In the Eye of the Beholder: An Exploration of Managerial Courage

The literature on courage contains many terms that qualify this concept: for example, managerial courage, professional moral courage, psychological courage, moral courage, physical courage, executive courage, vital courage, existential courage, personal courage, and general courage. The number of terms underscores the need for precision regarding the words we use when discussing such a polysemic concept. We thus present our own terminology. We have primarily used three different terms in this article: courage, managerial courage, and managerial moral courage. Courage refers to the more general concept as described in the popular literature and in the academic literature in psychology or philosophy. Managerial courage refers to the concept as found more specifically in the management literature. Finally, based on our findings, we name our own construct managerial moral courage, given that for our participants managerial courage consistently has a moral connotation. However, when referring to the various authors in the literature, we retain their original terminology. For example, Srivastva and Cooperrider (1998), although they use executive courage in the title of their book, actually use the term courage throughout their text. This latter is thus the term we retain when discussing their findings. Sekerka et al. (2009, 2011) use the term professional moral courage when discussing their research. This is, therefore, the term we retain when writing about their findings.

Research on courage has invariably been conducted in a morally acceptable context. For example, to our knowledge no studies have been undertaken on the courage to commit an illegal act or one that is not in accordance with societal norms.

The number one financial institution in Québec, the Desjardins Group has assets of $157 billion and brings together a network of financial cooperatives (caisses Desjardins) that are legally independent, each with a Board of Directors. Starting in the mid-nineties, this North American cooperative encouraged its members (the Desjardins credit unions) to undertake mergers in order to develop markets, enhance financial performance, and ensure an optimal repositioning of its distribution network. At the beginning of 1996, the cooperative network of the Desjardins Group had 1,307 Desjardins credit unions. Today, 14 years later, there are 481. This means 826 fewer Desjardins credit unions and the same reduction in the number of GMs.

For reasons of confidentiality, the names of the specific Desjardins’ caisses populaires and the participants, as well as certain details that could easily establish their identify, were modified.

Knowledge structures, also named cognitive structures, are the way information is organized around categories, construct systems, causal systems, and scripts. For a more detailed description, see Scheinder and Angelmar (1993).

Space constraints do not allow us to present the maps and their analysis in detail; they are available upon request from the first author.

We do not intend to adopt a normative posture in determining what is good or what is not for the organization. Our results reflect our participants’ conception of courage in a context in which what they consider to be good for the organization is its development and sustainability, and in which the organization’s members can assume different stakeholder positions simultaneously.