PROPERTY RESEARCH – ECON 3003
ASSIGNMENT ONE
Task One
The following answers have been derived from Chapters 2 and 3 in the textbook Business Research Methods 2nd Edition by Anthony James Veal.
1. Identify the five key ethical issues with regards to all research.
Business ethics are a moral code that people conducting any sort of business are obligated to follow. Ethical actions are extremely important when conducting research, and extend beyond traditional ethical considerations such as honesty and integrity.
The first of which is harm to a research subject, where their health or safety may be put at risk for the sake of an experiment. It is also crucial to understand that harm does not need to be physical, and harm can be done when an individual’s privacy has been breached or by generating falsified results from the research. Subjects should also participate based on informed consent.
Free choice is regarded as an additional ethical issue, and is against research being conducted against an individual’s will.
Research should also not be conducted by a researcher who is incompetent as they may cause harm to the subjects or to a lesser extent, completing the research incorrectly resulting in inaccurate findings, wasting time and other resources.
Plagiarism is a major component of ethical research and falls in to the traditional ethical consideration of honesty. A researcher who uses foreign data or ideas without acknowledgement or consent may be deemed unethical if it is not appropriate.
Finally, the generation of falsified results is deemed to be unethical and can lead to a business being publicly scrutinized resulting in a loss of integrity.
After considering the above, one is able to appreciate the fact that ethical resear ...