5

The Human Side of

Business Research:
Organizational and
Ethical Issues

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Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Who Does the Research?
• Outside Agency
• An independent research firm contracted by the company that
actually will benefit from the research.
◗ Can provide a fresh perspective
◗ Often can be more objective
◗ May have special skills
◗ Often has local expertise
• In-house Research
• Research performed by employees of the company that will
benefit from the research.
◗ Use if research needs to be completed quickly
◗ Use if project requires close collaboration among employees
◗ Usually cheaper
◗ Use if secrecy is a concern

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 Organizational Structure of Business Research

• Small firms
• < 100 employees
• VP of marketing may be in charge of all
significant internal research.
• Use outside agencies for large projects.
• Mid-sized firms
• 100-500 employees
• Large firms
• > 500 employees

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 Organizational Structure of Business Research
in a Mid-Sized Firm

• Director of marketing research

• Provides leadership in research efforts and
integrates all staff-level research activities into one
effort.
• Plans, executes, and controls the firm’s research
function.
• Research analyst
• Responsible for client contact, project design,
preparation of proposals, selection of research
suppliers, and supervision of data collection,
analysis, and reporting activities.

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 Organizational Structure of Business Research
• Research assistants (or associates)
• Provide technical assistance with questionnaire design,
data analyses, and similar activities.
• Also called junior analyst.
• Manager of decision support systems
• Supervises the collection and analysis of sales,
inventory, and other periodic customer relationship
management (CRM) data.
• Forecast analyst
• Provides technical assistance, such as running
computer programs and manipulating data to forecast
sales.

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 Sources of Conflict Between Senior
Management and Research

• Research that implies criticism

• Money
• Time
• Intuitive decision making
• Future decisions based on past experience

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 Reducing the Conflict between Management
and Researchers
• Ways to reduce conflict
• Early in projects and working closely together
• Formal job description
• Better planning and an annual statement of the
research program
• Communication of research findings and designs
• Research generalist
• Serves as a link between management and
research specialists in acting as a problem definer,
an educator, a communicator, and a friendly ear.

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 Cross-Functional Teams
• Cross-functional teams
• Composed of individuals from various functional
areas such as engineering, production, finance,
and marketing who share a common purpose.
• Benefits:
• Help organizations focus on a core business
process, such as new-product development.
• Reduce the tendency for employees to focus single-
mindedly on an isolated functional activity.
• Help to better communicate customers’ desires
and opinions across the firm.

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 Research Suppliers and Contractors
• Research Suppliers
• Commercial providers of research services.
• Syndicated Service
• A research supplier that provides standardized
information for many clients in return for a fee.
• Standardized Research Service
• Companies that develop a unique methodology
for investigating a business specialty area.

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 Finding Haagen-Dazs in China
• There are dozens of
Haagen-Dazs ice
cream shops in
China.
• How to decide
where to locate?
• Standardized
research companies
have resources
deployed around
the world.

5-10
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 Limited Research Service Companies and
Custom Research
• Limited-Service Research Suppliers
• Specialize in particular research activities, such
as syndicated service, field interviewing, data
warehousing, or data processing.
◗ Full-service research suppliers sometimes contract
these companies for ad hoc (custom) marketing
research projects.
• Custom research
• Projects that are tailored specifically to a
client’s unique needs.

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 Ethical Issues in Business Research
• Business ethics
• The application of morals to behavior related
to the business environment.
• Moral standards
• Principles that reflect beliefs about what is
ethical and what is unethical.
• Ethical dilemma
• A situation in which one chooses from
alternative courses of actions, each with
different ethical implications.

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 Ethical Issues in Business Research
(cont’d)
• Relativism
• A term that reflects the degree to which one
rejects moral standards in favor of the
acceptability of some action.
• This way of thinking rejects absolute principles
in favor of situation-based evaluations.
• Idealism
• A term that reflects the degree to which one
bases one’s morality on moral standards.
◗ example: the Golden Rule

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 General Rights and Obligations of
Concerned Parties
• Everyone involved in research can face an
ethical dilemma:
• The people actually performing the research—
the “doers.”
• The research client, sponsor, or the
management team requesting the research—
the “users.”
• The research participants—the actual research
respondents or subjects.
• Each party has certain rights and obligations
toward the other parties.
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 Rights and Obligations: Research Participant

• Rights: • Informed Consent

• To be informed • The individual understands
• To privacy what the researcher wants
• Protected from harm him/her to do and consents
to the research study.
• Obligations:
• Confidentiality
• To be truthful
• The information involved in
the research will not be
shared with others.

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 Deception in Research Designs And the Right
To Be Informed
• Experimental Designs
• Placebo
◗ A false experimental effect used to create the
perception of a true effect.
• Debriefing
◗ Research subjects are fully informed and provided
with a chance to ask any questions they may have
about the experiment.

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 Protection from Harm
• Questions to ask to help avoid harming a
research participant:
• Has the research subject provided consent to
participate in an experiment?
• Is the research subject subjected to substantial
physical or psychological trauma?
• Can the research subject be easily returned to his
or her initial state?
• Human subjects review committee
• Reviews proposed research designs to ensure that
no harm can come to any research participant.

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 Rights and Obligations of the Researcher
• The researcher should:
• Understand that the purpose of research is research
• Maintain objectivity
• Not misrepresent research
• Be honest in reporting errors
• Protect the confidentiality of both subjects and clients
• Do not disseminate conclusions that are inconsistent
with or not warranted by the data
• Have the right to get paid

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 The Researcher and Conflicts of Interest
• Conflict of interest
• Occurs when one researcher works for two
competing companies.

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 Rights and Obligations of the Client Sponsor
(User)
• Issues in the client-researcher relationship
• Ethical behavior between buyer and seller
• An open relationship with research suppliers
• An open relationship with interested parties
◗ Advocacy research—research undertaken to
support a specific claim in a legal action or
represent some advocacy group.
• Privacy rights of research participants

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 Privacy on the Internet
• Controversial issue
• Many researchers argue that they don’t
need to know who the user is, but they do
want to know certain things (e.g.,
demographics, product usage) associated
with an anonymous profile.
• Researchers should not disclose private
information without permission from
consumers who provided that information.

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