Assignment 2

Why Ethics are Important in Business Research

Submitted To:
Prof. Dr. Muhammad Aslam

Submitted by:
Name: Waqar Ahmad

Roll No: FA08-BBA-11

Section/Batch: B3

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology

Importance of Ethics in Business Research

Sahiwal

Why Ethics are Important in Business Research

Ethics

Firstly I want to explain about ethics. The field of ethics (or moral philosophy) involves

systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior.

Ethics is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality that is, concepts

such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice, etc.

Importance in Business Research

We know that research is the process of finding solutions to a problem after a thorough

study and analysis of the situational factors and business research provides the needed

information that guides mangers to make informed decisions to successfully deal with

problems. The question arise in my mind that what are the values and principles of

business research ethics and why is so important for a researcher to understand the

business research ethics. Some times there is a huge confusion that an action may be

legal but unethical or illegal but ethical. So it’s important to have ethics in research

since it promoted the aims of research. Like knowledge, truth and also avoidance of

occurrence of error. It also provides values that are essential to collaborative work like

faith, responsibility, shared respect and equality. The research can also be accountable to

the public. It also helps to build public support for the research. These ethics also

promote a variety of other important moral and social values. These values also include

social responsibility, human rights, animal welfare, compliance with the law, health and

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Importance of Ethics in Business Research

safety. The goal of ethics in business research is to ensure that no one is harmed or suffer

adverse consequences from research activities.

Given the importance of ethics for the conduct of research, it should come as no surprise

that many different professional associations, government agencies, and universities have

adopted specific codes, rules, and policies relating to research ethics. Many government

agencies, such as (NIH), (NSF), (FDA), (EPA), and (USDA) have ethics rules for funded

researchers. The vast majority of decisions involve the straightforward application of

ethical rules. For example if a person is conducting a research and he comes to know that

there is an error but that error does not affect the overall results of his research and

mistakenly he published the research, Ethics says that he has to publish a correction

otherwise it is unethical because it would violate norms relating to honesty and

objectivity.

In the end still one question comes to my mind that training and education in research

ethics help the researchers or not. Many of the deviations that occur in research may

occur because researchers simple do not know or have never thought seriously about

some of the ethical norms of research. A researcher may think that a "normal" or

"traditional" financial relationship, such as accepting stock or a consulting fee from a

drug company that sponsors her research, raises no serious ethical issues. Finally,

training in research ethics should be able to help researchers grapple with ethical

dilemmas by introducing researchers to important concepts, tools, principles, and

methods that can be useful in resolving these dilemmas. If the research does not follow

certain ethics the information (research) could hold less value and could also prove bad to

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Importance of Ethics in Business Research

the human and animal subjects, students, and the public and people will not fund research

projects.

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