Document Type : Exploratory
Authors
1 PhD Candidate, Department of Human Resource Management, Faculty of Management, Kharazmi University
2 Associate Professor, Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Management, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran.
3 Assistant Professor, Department of Human Resource Management, Faculty of Management, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran
4 Associate Professor, Department of Human Resource Management, Faculty of Management, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Managers’ social courage becomes particularly consequential when defending the law, fairness, professional judgment, employees’ rights, or the public interest entails occupational, social, or reputational risks. This study aimed to explain the formation, enactment, and persistence of managers’ social courage and to develop a context-sensitive model of the phenomenon in public organizations. An exploratory qualitative design was adopted using the systematic grounded theory approach. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 13 managers, employees, and knowledgeable informants in public organizations in Tehran Province. Initial purposive and snowball sampling gradually evolved into theoretical sampling and continued until theoretical saturation. Data were analyzed through constant comparison and open, axial, and selective coding. The core category, “ethical agency under risk,” comprised three dimensions: ethical and professional responsibility, cost-aware acceptance of risk for organizational improvement, and a collective orientation toward the public interest and organizational justice. The model included six causal categories, six contextual categories, three domains of intervening conditions, seven strategies, and six outcome categories. Findings indicate that ethical and professional readiness is necessary but insufficient for courageous action. Social support, a dialogic climate, managerial responses, and power structures determine whether readiness develops into sustained action or erodes under economic pressures, a culture of silence, and sanctions. Consequences depend on organizational responses: support can transform courage into improvement, accountability, and trust, whereas suppression leads to actor exhaustion and reproduced silence. Social courage is therefore not merely an individual trait but a context-dependent ethical and managerial capacity contributing to the integrity of public organizations.
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