisfaction and happiness – with particular attention to the mediation function performed by courage.

Cross-sectional survey data (n = 408) were obtained from employees working in Turkey Fortune companies and analyzed with variance-based structural equation modeling (VB-SEM) technique.

The results showed that perceived organizational justice is a strong antecedent for workplace social courage. Workplace social courage emerges as a facilitator for subjective happiness and life satisfaction. Workplace social courage mediated the association between perceived organizational justice and subjective happiness, and between perceived organizational justice and life satisfaction. Prescriptions for theory development and practitioners are highlighted, research limitations and future directions are acknowledged.

So far, most of the work done in this subject is mainly in western countries, and it is considered as a virtue, feature, emotion and behavior in the studies of social scientists, and mainly focused on how employees need the courage to perform the desired behaviors that affect organizational outcomes positively such as organizational citizenship behavior, job performance, job satisfaction, life satisfaction, psychological well-being. Also, the authors studied how social courage positively relates to beneficial voice and silence, as well as negatively relates to detrimental voice and silence, how courage is correlated with psychological empowerment, coaching and how courage mediates on quality of life. As can be seen, there is little empirical work when it comes to the antecedents of courage in business life. Therefore, this study, which has been done with different variables in a different culture and country, aims to support and bring a new breath to the subject. Besides, the mediating effect of courage on the organizational variables is also among the trendiest subjects.

This research attempts to shed some light on Palestinian executives and their organizational culture. Specifically, this research focuses on the dimensions of executive courage in the unique Palestinian culture. The impact of executive courage on Palestinian organizations is emphasized.

This research is survey‐based. The research instrument utilized in this study was also used in other cultural settings. Content analysis and factor analysis were used to analyze the data collected from a sample of 40 Palestinian executives.

The results underscore the significance of making tough decisions on behalf of the organization, as an important dimension of the multi‐dimensional executive courage construct. The results of this study clearly show the positive impact of executive courage on organizational culture of Palestinian organizations.

The findings of this research are relevant to Palestinian executives and those executives seeking to engage in joint‐ventures with them.

This research represents rare insight into the Palestinian organizational culture. In the process, the practices of the Palestinian executives with regard to executive courage and its impact on organizations are examined.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of both supervisory abuse and moral efficacy in the weakening or strengthening of moral courage. The study also tests how the interaction between both could influence moral courage.

Cross-sectional data were collected from a sample of public hospital nurses in Egypt and structural equation modeling was used to analyse the data.

The study findings revealed that abusive supervision is negatively related to moral courage whereas moral efficacy is positively related to courage. Furthermore, moral efficacy moderates the abusive supervision-moral courage relationship in such a way that the negative association between abusive supervision and moral courage is reduced when moral efficacy is high.

Because of the cross-sectional design of the study, inferences regarding causality cannot be made. Furthermore, more research is needed to identify whether the results of this study apply in other contexts.

Organizations should identify abusive supervisors and offer them abuse-prevention training to circumvent their hostile behaviour. Organizations should also try to consider follower moral efficacy when matching supervisors with followers.

The study addresses calls for research on the personal factors that could mitigate the undesirable effects of abusive supervision.

This paper aims to offer empirical evidence about the effect of the interaction between the audit committee and the internal audit function (IAF) on the moral courage of the chief audit executive (CAE).

A mixed approach was followed. In the first stage, questionnaires were sent to CAEs of 60 listed, financial and non-financial Tunisian companies. To enhance the depth of the analysis, in the second stage, semi-directed interviews with 22 CAEs from listed financial and non-financial Tunisian companies were performed.

This paper found that the existence of private access to the audit committee has a positive effect on the moral courage of the CAE. The number of meetings between the audit committee and the CAE, the examination of internal audit programmes and results together with the contribution of the audit committee to the appointment and dismissal of the CAE do not show a significant link with the moral courage of the CAE. It also found an insignificant relationship between the audit committee’s examination of interaction between management and the IAF and the moral courage of the CAE.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper fills one of the major research gaps in the auditing literature by demonstrating the critical role of audit committee–internal audit interaction in promoting the CAE’s moral courage to behave ethically.

How employees connect with their work organisation and how it may play a role in their moral courage and ethical behaviour remain under-explored. This study, using Psychological Contract Theory, aims to explore how employee–organisation connectedness influences employees' moral courage and ethical behaviour.

The hypotheses were tested using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) on data collected through a questionnaire survey from 212 Australian healthcare professionals.

Employee connectedness with their work organisations showed a significant and direct impact on ethical behaviour. Along with moral courage, connectedness explained over half of the variance in ethical behaviour. Furthermore, moral courage partially mediated the effect of employee connectedness on ethical behaviour.

The overall theoretical implication of this study is that psychological contracts between employees and their organisations operationalised through employee–organisation connectedness can explain the role of moral courage in ethical behaviour.

With increasing borderless management of organisations, organisational connectedness can be a critical factor in developing employees' moral courage and ethical behaviour within organisations. Socialisation interventions can be useful to promote employee–organisation connectedness.

The study developed a higher-order connectedness model and validated it with PLS-SEM. The study provides novel empirical evidence on the relationships between employee–organisation connectedness, moral courage and ethical behaviour.

Connected learning is a framework of learning principles that centers on fostering educational equity through leveraging social technologies and networking practices to connect students with opportunities, people and resources in communities within and beyond their classroom walls (Ito et al., 2013). The framework has been adopted and developed in K-12 education by teachers in professional development networks and introduced to some teacher education programs through these networks. Practitioners of connected learning frequently refer to the need for “courage” to develop and introduce connected learning-based practices in their classrooms. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this study, the authors investigate “courage” through a sociocultural lens in the case studies of six educators in a teacher education course on connected learning. The study examines the social contexts and activities that fostered acts of courage during their 14-week course.

The authors found that personal reflection on freedom and equity, two ethical concepts raised by the connected learning framework, seeded acts of courage. The acts of courage appeared as small acts that built upon themselves toward a larger goal that related to the participants’ ethical ideals. Three types of social activity contexts helped to nurture these acts: seeking models of possibility, mediated reinvention and “wobbling.”

This study helps to uncover some of the questions that connected learning scholars and practitioners have about why courage is so central, and how to cultivate courageous acts of pedagogical change.

The theoretical framework used in this study, courage from a sociocultural perspective, may serve to help scholars and teacher educators to shape their research and program designs.

This study offers insights into patterns of networked teacher-led educational change and the social contexts that support school-level impacts of out-of-school professional networking.

Using a sociocultural conception of courage to investigate connected learning in teacher education, this study demonstrates how equity and freedom, central values in the connected learning framework, serve as key concepts driving teachers’ risk-taking, innovation and change.