Ethics in business research

Ethics in business

research

Chapter outline

Introduction 122

Ethical principles 128

Harm to participants

128

Lack of informed consent

132

Invasion of privacy

136

Deception

136

Other ethical and legal considerations 138

Data management

139

140

Reciprocity and trust

141

Afﬁ liation and conﬂ icts of interest

142

The difﬁ culties of ethical decision-making 143

Checklist

144

Key points

145

Questions for review

145

hecklis

144

nts

145

uestions for review

145

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Ethics in business research122

Market Research Society (MRS), Code of Conduct and

Guidelines:

www.mrs.org.uk/standards/codeconduct.htm

(accessed 23 Jul

y 2010)

(also includes speciﬁ c MRS guidelines on qualitative

and quantitative research, doing Internet and employee

research).

However, it is also useful to look at the way that

researchers within the social sciences more generally

have dealt with ethical research issues—for example, the

Social Research Association (SRA), the British Sociological

Association (BSA), and the American Psychological

Association. In this chapter, the codes of these pro-

fessional associations will also be referred to on several

occasions.

Social Research Association (SRA), Ethical Guidelines:

www.the-sra.org.uk/guidelines.htm (accessed 23 Jul

2010)

British Sociological Association (BSA), Statement of

Ethical Practice:

www.britsoc.co.uk/equality/Statement+Ethical+

actice.htm (accessed 23 Jul

y 2010)

American Sociological Association (ASA), Code of Ethics:

www2.asanet.org/members/ecoderev.html (accessed

23 Jul

y 2010)

Discussions about the ethics of business and manage-

ment research bring us into a realm in which the role

of values in the research process becomes a topic of

concern. Ethical issues revolve around such concerns as

the following:

•

How should we treat the people on whom we conduct

research?

•

Are there activities in which we should or should not

engage in our relations with them?

Questions about ethics in business and management

research also bring in the role of professional associations,

such as the American Academy of Management (AoM)

and the Market Research Society (MRS), which have

formulated codes of ethics on behalf of their members.

Statements of professional principles are frequently

accessible from the Internet. Some useful codes of ethics

for business and management researchers can be found

at the following Internet addresses:

Academy of Management (AoM), Code of Ethical Conduct:

www.aomonline.org/governanceandethics/

aomr

evisedcodeofethics.pdf (accessed 23 July 2010)

Association of Business Sc

hools/British Academy of

Management/Higher Education Academy: Business Man-

agement Accountancy and Finance, Ethics Guide (2009):

www.the-abs.org.uk /?id=560 (accessed 23 Jul

y 2010)

Introduction

Chapter outline

Ethical issues arise at a variety of stages in business and management research. This chapter is concerned

with the concerns about ethics that might arise in the course of conducting research. The professional

bodies concerned with the social sciences have been keen to spell out the ethical issues that can arise,

and some of their statements will be reviewed in this chapter. Ethical issues cannot be ignored, in that

they relate directly to the integrity of a piece of research and of the disciplines that are involved. This

chapter explores:

•

some famous, even infamous, cases in which transgressions of ethical principles have occurred, though

it is important not to take the view that ethical concerns arise only in relation to these extreme cases;

•

different stances that can be and have been taken on ethics in business research;

•

the signiﬁ cance and operation of four areas in which ethical concerns particularly arise: whether or not

harm comes to participants; informed consent; invasion of privacy; and deception;

•

some of the difﬁ culties associated with ethical decision-making.

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Ethics in business research 123

American Psychological Association (APA), Ethical

Principles and Code of Conduct:

www.apa.org/ethics (accessed 23 Jul

y 2010)

Writings about ethics in business and other social

science research are frequently frustrating for four

reasons.

1. Writers often differ quite widely from each other over

thical issues and questions. In other words, they differ

over what is and is not ethically acceptable.

2. The main elements in the debates do not seem to

ve forward a great deal. The same kinds of points

that were made in the 1960s were being rehashed in

the late 1990s and at the start of the present century.

3. Debates about ethics have often accompanied well-

kno

wn cases of alleged ethical transgression. Some of

them, such as Dalton’s (1959) covert ethnography of

unofﬁ cial managerial activity, will also be encountered

later on in this book (see Chapter 17). One of the

central issues that Dalton addresses in his study is the

unofﬁ cial use of company resources, including pilfering

or corporate theft (see Research in focus 5.1). There

is considerable debate as to whether it was ethical

to obtain such data through the method of covert

observation (see Key concept 5.2). There are also

several well-known psychological studies (e.g. Milgram

1963; Haney, Banks, and Zimbardo 1973) that continue

to be widely cited in the ﬁ eld of organizational behav-

iour, despite the fact that they were based on research

designs that would now be widely considered extremely

unethical (see Research in focus 5.3). However, the

problem with this emphasis on notoriety is that it can

be taken to imply that ethical concerns reside only in

such extreme cases, when in fact the potential for

ethical transgression is much more general than this.

4. Related to this last point is that these extreme and

torious cases of ethical violation tend to be associated

with particular research methods—notably disguised

observation and the use of deception in experiments.

Again, the problem with this association of ethics with

certain studies (and methods) is that it implies that

ethical concerns reside only or even primarily in some

methods but not others. As a result, the impression

can be gleaned that other methods, such as question-

naires or overt ethnography, are immune from ethical

problems. Moreover, as the recent popularization of

television experiments suggests (see Research in focus

5.4), disguised observation is as popular today as it

was when researchers like Milgram and Zimbardo

carried out their classic studies.

Research in focus 5.1

A covert study of unofﬁ cial

rewards

One of Dalton’s (1959) central themes in his study of American managers and unofﬁ cial action revolves around

the use of company materials and services as supplementary rewards for the variable contributions of individuals.

He presents several cases, including the Milo carpenter, Ted Berger, who was rewarded for his loyalty by not

being required to operate machines, instead making such things as baby beds, tables, and rocking horses—

custom-built objects for various managers—in exchange for which he was given ‘gifts’. Another case concerns

staff who routinely ﬁ lled their car fuel tank from the company garage and with this obtained free washing and

waxing. Similarly, there is the case of Jim Speier, a factory foreman, who made use of machinery and materials to

have constructed a rose arch, storm windows, and a set of wooden lawn sprinklers cut in the form of dancing girls

and brightly painted!

Dalton’s main strategy for preventing harm to his participants is to protect their anonymity, but the reader is left

in no doubt as to the seriousness of consequences for individuals concerned if their identities were to have been

discovered. As Dalton explains, these individuals ‘gave information and aid that, if generally known, would have

jeopardized their careers’ (1959: 275). One of the key ethical issues in this study concerns the lack of informed

consent, as participants were in no position to be able to judge whether or not to become involved in the research,

as they were only vaguely aware of the nature of Dalton’s interest. Furthermore, they were almost certainly

unaware of the risk of harm that could result from the study in relation to their employment prospects. In his

defence, Dalton adopts a situational stance (see Key concept 5.2), arguing that it is impossible to study unofﬁ cial

action, other than by using covert methods that enable the researcher to get sufﬁ ciently close to the subject.

As there has been very little study of this subject, it is difﬁ cult to see how we could compare Dalton’s ﬁ ndings

with those produced using overt methods, and therefore we have little choice but to take his word for this.

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Ethics in business research124 Ethics in business research124

Key concept 5.2

Stances on ethics

Authors on social research ethics can be characterized in terms of the stances they take on the issue. The

following stances can be distinguished:

Universalism

•

. A universalist stance takes the view that ethical precepts should never be broken. Infractions of

ethical principles are wrong in a moral sense and are damaging to social research. This kind of stance can be

seen in the writings of Erikson (1967), Dingwall (1980), and Bulmer (1982). Bulmer does, however, point to

some forms of what appears to be disguised observation that may be acceptable. One is retrospective covert

observation, which occurs when a researcher writes up his or her experiences in social settings in which he

or she participated but not as a researcher. An example would be Van Maanen (1991b), who wrote up his

experiences as a ride operator in Disneyland many years after he had been employed there in vacation jobs.

Even a universalist like Erikson (1967: 372) recognizes that it ‘would be absurd . . . to insist as a point of ethics

that sociologists should always introduce themselves as investigators everywhere they go and should inform

every person who ﬁ gures in their thinking exactly what their research is all about’.

Situation ethics

•

. Goode (1996) has argued for deception to be considered on a case-by-case basis. In other

words, he argues for what J. Fletcher (1966: 31) has called a ‘situation ethics’, or more speciﬁ cally ‘principled

relativism’, which can be contrasted with the universalist ethics of some writers. This argument has two ways

of being represented:

1. The end justiﬁ es the means. Some writers ar

gue that, unless there is some breaking of ethical rules, we

would never know about certain social phenomena. Dalton (1959) essentially argues for this position in

relation to his study of managers and the differences between ofﬁ cial and unofﬁ cial action. Without some

kind of disguised observation, this important aspect of organizational life would not have been studied.

This is usually linked to the second form of a situationist argument in relation to social research ethics.

2. No choice. It is often sugg

ested that we have no choice but to engage in dissimulation on occasions if we

want to investigate the issues in which we are interested.

Ethical transgression is pervasive

•

. It is often observed that virtually all research involves elements that are at

least ethically questionable. This occurs whenever participants are not given absolutely all the details on a

piece of research, or when there is variation in the amount of knowledge about research. Punch (1994: 91),

for example, observes that ‘some dissimulation is intrinsic to social life and, therefore, to ﬁ eldwork’. He quotes

Gans (1962: 44) in support of this point: ‘If the researcher is completely honest with people about his

activities, they will try to hide actions and attitudes they consider undesirable, and so will be dishonest.

Consequently, the researcher must be dishonest to get honest data.’

Anything goes

•

(more or less). The writers associated with arguments relating to situation ethics and a

recognition of the pervasiveness of ethical transgressions are not arguing for an ‘anything-goes’ mentality, but

for a certain amount of ﬂ exibility in ethical decision-making. However, Douglas (1976) has argued that the

kinds of deception in which social researchers engage are trivial compared to those perpetrated by powerful

institutions in modern society (such as the mass media, the police, and industry). His book is an inventory of

tactics for deceiving people so that their trust is gained and they reveal themselves to the researcher. Very few

researchers subscribe to this stance. Denzin (1968) comes close to an anything-goes stance when he suggests

that social researchers are entitled to study anyone in any setting provided the work has a ‘scientiﬁ c’ purpose,

does not harm participants, and does not deliberately damage the discipline. The harm-to-participants

criterion can also be seen in the cases reported in Research in focus 5.3.

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Research in focus 5.3

Two infamous studies of obedience to authority

Milgram’s (1963) electric-shock experiments and Haney, Banks, and Zimbardo’s (1973) prison studies have come

to be seen as infamous because of the ethical issues they raise. Both studies were concerned to measure the effects

of group norms on the behaviour of the individual, and they have been widely applied in the ﬁ eld of organizational

behaviour. Milgram was concerned with the processes whereby a person can be induced to cause extreme harm

to another by virtue of being ordered to do so. To investigate this issue further, he devised a laboratory experiment.

Volunteers were recruited to act out the role of teachers who punished learners (who were accomplices of the

experimenter) by submitting them to electric shocks when they gave incorrect answers to questions.

The shocks were not, of course, real, but the teachers/volunteers were not aware of this. The level of electric shock

was gradually increased with successive incorrect answers until the teacher/volunteer refused to administer more

shocks. Learners had been trained to respond to the rising level of electric shock with simulated but appropriate

howls of pain. In the room was a further accomplice of Milgram’s, who cajoled the teacher/volunteer to continue to

administer shocks, suggesting that it was part of the study’s requirements to continue and that they were not causing

permanent harm, in spite of the increasingly shrill cries of pain. However, in a later adaptation of the experiment,

the teacher/volunteer was accompanied by a colleague who acted out the part of someone who refused to

administer the shocks beyond a certain level. In this situation, the real subject continued to administer the shocks

for a shorter period and then declined as the ﬁ rst teacher/volunteer had done. Milgram’s study demonstrates the

extent to which individuals display obedience to authority even if this involves causing considerable pain to

others. It also shows how peer rebellion can be a powerful means of resisting the experimenter’s authority.

Experiments conducted by Zimbardo and his graduate students from the Department of Psychology at

Stanford University, California, involved creating a mock prison, in order to examine the roles played by prisoners

and guards. Twenty-one male participants were selected from a group of seventy-ﬁ ve who responded to an

advertisement in a local newspaper. Individuals were selected on the basis that they were mature, emotionally

stable, middle class, well educated, and had no criminal record. Each was paid $15 per day to participate in the

study. A coin was ﬂ ipped in order to decide if the participant was to play the role of prisoner or guard. There

were ten prisoners and eleven guards. However, only a few days into the planned fourteen-day study, the

experiment took an unexpected turn. The relationship between prisoners and guards deteriorated to such an

extent that guards began to subject prisoners to psychological cruelty. Within the ﬁ rst few days several of the

prisoners had been released, suffering from severe depression and mental breakdown. Only six days into the

study the experiment was abandoned owing to the extreme symptoms experienced by the prisoners. Haney,

Banks, and Zimbardo’s study shows that individual behaviour is determined by social and environmental

conditions to a far greater extent than is commonly assumed.

Both studies raise complex ethical issues, particularly in relation to the potential harm incurred by participants

as a result of the experiments. It is worth noting that both studies were conducted over forty years ago, and it is

extremely unlikely that either would be considered acceptable to a university human subjects committee or

indeed to most social researchers today. However, in 2006 Burger (2009) conducted what he refers to as a ‘partial

replication’ of the Milgram experiment. Burger hypothesized that there would be little or no difference between

Milgram’s ﬁ ndings and his own some forty-ﬁ ve years later. The replication is ‘partial’ for several reasons such as:

participants did not proceed beyond the lowest simulated voltage level that Milgram used (150 volts; 79 per cent

of Milgram’s teachers went beyond this point); participants were intensively screened for emotional and

psychological problems and excluded if there was evidence of such problems; people who had studied some

psychology were excluded (because the Milgram studies are so well known); and participants of all adult ages

were included, rather than up to the age of 50, as in the original studies. Burger also reckons that his sample was

more ethnically diverse than Milgram’s would have been. The replication had to be partial because, as Burger

puts it, ‘current standards for the ethical treatment of participants clearly place Milgram’s studies out of bounds’

(Burger 2009: 2). Burger found that the propensity for obedience was only slightly lower than forty-ﬁ ve years

previously, though, as Miller (2009) observes, the adjustments Burger had to make probably render comparisons

with Milgram’s ﬁ ndings questionable.

Ethics in business research 125

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Researchers’ ethical qualms do not extend to television, however. In March 2010, newspapers reported a French

documentary based on a supposed game show called Game of Death and broadcast on prime-time television.

Eighty contestants signed contracts agreeing to inﬂ ict electric shocks on other participants. Shocks were

administered when the other contestant failed to answer a question correctly. The shocks continued up to the

highest voltage with the contestants being egged on by an audience and a presenter. Only sixteen contestants

stopped before administering the highest shock level, which would have been fatal. As in the Milgram

experiment, the participants receiving the shocks were actors who simulated howls of agony and the shocks

themselves were, of course, also fake. An account of this programme, which refers to Milgram, can be found at:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8573755.stm (accessed 18 March 2010)

Also

, the following is a CNN news item on the programme, which includes some brief footage as well as a brief

commentary from Burger, who carried out the aforementioned partial replication:

www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2010/03/17/cb.game.show.death.cnn.html

(accessed 18 March 2010)

Ethics in business research126

Tips and skills

Ethics committees

In addition to needing to be familiar with the codes of practice produced by several professional associations

such as the Academy of Management, the Market Research Society, and the Social Research Association,

you should be acquainted with the ethical guidelines of your university or college. Most higher education

organizations have ethics committees that issue guidelines about ethical practice. These guidelines are often

based on or inﬂ uenced by the codes developed by professional associations. Universities’ and colleges’

guidelines will provide indications of what are considered ethically unacceptable practices. Sometimes, you will

need to submit your proposed research to an ethics committee of your university or college. As part of this you

may need to complete a form to show that you have considered potential ethical issues that might arise from

your study (see Tips and skills ‘A sample university ethics form’). Ethical guidelines and ethics committees are

there to protect research participants, but they are also involved in protecting researchers and institutions from

the possibility of adverse publicity or legal action being taken against them.

Tips and skills

A sample university ethics form

This form is intended to help researchers consider the ethical implications of research activity. Researchers are

responsible for deciding, guided by University guidelines and professional disciplinary standards, whether a more

extensive review is necessary.

Title of study:

Names of investigators: Yes No (please tick)

1. Is the study funded (if yes, name the source)?

2. Is the research compromised by the source of funding?  

3. Are there potential conﬂ

icts of interest in the ﬁ nancial or organizational

arrangements?  

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Yes No (please tick)

4. Will conﬁ dentiality be maintained appr

opriately at all stages of enquiry:

at collection, storage, analysis, and reporting?  

5. Will human rights and dignities be actively respected?  

6. Will highly personal, intimate, or other private or conﬁ dential inf

ormation be sought?  

7. Will there be any harm, discomfort, physical, or psychological risks?  

8. Will participants be involved whose ability to give informed voluntary consent may

be limited?  

9. Will the study involve obtaining or processing personal data relating to living individuals (e.g. recording

intervie

ws with subjects even if the ﬁ ndings will subsequently be made anonymous)? (Note: if the answer to

this question is ‘yes’ you will need to ensure that the provisions of the Data Protection Act (1988) are complied

with. In particular you will need to ensure that subjects provide sufﬁ cient consent and that personal data will be

properly stored for an appropriate period of time.)  

10. Please provide a paragraph explaining any additional ethical issues that are relevant to the study. If none,

xplain why.

I conﬁ rm that the ethical issues pertaining to this study have been fully considered.

Signed (lead investigator): ________________________Date:

On behalf of University Research Ethics Committee: ____________________Date:

Ethics in business research 127

Research in focus 5.4

Ethical issues in the television series The Ex

periment

The BBC television series The Experiment (2002) was devised with the assistance of two British social psychologists,

Professor Steve Haslam and Dr Steve Reicher. The aim was to create a laboratory experiment that replicated the

prison experiments conducted by Zimbardo in 1971 (see Research in focus 5.3). Researchers and television producers

were forced to confront a series of challenging ethical issues relating to the televising of the research. As Haslam and

Reicher explained, ‘problems stemmed from the difﬁ culty of getting people to be fully aware of the consequences

of being on television. For instance, there are many behaviours which are perfectly fair in the context of one relationship

but which violate the norms of a different relationship. Where one puts the two together, it can be deeply embarrassing.

For instance, would a teacher want their behaviour with their parents or their children to be shown to their students?’

There were also difﬁ culties related to media representations. ‘There were many cases when papers misreported

what one participant had said (or what we had said) and such comment had the capacity to cause concern to other

participants.’ However, the biggest ethical problem, according to the researchers, was ‘What happens when participants

do things they genuinely regret—or else learn things about themselves they would rather not know—and these

are then broadcast widely?’ Their ‘solution was to try to involve the participants in the analysis so that they could

agree that the resultant account was truthful, fair and had analytic integrity’. Clinical psychologists were involved in

the selection of participants, alerting them to potential risks and assessing their ability to cope with them, and they

were also available to talk through the concerns of research participants during the project. The study was overseen

by an ethics committee that included a Holocaust survivor, a member of the Howard League, and an MP.

Despite the precautions taken, the decision was made to terminate the project earlier than expected because of

concerns that participants’ emotional and physical well-being was in danger of being compromised. The BBC was

forced to delay transmission of the series when participants expressed concerns that they had been made to look

stupid and psychologists voiced concerns that the scientiﬁ c integrity of the programme had been compromised

through the editing process.

Sources: M. Wells, ‘BBC Halts “Prison Experiment”’, Guardian, 24 Jan. 2002; M. Wells, ‘BBC2 Delays “Unfair” Prison

Experiment’, Guardian, 10 April 2002; J. Crace, ‘The Prison of TV’, Guardian, 14 May 2002).

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Ethics in business research128

In this chapter, we will introduce the main issues and

debates about ethics. We are not going to try to resolve

them, because they are not readily capable of resolution.

This is why the ethical debate has scarcely moved on since

the 1960s. What is crucial is to be aware of the ethical

principles involved and of the nature of the concerns about

ethics in business research. It is only if researchers are

aware of the issues involved that they can make informed

decisions about the implications of certain choices. If

nothing else, you should be aware of the possible oppro-

brium that will be coming your way if you make certain

kinds of choice (see, for example Research in focus 5.4).

Our chief concern lies with the ethical issues that arise in

relations between researchers and research participants

in the course of an investigation. This focus by no means

exhausts the range of ethical issues and dilemmas that

arise, such as those that might arise in relation to the

funding of business research or how ﬁ ndings are used by

non-researchers. However, the ethical issues that arise in

the course of doing research are the ones that are most

likely to impinge on students. Writers on research ethics

adopt different stances concerning the ethical issues that

arise in connection with relationships between research-

ers and research particip ants. Key concept 5.2 outlines

some of these stances.

Discussions about ethical principles in business research,

and perhaps more speciﬁ cally transgressions of them,

tend to revolve around certain issues that recur in differ-

ent guises. However, they have been usefully broken

down by Diener and Crandall (1978) into four main

areas:

•

whether there is harm to participants;

•

whether there is a lack of informed consent;

•

whether there is an invasion of privacy;

•

whether deception is involved.

We will look at each of these in turn, but it should be

appreciated that these four principles overlap somewhat.

For example, it is difﬁ cult to imagine how the principle

of informed consent could be built into an investigation

in which research participants were deceived. However,

there is no doubt that these four areas form a useful

classiﬁ cation of ethical principles in and for business

research.

Harm to participants

Research that is likely to harm participants is regarded by

most people as unacceptable. But what is harm? Harm

can entail a number of facets: physical harm; harm to

participants’ development or self-esteem; stress; harm

to career prospects or future employment; and ‘inducing

subjects to perform reprehensible acts’, as Diener and

Crandall (1978: 19) put it. In several studies that we have

encountered in this book, there has been real or potential

harm to participants.

Ethical principles

•

In Dalton’s (1959) study, his ‘counselling’ relationship

with the female secretary in exchange for access to

valuable personnel ﬁ les (see Research in focus 17.2)

was potentially harmful to her, both in terms of the

personal relationship and in jeopardizing the security

of her employment.

•

In Haney, Banks, and Zimbardo’s (1973) prison experi-

ments (see Research in focus 5.3), several participants

experienced severe emotional reactions, including

mental breakdown.

•

Many of the participants in the Milgram experiment

(1963) on obedience to authority (see Research in focus

5.3) experienced high levels of stress and anxiety as a

consequence of being incited to administer electric

shocks. It could also be argued that Milgram’s observers

were ‘inducing subjects to perform reprehensible acts’.

Indeed, yet another series of studies in which Milgram

was involved placed participants in positions where

they were being inﬂ uenced to steal (Milgram and

Shotland 1973).

The AoM Code of Ethical Conduct states that it is

the responsibility of the researcher to assess carefully the

possibility of harm to research participants, and, to the

extent that it can be, the possibility of harm should be

minimized. Similar sentiments are expressed by the MRS’s

Code of Conduct, which advocates that ‘the researcher must

take all reasonable precautions to ensure that respondents

are in no way directly harmed or adversely affected as a

result of their participation in a marketing research project’.

However, some commentators cast the scope of ethical

consideration far wider, suggesting that it is also necessary

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Ethics in business research 129

to consider non-participants in evaluating the risk of

harm (see Thinking deeply 5.5). This is consistent with

recent changes in social research guidelines that extend

the deﬁ nition of what constitutes an ethical issue (see

pp. 137–8 for more discussion of these changes).

A further area of ethical consideration relates to the

possibility of harm to the researcher, an issue that was

introduced in Tips and skills ‘Safety in research’ (Chap-

ter 3). In addition to the possibility of physical or emo-

tional harm through exposure to a ﬁ eldwork setting,

certain research methods, such as auto-ethnography (see

Key concept 27.13), may carry a greater risk of emo-

tional or professional harm to the researcher because the

researchers’ own personal self-disclosures constitute the

basis for the analysis (Doloriert and Sambrook 2009).

If this analysis is made public, a great deal of sensitive,

personal information pertaining to the researcher is placed

in the public domain. The anonymity of the researcher

thus cannot be maintained. Doloriert and Sambrook

(2009) argue that this is a particular concern for student

researchers whose work will be examined by more experi-

enced and more powerful senior researchers.

Thinking deeply 5.5

Harm to non-participants?

Gorard (2002) argues that, although much ethical guidance focuses on the responsibilities of the researcher in relation to

research participants, there is also a need to consider the interests of non-participants in the research who constitute the

majority, especially when research has practical implications in determining social policies such as those relating to health,

housing, transport, and education. He argues that ‘most discussions of ethical considerations in research focus on possible

harm to the research participants, to the exclusion of the possible harm done to future users of the evidence which research

generates. They almost never consider the wasted resources, and worse, used in implementing treatments and policies that

do not work’ (2002: 3).

The issue of harm to participants is further addressed

in ethical codes by advocating care over maintaining the

conﬁ dentiality of records and anonymity of accounts. This

means that the identities and records of individuals and

organizations should be maintained as conﬁ dential. For

example, the AoM Code of Ethical Conduct recommends

that issues relating to conﬁ dentiality and anonymity

should be negotiated and agreed with potential research

participants, and, ‘if conﬁ dentiality or anonymity is

requested, this must be honored’. This injunction also

means that care needs to be taken when ﬁ ndings are being

published to ensure that individuals and organizations

are not identiﬁ ed or identiﬁ able, unless permission has

been given for data to be passed on in a form that allows

them to be identiﬁ ed. The MRS Code of Conduct states

that, as a general rule, anonymity must be preserved. If a

respondent’s identity is to be revealed, ‘(a) the respondent

must ﬁ rst have been told to whom the information would

be supplied and the purposes for which it will be used,

and also (b) the researcher must ensure that the infor-

mation will not be used for any non-research purpose

and that the recipient of the information has agreed to

conform to the requirements of the Code’.

In quantitative research, it is often easier to anonymize

records and to report ﬁ ndings in a way that does not allow

individuals to be identiﬁ ed. However, even in quantita-

tive studies there are sometimes instances where it is

virtually impossible to make a company anonymous.

The use of pseudonyms is a common recourse, but it may

not eliminate entirely the possibility of identiﬁ cation.

For example, in the case of Hofstede’s (1984) research,

although a company pseudonym was used throughout

the published study, it was virtually impossible to conceal

the company’s identity without completely distorting the

original data, partly because IBM is such a large and well-

known organization. Similarly, although W. Scott et al.

(1956) did not actually name their case study organiz a-

tion, the details they provided in their analysis about

the ﬁ rm’s size, location, history, and activities made it clear

to Bacon and Blyton (2001; see Research in focus 2.18),

and to other researchers, exactly which large steelworks

in North Wales they studied. Issues of anonymity are

particularly complex in relation to visual data. Sometimes

researchers who use visual data have to go to quite

extreme lengths in order to protect the anonymity of

their research participants (see Research in focus 5.7).

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Tips and skills

Conﬁ dentiality

agreements

As part of the process of negotiating access, it is becoming increasingly common for companies to ask their legal

departments to prepare a Conﬁ dentiality agreement, which you may be asked to sign on your own behalf, or

someone from your university may be asked to sign on behalf of the institution. The main purpose of this is to

deﬁ ne what type of information you can have access to and to establish what information you are and are not

able to disclose about the company. This usually involves agreeing that you will not pass on information to

a third party, particularly that which pertains to commercially sensitive or valuable issues, such as new product

development. In addition, there may be a clause that speciﬁ es that the company must have sight of the research

once it has been written up, so that it can comment on the ﬁ ndings, particularly if they are going to be published.

This legally binding agreement can thus grant a considerable amount of power to the company, and it has the

potential to cause considerable difﬁ culties if your research throws up issues that the company would rather were

kept out of the public domain. If you are asked to sign a Conﬁ dentiality agreement, before signing it, take it to

your supervisor to ask for advice and get it checked by someone who deals with legal issues on behalf of the

university. It may be that there is some room for negotiation in relation to the exact wording of the agreement

and the company may be reassured if there is an undertaking that the research will guarantee its anonymity.

Ethics in business research130

The issues of conﬁ dentiality and anonymity raise

particular difﬁ culties for many forms of qualitative

research, where particular care has to be taken with

regard to the possible identiﬁ cation of persons, organ-

izations, and places. Moreover, as Thinking deeply 5.6

illustrates, in some qualitative research projects research

participants may not wish to remain anonymous. The

consequences of failing to protect individual anonymity

are illustrated by M. Parker (2000: 238; see Chapter

17), who describes how a quotation in his report about

the managing director was traced to an ‘insufﬁ ciently

anonymized source’, whose reputation was damaged as a

result of the incident. As the MRS guidelines on employee

research note:

The guidelines therefore recommend that researchers

examine the results of subgroups only in situations where

there are ten or more respondents involved.

Thinking deeply 5.6

The assumption of anonymity

Grinyer (2002) argues that, although protecting the anonymity of research participants is assumed to be an integral feature

of ethical research, there may be certain circumstances where research participants do not wish to remain anonymous

because making their identity explicit is an important way of retaining ownership of their stories. The legal requirements

of the Data Protection Act mean there is also a legal requirement to protect anonymity, since the Act states that

anonymization should be maintained wherever possible to increase the security of data processing. These guidelines are

based on the assumption that research participants ‘not only deserve the protection of anonymity, but that they actively

desire it’ (Grinyer 2002: 2). She argues that the allocation of pseudonyms to protect anonymity can cause unanticipated

stress, since research participants sometimes feel that keeping their real names is an important recognition of their

involvement in the research project. This, according to Grinyer, makes clear ‘how problematic it is to make judgments on

behalf of others, however well intentioned’ (2002: 3). Grinyer recommends that this issue is dealt with on a case-by-case

basis, through consultation with research participants throughout the research and publication process so that individuals

have the freedom to make a more informed choice and are less likely to feel that they have lost ownership of their stories.

Sample sizes in specialised areas may be

very small to the point where employees

themselves could be identiﬁ ed. If there

is a reasonable risk of an employee being

identiﬁ ed, due to the sample size of the

population or sub-population being

covered, the employee must be informed

of this risk at the beginning of the

interview and given the opportunity to

withdraw.

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Telling it like it is

Ethical considerations in a student

esearch project

Tom was encouraged by his university to consider the ethical implications of his study of well-being among

call-centre workers. His main focus was on protecting the anonymity of interviewees so that managers could not

trace back comments to speciﬁ c individuals. ‘Birkbeck are very concerned with encouraging an ethical approach

to research and considering the implications of it. Given what I was doing, I didn’t think there were huge ethical

implications. I suppose my main concern was to make sure that I wasn’t in any way harming the well-being of the

people I was talking to and I suppose there was a vague possibility that, you know, we might have talked about

very traumatic stuff in the interview, which might make them very stressed and so on, but I didn’t think that was

very likely. What was more likely was that they’d somehow feel that I’d kind of betrayed their conﬁ dentiality by

feeding back to management what they were saying, even if it was in some sort of anonymized format. Because

I only had a small sample size, you know, the boss could have said “Right, who said this? I want to see all of you

in my ofﬁ ce.” So I wanted to set out as clearly as I could how I was going to use their data. What I did was when

I transcribed my tapes I called them Interviewee A, Interviewee B, or whatever, and then I destroyed the tapes,

so all I had was an anonymized interview. I did use quotes from interviews in my dissertation, but these were

attributed to Interviewee A or Call handler B or whatever, but that report was conﬁ dential to Birkbeck. It didn’t

go to the organization that I did my research in.’ In the report that went back to the organization Tom ‘made sure

that there was nothing in there that could be linked back to any individual. So it didn’t say “A middle aged, Asian

call handler said” because that could have been attributable back to individuals.’

However, Tom also became aware that employees could also be pursuing their own political agendas through

the research process. ‘Although I made it clear that I wasn’t there to check up on call handlers on behalf of the

management and that it was all conﬁ dential and I wasn’t going to make recommendations which would be

traceable back to any individual, there’d still be a question about to what extent people thought that it was safe

to talk to me or that all sorts of stuff was going on. People were asking themselves: “Was it safe to talk to me?”

Actually, I was possibly a mouthpiece for them to make comments back to management and they could say

things that hopefully might get relayed onto management about working conditions or whatever.’

To hear more about Tom’s research experiences, go to the Online Resource Centre that accompanies this

book at: www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/orc/brymanbrm3e/

Ethics in business research 131

The issues of conﬁ dentiality and anonymity involve

legal as well as ethical considerations. For example, in

Cavendish’s (1982) study of women factory workers on

an assembly line, great care was taken by the researcher

to invent names for all the women so that they could not

be identiﬁ ed, to protect them from possible victimization

by the company. However, Cavendish deliberately left

the name of the ﬁ rm unchanged in order to preserve the

realism of the study and to provide ‘concrete facts about

the factory’ (1982: vi). However, as Cavendish explains,

this proved very naive: ‘if the ﬁ rm was named, here was a

risk both to me and to the publisher that the ﬁ rm might

bring a libel action against us’ (1982: vi). For this reason,

after consultation with lawyers, she decided to rewrite

the account prior to publication in order to make the ﬁ rm

unidentiﬁ able. This involved changing not only the name

of the ﬁ rm, but also its location, the details of the com-

ponents manufactured, and the name of the trade union

representing the women. In contrast, there are other

instances where organizations do consent to be named in

publications, for example in Pettigrew’s (1985) study of

changing culture at Imperial Chemical Industries.

The issues of conﬁ dentiality and anonymity also raise

particular problems with regard to the secondary analysis

of qualitative data (see Chapter 22), since it is very difﬁ cult,

though by no means impossible, to present ﬁ eld notes and

interview transcripts in a way that will prevent people

and places from being identiﬁ ed. As Alderson (1998) has

suggested, the difﬁ culty is one of being able to ensure that

the same safeguards concerning conﬁ dentiality can be

guaranteed when secondary analysts examine such records

as those provided by the original primary researcher.

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Ethics in business research132

One of the problems with the harm-to-participants

principle is that it is not possible to identify in all cir-

cumstances whether or not harm is likely, though that

fact should not be taken to mean that there is no point

in seeking to protect them. For example, in the prison

experiments conducted by Haney, Banks, and Zimbardo

(see Research in focus 5.3) the extreme reactions of

participants surprised the researchers. Arguably they did

not anticipate this level of harm to be incurred when they

planned the study. This is partly why the AoM Code

of Ethical Conduct recommends third-party review as a

means of protecting the interests of research participants,

stating that ‘research plans involving human participants

should be reviewed by an appropriate third party such as

a university human subjects committee or a

focus group

of po

tential participants’. In addition, the ASA Code of

Ethics suggests that, if there is any prospect of harm to

participants, informed consent, the focus of the next

section, is essential: ‘Informed consent must be obtained

when the risks of research are greater than the risks of

everyday life. Where modest risk or harm is anticipated,

informed consent must be obtained.’

Lack of informed consent

The issue of informed consent is in many respects the

area within business research ethics that is most hotly

debated. The bulk of the discussion tends to focus on what

Telling it like it is

Maintaining anonymity in a small-scale

esearch project

Karen devised an innovative way of keeping her research participants anonymous that still enabled her to

reveal important details about a participant’s position within the organization. She said, ‘I didn’t put any names

in the dissertation. It was very difﬁ cult to actually work out what I was going to do. With the questionnaire it

was just a tick box so it was a lot easier, but with the actual interviews I wanted to use quotes and that type of

thing. So it was a lot more difﬁ cult so in the appendix I had a table which was a proﬁ le of all the people that

I questioned, but with no names on it. So it just had the department that they were from and their level in the

organization—not the job title—and then some other information like the length of the time they’d been there

in the organization because I used that in the analysis. I could cross-reference that with the quotes that I used

and. say “This person from the HR department or from another department said this.” So it maintained their

anonymity.’

Chris agreed to protect the anonymity of the bank where he did his research and he sought informed consent

from each of the interviewees who agreed to take part in the study, by giving the company and each of the

people interviewed a pseudonym. ‘The individuals knew from the beginning what I was doing and why I was

doing it. I asked them would they want me to keep their names anonymous or not. One person said she did want

to be kept anonymous, two said they weren’t really bothered. So I thought if I’m going to do it with one, I’d best

do it with the other two as well, which I did. I also had to get permission from the organization because I had

information about the percentage of women at different levels of management within the organization, which

I was freely given, but obviously I sought permission about actually putting that in my dissertation. They said

they were ﬁ ne about it as long as it’s sort of not going to be published.’

After having completed his degree, Chris was offered a job with the bank as a graduate management trainee.

Since then he has become involved in diversity management within the company. Chris’s experience shows

how the need to act ethically in a research project cannot be separated from one’s other roles, as his colleagues’

impressions of him now will have undoubtedly been inﬂ uenced by the way in which he conducted the research

project. More generally, the importance of ethics in building trust through the research relationship is something

that Chris feels strongly about, as he explains: ‘It’s who you know and not what you know—and if you can get

organizations to trust you and let you in, then you never know what that might lead to in the end.’

To hear more about Karen’s and Chris’s research experiences, go to the Online Resource Centre that

accompanies this book at: www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/orc/brmanbrm3e/

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Ethics in business research 133

is variously called disguised or covert observation. Such

observation can involve covert participant observation

(see Key concept 17.5), or simple or contrived observation

(see, for example, Thinking deeply 11.9 and Research

in focus 11.10), in which the researcher’s true identity is

unknown. The principle means that prospective research

participants should be given as much information as

might be needed to make an informed decision about

whether or not they wish to participate in a study. Covert

observation transgresses that principle, because partici-

pants are not given the opportunity to refuse to cooperate.

They are involved whether they like it or not.

Lack of informed consent is a feature of Research in focus

5.1 and Research in focus 5.3. For example, in Dalton’s

research, informed consent is almost entirely absent.

Dalton went to great lengths in order to keep the purpose

of his research from participants, presumably to maximize

his chances of obtaining speciﬁ c information about such

things as unofﬁ cial use of resources or pilfering. Even

those who became key informants, or ‘intimates’, knew

only of Dalton’s general interest in ‘personnel problems’,

and great care was taken not to arouse suspicion. Dalton

describes his undercover role as similar in indirect

actions to that of an espionage agent or spy, although

he stresses that his interest was in scientiﬁ c rather than

criminal evidence. The principle of informed consent also

entails the implication that, even when people know they

are being asked to participate in research, they should be

fully informed about the research process. As the AoM

Code of Ethical Conduct suggests:

It is the duty of Academy members to

preserve and protect the privacy,

dignity, well being, and freedom of

research participants. This duty requires

both careful research design and informed

consent from all participants . . . Informed

consent means explaining to potential

participants the purposes and nature of

the research so they can freely choose

whether or not to become involved. Such

explanations include warning of possible

harm and providing explicit opportunities

to refuse to participate and to terminate

participation at any time. Because

students and employees are particularly

subject to possible coercion, even when

unintended, special care must be taken

in obtaining their informed consent.

Similarly, the MRS Code of Conduct states that informed

consent means that respondents should be told, normally at

the beginning of the interview, if observation techniques

or recording equipment are to be used. Thus, while

Milgram’s and Haney, Banks, and Zimbardo’s experimental

subjects (see Research in focus 5.3) were volunteers

and therefore knew they were going to participate in

research, there is a lack of informed consent, because

they were not given full information about the nature of

the research and its possible implications for them.

However, as Homan (1991: 73) has observed, imple-

menting the principle of informed consent ‘is easier said

than done’. At least two major points stand out here.

•

It is extremely difﬁ cult to present prospective partici-

pants with absolutely all the information that might

be required to make an informed decision about their

involvement. In fact, relatively minor transgressions

probably pervade most business research, such as

deliberately underestimating the amount of time that

an interview is likely to take so that people are not put

off being interviewed, and not giving absolutely all the

details about one’s research for fear of contaminating

people’s answers to questions.

•

In ethnographic research, the researcher is likely to come

into contact with a wide spectrum of people, and

ensuring that absolutely everyone has the opportunity

for informed consent is not practicable, because it

would be extremely disruptive in everyday contexts.

Also, even when all research participants in a certain

setting are aware that the ethnographer is a researcher,

it is doubtful whether they are all similarly (let alone

identically) informed about the nature of the research.

For example, in C. K. Lee’s (1998) study of women

factory workers in Hong Kong and China, she found it

difﬁ cult to convey her ‘version’ of what she was doing to

her co-workers. This was partly because the academic

term ‘thesis’ did not make sense to them, so the women

developed an alternative explanation, which involved

the idea that Lee was writing a novel based on her

experiences as a worker ‘toiling side by side with “real”

workers’. Lee explains: ‘I had to settle for that deﬁ nition

too . . .’ (1998: 173). This example aptly illustrates

how it is not always possible for the researcher fully to

explain the purposes and nature of the research, and so

sometimes a compromise understanding is reached.

In spite of the widespread condemnation of violations of

informed consent and the view that covert observation is

especially vulnerable to accusations of unethical practice

in this regard, studies such as Dalton’s (1959) are still

regarded as important in providing insight into subversive

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Ethics in business research134

or illegitimate organizational behaviour. The defence is

usually of the ‘end-justiﬁ es-the-means’ kind, which is fur-

ther discussed below. What is interesting in the context

of this discussion is that some ethical codes essentially

leave the door ajar for covert observation. The BSA State-

ment of Ethical Practice does suggest that researchers should

‘as far as possible’ seek to achieve informed consent, but

it then goes even further in relation to covert research:

There are serious ethical dangers in

the use of covert research but covert

methods may avoid certain problems.

For instance, difﬁ culties arise when

research participants change their

behaviour because they know they are

being studied. Researchers may also

face problems when access to spheres

of social life is closed to social

scientists by powerful or secretive

interests. However, covert methods

violate the principles of informed

consent and may invade the privacy

of those being studied. Participant

or non-participant observation in

non-public spaces or experimental

manipulation of research participants

without their knowledge should be

resorted to only where it is impossible

to use other methods to obtain

essential data. In such studies it is

important to safeguard the anonymity

of research participants. Ideally,

where informed consent has not been

obtained prior to the research it

should be obtained post-hoc.

While this statement hardly condones the absence of

informed consent associated with covert research, it is

not unequivocally censorious either. It recognizes that

covert research ‘may avoid certain problems’ and refers,

without using the term, to the possibility of reactivity

associat

ed with overt observational methods. It also

recognizes that covert methods can help to get over the

difﬁ culty of gaining access to certain kinds of setting.

The passage entails an acknowledgement that informed

consent is jeopardized, along with the privacy principle

(see below), but implies that covert research can be used

‘where it is impossible to use other methods to obtain

essential data’. The difﬁ culty here clearly is how a researcher

is to decide whether or not it is in fact impossible to

obtain data other than by covert work. We suspect that,

by and large, covert observers typically make their judge-

ments in this connection on the basis of the anticipated

difﬁ culty of gaining access to a setting or of encountering

reactivity problems, rather than as a response to difﬁ culties

they have actually experienced. For example, Dalton (1959)

has written that it is impossible to get sufﬁ ciently close to

unofﬁ cial managerial activities to access the meanings

assigned to them by participants, other than through cov-

ert observation. The issue of the circumstances in which

violations of ethical principles, like informed consent, are

deemed acceptable will reappear in the discussion below.

The principle of informed consent is also bound up

to some extent with the issue of harm to participants.

Erikson (1967) has suggested that, if a researcher fails to

seek informed consent and if participants are harmed as

a result of the research, the investigator is more culpable

than if there was no informed consent. For example, he

writes: ‘If we happen to harm people who have agreed to

act as subjects, we can at least argue that they knew

something of the risks involved . . .’ (1967: 369). While

this might seem like a recipe for seeking a salve for the

researcher’s conscience, it does point to an important

issue—namely, that the business researcher is more likely

to be viliﬁ ed if participants are adversely affected when

they were not willing accomplices than when they were.

However, it is debatable whether that means that the

researcher is any less culpable for that harm. Erikson

implies that researchers are less culpable, but this is a

potential area for disagreement.

The need to take precautions to ensure that respon-

dents are in no way harmed as a result of their participa-

tion in research is of particular concern in situations

involving vulnerable persons who may not be in a position

to give their fully informed consent. An example of this

might be marketing research that explores the effect

of advertising on children. For example, Lawlor and

Prothero (2007) conducted focus groups and individual

interviews involving ﬁ fty-two children aged between

7 and 9 to explore their understanding of television

advertisements. They carried out their data collection in

two Irish primary schools during school hours. Consent

to participate in the study was requested from the parents

of the children, who expressed a preference that the

interviews be conducted in the neutral setting of the

school, rather than in the children’s homes. Permission

was also requested for the interviews to be tape recorded.

In cases such as this one, extreme diligence must be

exercised over the gaining of informed consent because

of the greater vulnerability of children as research partici-

pants and the difﬁ culties in ensuring that they fully under-

stand the implications of their agreement to participate

in research.

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Tips and skills

A sample interview consent form

I, the undersigned, have read and understood the Study Information Sheet provided.

•

I have been given the opportunity to ask questions about the Study.

•

I understand that taking part in the Study will include being interviewed and audio recorded.

•

I have been given adequate time to consider my decision and I agree to take part in the Study.

•

I understand that my personal details such as name and employer address will not be revealed to people

•

outside the project.

I understand that my words may be quoted in publications, reports, web pages, and other research outputs,

•

but my name will not be used.

I agree to assign the copyright I hold in any material related to this project to [name of researcher].

•

I understand that I can withdraw from the Study at any time and I will not be asked any questions about why

•

I no longer want to take part.

Name of Participant: ___________________________ Date:

Researcher Signature: __________________________ Date:

[Based on examples from UK Data Archive (2009) and several UK universities.]

Ethics in business research 135

Tips and skills

A sample study information sheet

Thank you very much for agreeing to participate in this study. This Information Sheet explains what the study is

about and how we would like you to take part in it.

The purpose of the study is to [give a short explanation of the study].

In order to elicit your views, we would like you to come for an interview with one of the researchers involved in

the study at the University of [University name]. If you agree to this, the interview will be audio recorded and will

last approximately one hour. You will also be asked to keep a workplace diary for four weeks. For you to take part

in this aspect of the study, the consent of your line manager will be required. Details of how to go about this will

be given when you attend for interview.

The information provided by you in the interview and workplace diary will be used for research purposes. It will

not be used in a manner that would allow identiﬁ cation of your individual responses.

At the end of the study, anonymized research data will be archived at the UK Data Archive in order to make it

available to other researchers in line with current data-sharing practices.

The study has been considered by an Institutional Ethics Committee at the University of [University name] and

has been given a favourable review.

All reasonable travel and subsistence expenses that you incur through taking part in the study will be

reimbursed, but please keep all receipts.

Once again, we would like to thank you for agreeing to take part in this study. If you have any questions about

the research at any stage, please do not hesitate to contact us.

[Researcher contact addresses, telephone, email addresses]

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Ethics in business research136

It is increasingly common for researchers to be

advised by their universities, via their Research Ethics

Committees, to gain written, rather than verbal, consent

from research participants by asking them to ﬁ ll out and

sign a form, particularly if the research involves the

collection of personal data (see the section later in this

chapter on Data Management). This is typically accom-

panied by an information sheet, which explains what the

research is about and how the researchers plan to use the

data. If data are collected using audio or video record-

ing equipment, informed consent can also be formally

recorded in this way, by asking the participant for their

informed consent at the start of the process, rather than

by completing a form. However, some researchers have

expressed concerns about what they see as a ‘tick-box

approach’ to informed consent, saying that it encourages

ethical issues to be seen as a one-off consideration, rather

than as something that needs to be considered throughout

the research process (Sin 2005). The form-ﬁ lling method

of gaining informed consent is particularly problematic in

certain qualitative research designs, where data collection

can extend over a period of time and involve methods

such as participant observation (see Chapter 17) for which

it would be inappropriate to ask research participants

to sign a form. Also, the direction of qualitative studies

can be somewhat less predictable than with quantitative

ones, so it is difﬁ cult to be speciﬁ c within forms about

some issues.

Invasion of privacy

This third area of ethical concern relates to the issue of the

degree to which invasions of privacy can be condoned.

The right to privacy is a tenet that many of us hold dear,

and transgressions of that right in the name of research

are not regarded as acceptable. The MRS guidance is

clear: ‘the objectives of any study do not give researchers

a special right to intrude on a respondent’s privacy nor

to abandon normal respect for an individual’s values’.

Privacy is very much linked to the notion of informed

consent, because, to the degree that informed consent is

given on the basis of a detailed understanding of what

the research participant’s involvement is likely to entail,

he or she in a sense acknowledges that the right to privacy

has been surrendered for that limited domain. Of course,

the research participant does not abrogate the right to

privacy entirely by providing informed consent. As we

have seen, when people agree to be interviewed, they

will frequently refuse to answer certain questions on

whatever grounds they feel are justiﬁ ed. Often, these

refusals will be based on a feeling that certain questions

delve into private realms or cover topic areas that they

ﬁ nd sensitive and they do not wish to make these public,

regardless of the fact that the interview is conducted in

private. However, the MRS acknowledges that, although

there are some topics that can be judged sensitive to

everyone, because of the nature of the subject, it is

impossible for the researcher to know beforehand which

topics may be sensitive to a particular individual. It there-

fore recommends that the researcher ‘treat each case

sensitively and individually, giving respondents a genu-

ine opportunity to withdraw’.

Covert methods are usually deemed to be violations of

the privacy principle on the grounds that participants are

not being given the opportunity to refuse invasions of

their privacy. Such methods also mean that they might

reveal conﬁ dences or information that they would not

have revealed if they had known about the status of the

conﬁ dant as researcher. The issue of privacy is invariably

linked to issues of anonymity and conﬁ dentiality in the

research process, an area that has already been touched

on in the context of the question of whether or not harm

comes to participants. The BSA Statement forges this kind

of connection: ‘The anonymity and privacy of those who

participate in the research process should be respected.

Personal information concerning research participants

should be kept conﬁ dential. In some cases it may be

necessary to decide whether it is proper or appropriate to

record certain kinds of sensitive information.’ Invasion of

privacy can also be a particular issue when dealing with

certain kinds of data, such as photographs (see Research

in focus 5.7).

Raising issues about ensuring anonymity and conﬁ den-

tiality in relation to the recording of information and the

maintenance of records relates to all methods of business

research. In other words, while covert research may pose

certain kinds of problem regarding the invasion of privacy,

other methods of business research are implicated in

possible difﬁ culties in connection with anonymity and

conﬁ dentiality.

Deception

Deception occurs when researchers represent their re-

search as something other than what it is. The obedience-

to-authority study by Milgram referred to in Research in

focus 5.3 involves deception, because participants are led

to believe they are administering real electric shocks.

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Research in focus 5.7

Invasion of privacy in visual research

As S. Warren (2002: 240) notes, ‘the very act of holding a camera up to one’s eye and pointing it at someone is

an obvious and potentially intrusive activity which cannot be “disguised” in the same way as making ﬁ eld-notes

in a journal or even tape-recording an interview’. Ethical issues of anonymity and conﬁ dentiality are thus

potentially more problematic because of the instant recognizability of photographic images. Legal issues can

also be more complex, especially those pertaining to copyright ownership (Pink 2001). As a precaution, in her

study of organizational aesthetics (see Research in focus 16.13), Warren did not use any photographs that

revealed distinguishing organizational features, such as logos. She also used digital image manipulation

software to obscure the faces of the few people in the photographs in order to protect their anonymity.

Another example of the consequences of the ethical sensitivity of using photographs in research is found in

Bolton, Pole, and Mizen’s (2001) research into child employment (see Research in focus 16.13), where the

researchers gave the young people involved in the study a disposable camera for them to take photographs

of their place of work. Several of the young people chose to opt out of the photographic part of the study

because they were worried that taking photographs might jeopardize their employment, while others, who

had wanted to participate in the photographic study, found that when they took the camera into work they

were able to take only one or two shots before being asked not to take photographs by their employer. The

researchers conclude: ‘in these situations it is the absence of photographs that begins to tell us something

about the work experiences of the children by providing an insight into the power relations that govern their

employment’ (2001: 512).

Ethics in business research 137

Another less extreme example is provided by Holliday

(1995) in her ethnographic study of small ﬁ rms (see

Research in focus 5.8). In pretending to be a student

interested in small ﬁ rms in order to get information about

a competitor’s product, Holliday was clearly engaged

in an element of deception. The AoM Code of Ethical

Conduct states:

Deception should be minimized, and,

when necessary, the degree and effects

must be mitigated as much as possible.

Researchers should carefully weigh the

gains achieved against the cost in

human dignity. To the extent that

concealment or deception is necessary,

the researcher must provide a full and

accurate explanation to participants

at the conclusion of the study,

including counselling, if appropriate.

Deception in various degrees is probably quite wide-

spread in much research, because researchers often want

to limit participants’ understanding of what the research is

about so that they respond more naturally to the experi-

mental treatment. Indeed, some ethical codes appear to

condone the strictly bounded use of deception, in order to

preserve the naturalness of the data. For example, in the

section on informed consent it was mentioned that the MSR

Code of Conduct states that respondents should be told

at the beginning of an interview if observation techniques

or recording equipment are to be used. How ever, if it is felt

that this knowledge might bias the respondent’s subsequent

behaviour, the respondent may be told about the recording

at the end of the interview. They should then be given the

opportunity to see or hear the relevant section of the

record, and, if they so wish, ‘the record or relevant section

of it must be destroyed or deleted’.

The ethical objection to deception seems to turn on

two points. First, it is not a nice thing to do. While the SRA

Guidelines recognizes that deception is widespread in

social interaction, it is hardly desirable. Secondly, there

is the question of professional self-interest. If business

researchers became known as snoopers who deceived

people as a matter of professional course, the image of

our work would be adversely affected and we might

experience difﬁ culty in gaining ﬁ nancial support and the

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Research in focus 5.8

An example of an ethical ﬁ eldw

ork dilemma

Holliday (1995: 17–18) describes an ethical dilemma that she faced during her ﬁ eldwork.

I arranged to visit a small electronics company owned by a friend of a colleague. The night before I was due to

visit the company my temperature soared to 103 degrees and I went down with ’ﬂ u. However, I felt that I could

not break the arrangement at such short notice, so I decided to go to the factory anyway . . . I got to the factory

at 10 am. Eventually Raj, the owner-manager, arrived. We had spent 10 minutes touring the factory when he asked

me if I could drive. I said that I could, so he asked me if I would drive him to another factory about ﬁ fteen miles

south . . . Business and lunch over we walked back to the car (to my great relief—at last I could go home) . . . As

we pulled out of the car park, Raj turned to me and said, ‘I’d just like to pop down to an exhibition in Birmingham—is

that okay?’ My heart sank, but I didn’t have the strength to protest, so off to Birmingham we went.

During the journey down, Raj told me about a crisis which had occurred very recently within his company.

Another small ﬁ rm had ordered a very substantial piece of equipment from him, which had required a huge

amount of development work. Once the item was supplied the company which placed the order promptly

declared itself bankrupt and refused to pay . . . By the time we reached Birmingham my sense of injustice was

well and truly inﬂ amed . . . ‘So’, Raj continued, ‘this company has a display of our product here today and I want

to get their brochure on it. The trouble is they’ll know me, so you’ll have to get it. We’ll split up at the door and

I’ll meet you in an hour. Tell them you’re a customer or something . . .’ I couldn’t believe it. I was being asked to

commit industrial espionage in my ﬁ rst few hours of ﬁ eldwork . . .

I got the brochure pretending to be a student—from Southampton, interested in researching small ﬁ rms.

I even got an invitation to the factory to come and research them. Then I passed the intelligence to Raj and

began the long drive back. I arrived home at 8.30 pm exhausted and feverish, and with a very guilty conscience.

Ethics in business research138

cooperation of future prospective research participants.

As the SRA Guidelines puts it:

It remains the duty of social researchers

and their collaborators, however, not

to pursue methods of inquiry that are

likely to infringe human values and

sensibilities. To do so, whatever the

methodological advantages, would be to

endanger the reputation of social

research and the mutual trust between

social researchers and society which is

a prerequisite for much research.

One of the chief problems with the discussion of this

aspect of ethics is that deception is, as some writers

observe, widespread in business research (see the stance

Ethical transgression is pervasive in Key concept 5.2). As

the example from C. K. Lee’s (1998) research illustrates,

it is rarely feasible or desirable to provide participants

with a totally complete account of what your research is

about. Bulmer (1982), whose stance is predominantly

that of a universalist in ethics terms (see Key concept

5.2), nonetheless recognizes that there are bound to

be instances such as this and deems them justiﬁ able.

However, it is very difﬁ cult to know where the line should

be drawn here.

However, in addition to the four main ethical principles

identiﬁ ed by Diener and Crandall (1978), there are other

ethical considerations that need to be taken into account

in planning a research project that have been made more

Other ethical and legal considerations

prominent as the result of recent changes within the

social science research community. These relate to work

carried out by research funding bodies such as the ESRC

and the European Union, which have been active in

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Ethics in business research 139

recent years in developing ethical frameworks that apply

to all social science researchers, including those in the ﬁ eld

of business and management. The ESRC Research Ethics

Framework is the result of discussion and consultation

with the social science community and other key stake-

holders. Although the guidelines apply speciﬁ cally to

research projects funded by these organizations, which

will eventually have to show that they have met the

requirements set out in the framework in order to receive

funding, it is likely that they will also in due course affect

awareness of all university social science researchers

about ethical matters. These codes and the discussions

surrounding their development can be found at:

www.respectproject.org/main/index.php (accessed

23 Jul

y 2010)

www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/

oppor

tunities/research_ethics_ framework (accessed

23 July 2010)

Another example of the heightened awareness of

ethical issues in university-based research relates to the

development of the Missenden Code, which aims to

address the challenges posed by the increased commer-

cialization of research and shifts in the source of research

funding. This code is also available on the Internet at:

www.missendencentre.co.uk/Ethics_report.pdf

(accessed 2

3 July 2010)

However, rather than being intended as a replace-

ment for the ethics codes developed by professional

associations such as those described earlier in this cha p-

ter, these frameworks are intended to supplement ex-

isting codes and to encourage their further development.

Because of this, it is worthwhile reviewing here the

main areas that they cover in addition to the four

main ethical principles that we have already discussed.

These relate to:

•

the impact of data protection legislation;

•

the role of reciprocity in determining the relationship

between the researcher and research participants;

•

the need to declare sources of funding and support

that may affect the afﬁ liations of the researcher, causing

conﬂ icts of interest.

A further issue that you may encounter if you intend to

conduct research in a National Health Service organiza-

tion, such as a hospital, or a local authority social care

organization is that it will come within the terms of refer-

ence of the Research Governance Framework for Health

and Social Care issued by the Department of Health in

2005. This document can be found at:

www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/

Publications/PublicationsP

olicyAndGuidance/

DH_4108962 (accessed 23 July 2010)

This document includes recommendations about e

thics

and ethics-related issues. In the views of many commen-

tators, the Framework considerably expands the range of

issues covered by ethical considerations. For example, in

paragraph 2.3.1, it is suggested that: ‘Research which

duplicates other work unnecessarily or which is not of

sufﬁ cient quality to contribute something useful to existing

knowledge is in itself unethical.’ Such a position enlarges

the scope of ethical considerations well beyond the kinds of

issues addressed by Diener and Crandall (1978). Further

information on the ethics of research in the NHS can also

be found at:

www.nres.npsa.nhs.uk (accessed 23 July 2010)

Data management

The routine collection and storing of digital data and the

practices of data sharing raise new concerns about con-

ﬁ dentiality and other ethical issues. They raise questions

about the extent to which information can legitimately

be used for research purposes that may be different from

the original reason for collecting the data. This issue

focuses on who owns the data and under what circum-

stances people are entitled to use it. In obtaining informed

consent from research participants, any long-term pre-

ser vation and sharing plans should be made explicit, so

these decisions need to be made at the outset of a project.

A good source of advice on the management and sharing

of data is the UK Data Archive (2009), which states:

The ease with which digital data can be

stored, disseminated and made accessible

to secondary users via the internet means

that many institutions embrace the

sharing of research data to increase the

impact and visibility of their research.

(UK Data Archive 2009: 3)

As this statement highlights, it is increasingly common

for researchers to be encouraged to make their data avail-

able to the wider scientiﬁ c community so that maximum

potential beneﬁ t may be gained from it. This raises issues

relating to data security, the extent to which data need to be

protected from unauthorized access or usage, particularly

if they contain personal information relating to individuals,

such as individuals’ names, addresses, occupations, or

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Ethics in business research140

photographs. The speciﬁ c piece of legislation that deter-

mines the extent to which personal data may be used for

research purposes in the UK is the 1998 Data Protection

Act. Common techniques for enhancing security include

separating personal identiﬁ ers from expressions of opinion

and storing them separately. The physical as well as technical

security of data should be attended to—for example, by

keeping ﬁ ling cabinets and ofﬁ ces containing data locked

and having password-protected databases.

There is a further category in the Data Protection Act

that relates to sensitive personal data, such as information

about a data subject’s political or religious beliefs, ethnic

origin, or whether he or she belongs to a trade union. This

type of data is more rigorously protected, and there is

greater onus on the researcher to obtain explicit, usually

written, consent from data subjects for the processing of

this type of personal data. However, the Act does provide

for certain exemptions in the case of personal data that

are collected for research purposes—namely, that, where

personal data are processed for research that is not likely

to cause damage or distress to any of the data subjects

concerned, they may be kept and further processed at a

later stage for other purposes. Additionally, as long as the

results of the research are not published in any form that

identiﬁ es any particular data subject, respondents do not

have right of access to the data.

Because the legislation surrounding data protection

varies from country to country, the RESPECT project set

out to identify some common principles for European

researchers to bear in mind when dealing with data-

protection issues. This involved a group of legal specialists

who reviewed the existing EU legislation and came up

with a common set of guidelines for researchers to follow

in dealing with this issue. These guidelines, which are

extremely detailed and run for over eighty pages, can be

viewed in full at the following address:

www.respectproject.org /data /415data.pdf (accessed

23 Jul

y 2010)

The length and detail of this report highlights the com-

plexity of this issue, for which researchers may be advised

to take legal advice. However, it is worth highlighting

three of the recommendations that the authors of the

report make. These include:

•

that researchers draft an outline of the processing

operations (this is not limited to electronic processing)

involved in their use of the data before they start to

process it, so they can assess the legality of their usage

in advance, rather than perform the operations and

then ﬁ nd out afterwards whether or not they are

permitted to use the data in this way. This point high-

lights the potential seriousness of using data unlawfully,

for which criminal or administrative sanctions may be

applied;

•

that researchers should decide who is the controller of

the data and thus responsible for its usage, and on the

basis of this determine which national legislation applies

to their study. This is a particular issue in situations

involving a group of researchers working together on

a research project but based in different countries. This

decision also depends on where the data processing

will be carried out;

•

that prior to the processing the researcher should deﬁ ne

who will be the data subjects and take precautions to

respect their rights in relation to the data.

A further issue affected by legal considerations is copy-

right. Copyright is an intellectual property right that pro-

tects the owner of copyright from unauthorized copying.

Most research publications, reports, and books, as well as

raw data such as spreadsheets and interview transcripts,

are protected by copyright. For employed researchers,

the ﬁ rst owner of copyright is usually the employer.

However, many universities waive this right in relation

to research data and publications and give it to the

researcher. Some researchers use Creative Commons

licences, which allow the creators of works to waive some

of their rights in order to allow their work to be used

more freely. The UK Data Archive provides a very helpful

explanation of the situation regarding copyright:

In the case of interviews, the

interviewee holds the copyright in the

spoken word. If a transcription is a

substantial reproduction of the words

spoken, the speaker will own copyright in

the words and the transcriber will have

separate copyright of the transcription.

(UK Data Archive 2009: 23)

The important thing to remember is that, if you want to

share your data with other researchers, you will need to

get copyright clearance from the interviewee for this at

the time of the interview. There are also particular copy-

right issues pertaining to the use of visual data. For ex-

ample, in order to reproduce a photograph in publication,

consent may be required from the subject in the photo-

graph as well the person who took it, who is usually the

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Ethics in business research 141

ﬁ rst owner of copyright; in such cases copyright is jointly

shared.

Reciprocity and trust

We have argued elsewhere (Bell and Bryman 2007, Bell and

Wray Bliss 2007) that ethics codes increasingly emphasize

the importance of openness and honesty in communicat-

ing information about the research to all interested parties.

Although this issue is related to the ethical principles of

informed consent and avoiding deception discussed above,

it goes further than these existing principles in placing

the responsibility on researchers for taking action that

helps to overcome the power inequalities between them-

selves and research participants, and for ensuring that

the research has beneﬁ ts for them both. For example, the

ESRC Research Ethics Framework makes frequent men-

tion of the need to communicate beneﬁ ts to research

participants. At its most advanced, this incorporates the

concept of reciprocity, the idea that the research should

be of mutual beneﬁ t to researcher and participants and

that some form of collaboration or active participation

should be built into the research project from the outset.

This encourages a view of the research relationship as a

mutually beneﬁ cial exchange between researcher and

participants who see each other as moral beings and enforce

on each other adherence to a set of agreed-upon moral

norms (Wax 1982). It also resonates with developments in

qualitative research that have sought to reconceptualize

researcher–subject relationships (see Chapter 16).

Telling it like it is

Seeking to establish reciprocity by sharing

esearch ﬁ ndings

One of the ways in which students can establish a degree of reciprocity within a small-scale research project is

through agreeing to share their ﬁ ndings with research participants by sending them a report based on the

dissertation project or a copy of the dissertation. As Karen explained: ‘There were a lot of people while I was

doing the research who said, “Oh, I’d love to see what your ﬁ ndings are and what your conclusions are” and that

sort of thing. ’Cos it brings up a lot of issues sort of even more broadly than just recruitment as to, you know,

“Well, is it a good idea that we’re doing this sort of thing?” and “What is it doing to the whole organizational

culture?” So there were lots of people who were very interested in it. So I sent them a copy [of the dissertation

once I had] ﬁ nished it. I don’t know what they’ll do with it! [chuckles] Whether anybody’ll actually sit down and

read all ﬁ fty pages of it I don’t know.’

In Tom’s study of call centres he agreed to produce a report for the organization as a condition of his access

arrangements. However, it was not entirely clear from the start whether or not this report was principally for

management or call-centre employees. ‘There [was] an interesting question about who was I working for. Was I

reporting back to the management or to the work force or to both? I kind of fudged it and said I was reporting back

to both of them and I came back and I tried to produce an even-handed report which would say, “Here are some

things that you could think about doing which might be useful.” My job was made a lot easier because I got the

sense that relationships between the management and the work force were pretty good. If I’d gone in and found

a lot more antagonism or a much more difﬁ cult relationship, it would have been much more difﬁ cult to think how

I was going to pitch that. I could easily have fallen into a trap on that and I didn’t think about it very carefully

beforehand. As it was, it turned out okay, and the circumstances meant that it wasn’t a contentious issue.’

The decision to share ﬁ ndings with research participants also raises particular ethical issues relating to the protection

of anonymity, since it is especially important that individuals cannot be identiﬁ ed if decisions might be made by

the organization based on the information collected through your research (see Chapter 16 for some examples

of this). If you have agreed to provide feedback ﬁ ndings from your research to people within the organization,

especially if these are people with decision-making authority, you need to be very clear in explaining this when

seeking the fully informed consent of individuals involved in the study.

On the other hand, sharing your ﬁ ndings with research participants can also help to make the research process

a more open exchange, because it helps to take account of the power relations between the researcher and the

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people being studied (see the section on researcher–subject relationships in Chapter 16 for further discussion

of this). This is particularly so if you share your ﬁ ndings during the research rather than at the end of it, so that

research participants have the opportunity to question and add to your interpretations of the data. The views

of research participants in response to your initial ﬁ ndings can then be written into the dissertation project. This

helps to overcome the tendency towards interpretative omnipotence—a common feature of academic writing

(see Chapter 27). However, these practices are more common in qualitative than quantitative research, because

the former is less concerned with the possibility that this might introduce bias into the study.

To hear more about Karen’s and Tom’s research experiences, go to the Online Resource Centre that

accompanies this book at: www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/orc/brymanbrm3e/

Ethics in business research142

Afﬁ liation and conﬂ icts of interest

In all areas of scientiﬁ c study, it is recognized that afﬁ li-

ations, particularly those related to funding, have the

potential to inﬂ uence the way that research issues are

deﬁ ned and ﬁ ndings presented. The Missenden Code

aims to address the challenges posed by the increased

commercialization in universities and shifts in the source

of research funding. The code, which was set up follow-

ing a number of high-proﬁ le ethical controversies (see

Thinking deeply 5.9), recommends that universities set

up ethics committees to monitor the sources of spon-

sorship and funding, and to ensure that the source of

funding is acknowledged in any publication. The code

claims that ethical implications arise when research is

ﬁ nancially underwritten by a source that has a vested

interest in the results. However, this does not mean that it

is automatically biased, rather that it may be perceived

to be biased, for example, by the media, and therefore it

is able to be discredited. Moreover, no research is truly

independent. Even if it is not in receipt of funding from

commercial sources, it is clear that the money must

come from somewhere, such as a government source,

which will also have interests in funding certain kinds

of research and coming up with particular ﬁ ndings. Sim-

ilarly, in many postgraduate MBA student research pro-

jects, the study forms part of a dissertation for a degree

that is at least partly funded by the student’s employer.

Therefore, the main thing for researchers to be conscious

of is the possibility that questions about funding have the

potential to affect the credibility of the research and that

they should be explicit and open about the resources that

enabled their research in any publication.

Thinking deeply 5.9

A funding controversy in a university

business school

In December 2000, Nottingham University accepted £3.8 million from British American Tobacco to set up the International

Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility within Nottingham University Business School. This prompted the professor

leading one of Nottingham’s top research teams working in the ﬁ eld of cancer research to leave, taking ﬁ fteen of his staff

with him. Cancer Research UK, which was funding medical research at the university, subsequently withdrew its £1.5 million

grant and launched a new code of conduct that recommended research support not be provided to any university faculty

that is in receipt of tobacco industry funding. However, Nottingham University insisted that it had been following these

guidelines, because the money that funded the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility was kept

completely separate from any area of research funded by Cancer Research UK. The case prompted a heated exchange

among academics, one letter angrily commenting that it must only be a matter of time before someone founded a Pinochet

Centre for the study of human rights. Because the tobacco industry has a history of subverting scientiﬁ c research that does

not support its commercial interests, as portrayed in the feature ﬁ lm The Insider, it was seen as unacceptable by some that

Nottingham University should accept ﬁ nancial support from this source.

(C. Clark, ‘Letter: Stub out BAT Cash’, 8 Dec. 2000; T. Tysome, ‘Tobacco Link Causes Cancer Team to Leave’, 23 March 2001,

Times Higher Education Supplement.)

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Tips and skills

ESRC recommendations for ethical review of

student r

esearch projects

In line with Kent et al.’s (2002) prediction that recent developments within the social sciences will mean that

ethical oversight regimes will be less ‘light touch’ in orientation than current structures, the new ESRC Research

Ethics Framework has a section entitled ‘Arrangements should be made for research students’, which deals

speciﬁ cally with undergraduate and postgraduate students. It states:

1.13.1 The ESRC wants social scientists to engage with ethical issues from the start of their research

careers. . . .

1.13.2 Universities and research organizations should establish procedures speciﬁ cally for reviewing research

projects undertaken by undergraduate students and students on taught postgraduate courses. Student

research poses particular challenges in relation to ethical review because of the large numbers, short

timescales and limited scope of the projects involved . . . It should be made clear to potential research

participants that the study is a student project.

1.13.3 While the same high ethical standards should be expected in student research, the process of ethical

review may be more appropriately managed at department level and overseen by research supervisors.

This does not lessen the requirement for universities to ensure that students are not exposed to undue

risk in conducting their research. (ESCR, Research Ethics Framework 2010: 16)

A case could be made for considering student research through a particular form of expedited review.

Undergraduate and taught postgraduate research might be reviewed by multidisciplinary committees with

a proportion of the members from outside the school or faculty but within the University. As student projects are

not externally funded individually, there is less of a conﬂ ict of interests within the University.

Ethics in business research 143

The difﬁ culty of drawing the line between ethical and

unethical practices can be revealed in several ways. The

issue of some members of social settings being aware

of the researcher’s status and the nature of his or her

investigation has been mentioned on several occasions.

Manuals about interviewing are full of advice about how

to entice interviewees to open up about themselves.

Researchers using Likert scales reword items to identify

‘yeasayers’ and ‘naysayers’. Interviewers frequently err on

the low side when asked how long an interview will take.

Women may use their identity as women to inﬂ uence

female interviewees in in-depth interviews to probe into

their lives and reveal inner thoughts and feelings, albeit

with a commitment to feminist research (Oakley 1981;

Finch 1984; Freeman 2000). Qualitative research is

frequently very open-ended, and, as a result, research

questions are either loose or not speciﬁ ed, so that it is

The difﬁ culties of ethical decision-making

doubtful whether or not ethnographers in particular

are able to inform others accurately about the nature of

their research. Perhaps, too, some interviewees ﬁ nd the

questions we ask unsettling or ﬁ nd the cut and thrust

of a focus group discussion stressful, especially if they

inadvertently reveal more than they might have intended.

There are, in other words, many ways in which there is

the potential for deception and, relatedly, lack of informed

consent in business research. These instances are, of

course, a far cry from the deceptions perpetrated in

the research summarized in Research in focus 5.1 and

Research in focus 5.3, but they point to the difﬁ culty of

arriving at ethically informed decisions. Ethical codes

give advice on patently inappropriate practices, though

sometimes leaving some room for manoeuvre, as we have

seen, but provide less guidance on marginal areas of ethical

decision-making. Indeed, guidelines may even be used by

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Ethics in business research144

research participants against the researcher when they

seek to limit the boundaries of a ﬁ eldworker’s investiga-

tion (Punch 1994). Finally, computer technology, and in

particular the use of the Internet as a data collection

method, has introduced new ethical challenges for

researchers that will be discussed in Chapter 26.

This might lead business researchers to regard ethical

issues as a series of obstacles that need to be overcome so

that they can get on with their study. There is no doubt

that the level of ethical scrutiny business researchers face

in relation to their activities has increased in recent years,

and the burden of responsibility for demonstrating that

ethical issues have been satisfactorily addressed has

been placed ﬁ rmly on the shoulders of researchers. Some

universities require even undergraduate and post-

graduate student research projects to go through an

ethical approval process, and the prospect of having

one’s research scrutinized by an ethics committee can

seem daunting for a new researcher. Moreover, these

requirements can encourage a bureaucratic compliance-

based approach whereby, once ethical approval has been

obtained, the researcher tends to assume that ethical

considerations can be set to one side as having been

dealt with. However, nothing could be farther from the

truth; we believe it is vitally important for qualitative

and quantitative researchers continually to revisit ethical

issues throug hout their study and to see them as an

integral part of the research process.

Checklist

Ethical issues to consider

Have you read and incorporated into your research the principles associated with at least one of the



major professional associations mentioned in this book?

Have you read and incorporated the requirements for doing ethical research in your institution?



Have you found out whether or not all proposed research needs to be submitted to the body in your



institution that is responsible for the oversight of ethical issues?

If only certain types of research need to be submitted, have you checked to see whether or not your



proposed research is likely to require clearance?

Have you checked to ensure that there is no prospect of any harm coming to participants?



Does your research conform to the principle of informed consent, so that research participants



understand:

what



the research is about?

the purposes of the research?



who is sponsoring it?



the nature of their involvement in the research?



how long their participation is going to take?



that their participation is voluntary?



that they can withdraw from participation in the research at any time?



what is going to happen to the data (e.g. how are the data going to be kept)?



Are you conﬁ dent that the privacy of the people involved in your research will not be violated?



Do you appreciate that you should not divulge information or views to your research participants that



other research participants have given you?

Have you taken steps to ensure that your research participants will not be deceived about the



research and its purposes?

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Ethics in business research 145

Have you taken steps to ensure that the conﬁ dentiality of data relating to your research participants



will be maintained?

Once the data have been collected, have you taken steps to ensure that the names of your research



participants and the location of your research (such as the name of the organization(s) in which it took

place) are not identiﬁ able?

Does your strategy for keeping your data in electronic form comply with data-protection legislation?



Once your research has been completed, have you met obligations that were a requirement of doing



the research (for example, submitting a report to an organization that allowed you access)?

Key points

This chapter has been concerned with a limited range of issues concerning ethics in business

●

research, in that it has concentrated on ethical concerns that might arise in the context of collecting

and analysing data. Our concern has mainly been with relations between researchers and research

participants. Other ethical issues can arise in the course of business research.

While the codes and guidelines of professional associations provide some guidance, their potency is

●

ambiguous, and they often leave the door open for some autonomy with regard to ethical issues.

The main areas of ethical concern relate to: harm to participants; lack of informed consent; invasion

●

of privacy; and deception.

Covert observation and certain notorious studies have been particular focuses of concern.

●

The boundaries between ethical and unethical practices are not clear cut.

●

Writers on social research ethics have adopted several different stances in relation to the issue.

●

While the rights of research participants are the chief focus of ethical principles, concerns about

●

professional self-interest are also of concern.

Questions for review

Why are ethical issues important in relation to the conduct of business research?

●

Outline the different stances on ethics in social research.

●

Ethical principles

Does ‘harm to participants’ refer to physical harm alone?

●

What are some difﬁ culties with following this ethical principle?

●

Why is the issue of informed consent so hotly debated?

●

What are some of the difﬁ culties of following this ethical principle?

●

Why is the privacy principle important?

●

What principles concerning the use of personal data are expressed in the 1998 Data Protection Act?

●

Why does deception matter?

●

How helpful are studies like Milgram’s, Zimbardo’s, and Dalton’s in terms of understanding the

●

operation of ethical principles in business research?

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Ethics in business research146

The difﬁ culties of ethical decision-making

How easy is it to conduct ethical research?

●

Read one of the ethical guidelines referred to in this chapter. How effective is it in guarding against

●

ethical transgressions?

Were the actions taken by Holliday (1995) and described in Research in focus 5.8 ethical? (Explain

●

your viewpoint using the framework provided in this chapter.) Would you have behaved differently in

these circumstances? If so, how?

Online Resource Centre

www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/orc/brymanbrm3e/

Visit the interactive Research Guide that accompanies this book to complete an exercise in Ethics in

Business R

esearch.

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