Managing Ethics in Research Projects

In recent years universities and a variety of other organizations have begun to introduce procedures that seek to ensure their research meets key ethical requirements. So far the focus of this book has been on generating research ideas and considering a range of possible research methods and methodologies in order to explore those very research ideas. Aside from the actual management of the dissertation (see Chapter 12), the ethical dimension of your planned research is the one other major topic you should address before progressing much further. In practice, what this means is that your research, which is likely to involve you distributing questionnaires, conducting interviews or conducting focus groups, brings with it various dilemmas in terms of your moral conduct towards the people you are expecting to fill in questionnaires, be interviewed or take part in focus groups. Such dilemmas will be dependent on the design of your particular study. However, typical ethical dilemmas in relation to business management research include: the manner in which you intend to recruit people to your study, the extent to you will inform participants of what you research is about, dealing with research participants who may be concerned about how they are portrayed in your final dissertation. There are some simple steps which can help ensure that your research embodies the kinds of ethical principles that many institutions require and we will use a range of real life ethical dilemmas to help you as you formulate your own research. The chapter concludes with checklist questions to consider.