Background: Due to their nature and purpose, public organizations need employees who, despite many threats and employees under various pressures such as losing some points, still maintain their ethical courage when making decisions. This study was conducted to present a model for developing the ethical courage of employees in the railways of the Islamic Republic.
Method: The present study is a developmental and applied approach that is done by qualitative method (directional qualitative content analysis). The statistical population was railway experts. 20 people were selected as a sample using snowball sampling method and through the existing knowledge in the field of moral courage and semi-structured interviews, effective dimensions and components were counted. The components were selected and the pattern of development of employees' ethical courage was explained by interpretive structural modeling.
Results: In this study, a total of 66 components of the development of employees' ethical courage were counted. Then, using an interpretive structural model, it was divided into 5 dimensions (individual, organizational, occupational, managerial and environmental dimensions).
Conclusion: In this study, a model is presented in order to develop the ethical courage of employees. This model has two levels, in the first level it includes the dimension (environmental) and in the second level it includes the dimensions (individual, managerial, organizational and professional). Also, due to the impact and dimensions of dimensions in this model, the environmental dimension is considered as a key independent variable and dimensions (individual, managerial, organizational and professional) are considered as intermediate or link variables in the development of employees' ethical courage that have high impact and effectiveness.