Workplace Courage: Review, Synthesis, and Future Agenda for a Complex Construct

The goal of this review is to organize, synthesize, and critically appraise the literature on courage—a concept as old as the written word—to create a common base for the study of “workplace courage.” To situate what follows, we begin with a brief review of the diverse foundational and current courage literature. We then use the literature and our critique to suggest a grounded working definition for the workplace courage construct, to discuss the overlap between workplace courage and many related organizational phenomenon and constructs, and to review four main approaches to the study of workplace courage. We next review the “perspective problem” in the study of courage (and related constructs), proposing a path forward that involves explicit researcher acknowledgement of the appropriate perspective(s) based on theoretical interests, as well as research attention to the causes and consequences of (dis)agreement in perspective itself. We conclude by outlining additional focused opportunities—such as those involving the role of gender, emotions, and time—to advance understanding of workplace courage.