This document discusses ethical research dilemmas that PhD students may face. It outlines the typical lifecycle of a PhD student, from coursework and research projects to publishing papers. It then presents ten mini case studies of common ethical issues, such as authorship disputes, flawed data, and publishing parts of a dissertation. The document concludes by recommending ethics guides from the Academy of Management and British Academy of Management for students to learn more about conducting research ethically.

1. Professional Ethics in Academia:
Ethical Research Dilemmas for PhD Students
Lorraine Eden, Texas A&M University
Presentation at the AOM International Management Division Doctoral Student
Consortium, Vancouver, August 8, 2015
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research!

4. Outline
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I. Lifecycle of a PhD Student
II. Research Dilemmas along the
Timeline
III. Ten Mini-Cases: PhD Students and
Research Ethics
IV. Where to Learn More?
V. The BAM Ethics Guide: Key Advice for
Ethical Research

5. I. Lifecycle of a PhD Student
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6. 6
Lifecycle of PhD student research
roles and activities

7. 7
• Each of these research roles and activities creates potential
ethical pitfalls for doctoral students. I summarize the stages as:
1. Entry – admission to doctoral studies
2. Research
o Course work
o Faculty led projects
o Student led projects
3. Presentations – presentation of research at different
venues
4. Publication – publication of research in different outlets
5. Dissertation – dissertation committee, topic, research,
writing, defense
6. Exit - post-dissertation research activities after graduation
II. Research Pitfalls along the Timeline

8. III. Ten Mini-Cases:
Ethical Dilemmas for PhD Students
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Each of the 10 mini-cases below describes a possible ethical
dilemma facing the PhD student.
1. Is there an ethical dilemma here? If yes, what is it and why?
2. What are the available options facing the PhD student?
3. What ethical course of action do you recommend and why?
Source: Eden, Lorraine and Kevin McSweeney. Twenty Questions: Ethical
Research Dilemmas for PhD Students. AOM The Ethicist ( October 2014).

9. 1. Who owns class term papers?
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Nicolas writes a term paper for his PhD seminar and presents it in
class. Barbara, another PhD student in the class, is assigned to
critique the term paper.
Nicolas does not get a very good grade on the term paper and,
after the class is over, he decides the term paper needs too much
work to bring the paper up to publishable quality so he puts the
paper on the “backburner.”
Barbara, however, really likes this topic and writes her own paper,
which she submits to the annual Academy of Management
conference.
Barbara’s paper is accepted for presentation at the meetings.
Nicolas sees Barbara’s paper on the AOM conference program
and realizes that her paper is on the same topic as his term paper.
He accuses her of stealing his term paper.

10. 2. Errors in the data!
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Justin and Kara are working with Professor X on a joint
paper. They are on a tight deadline; submission for the
annual Academy of Management meetings is only two
weeks away.
Justin is tasked to collect some missing data for their
empirical work. He is also in the middle of exams and so
quickly gathers the data without checking the numbers.
Kara discovers that the data are flawed, but realizes that if
she brings this to the attention of Professor X they will likely
miss the window for submitting the paper to the AOM
meetings.

11. 3. Why is he a co-author and not me?
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Xiao is assigned as a research assistant to Professor Micro
and spends the semester gathering and analyzing data for
one of Professor Micro’s projects. Kevin is doing the same
thing for Professor Macro.
At the end of the semester, Professor Micro invites Xiao to
be a co-author on a paper that will be based on their joint
research; Professor Macro does not invite Kevin to be a co-
author on a paper that will be based on their joint research.
Xiao and Kevin discover the different treatment when they
get together to discuss their research assignments this
semester.

12. 4. Doubling up on co-authored papers
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Two PhD students, James and Willem, are office mates. Each
of them is working on a single-authored paper and they
occasionally discuss their research ideas.
They both know it is very important for their job search to
have multiple papers on their CVs. James and Willem realize
that, if they each added the other as a co-author, they would
generate mutual benefits for each other: doubling their
chances of a publication and beefing up their resumes when
they enter the job market.
They agree to go ahead and add each other has a co-author
to the other’s papers.

13. 5. Changing the order of authors
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Andrew, Barbara and Cameron are co-researchers on a project.
All three are PhD students: Andrew and Cameron are in their
2nd year; Barbara is on the job market.
When they started the project, they agreed that the order of
authors would be alphabetical because they each were
contributing equally to the project.
The paper is done and they are getting ready to submit it to a
journal. Barbara asks if they can change the order of authors so
that she can be first author. Barbara argues that she is on the
job market and so needs the publication more than they do.
Barbara promises to return the favor by being third author on
the next two papers coming out of their work together.

14. 6. Have paper, will travel
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Kayla has been working for a year, building a dataset for her
dissertation. This dataset extends the original dataset
provided by her dissertation chair by adding new variables
and years. Kayla’s dissertation chair has several publications
out of the original dataset. Kayla discovers, to her horror,
that there is a major error in the variables constructed in the
dataset and that the error is large enough to potentially
invalidate the papers that her chair has already published.
Kayla does not know whether (1) she should fix the error in
her own dataset, (2) tell her chair about the problem and (3)
whether to inform the journals where the papers were
published that they are fundamentally flawed.

15. 7. The rule of three
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Rebecca is the lead author on a paper with Tomas and Jean Luis.
Rebecca submits their co-authored paper for presentation at the
AOM meetings without asking them first. Jean Luis is also part of
three other teams that each submitted a paper to the AOM
meetings. Jean Luis has therefore violated the Rule of Three since
his name is on four papers submitted to the AOM meetings.
When Jean Luis tells Rebecca about this, she suggests a simple fix:
She will take Jean Luis’s name off their AOM submission now. If the
paper is accepted and they present it, they will put Jean Luis’s name
back on the paper and slide presentation; he can attend the session
and present with them. They will tell everyone in the session that
Jean Luis is a co-author.

16. 8. Dissertation chair co-author?
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Jordan’s dissertation chair is an internationally famous
scholar, traveling so much that she is seldom available to
meet with Jordan. As a result, Jordan had basically written
his dissertation by himself, with little to no help from his
chair.
When Jordan submits the dissertation to his chair, she tells
Jordan that he must agree to put her name on all
publications coming out of his dissertation or she will not
sign off on the dissertation.

17. 9. Publishing part of your thesis in an edited book
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Javier's dissertation at a US university is well underway with one
main chapter and two supporting chapters. Javier’s former
professor in Mexico invites him to publish one of Javier’s
dissertation chapters in the professor’s edited book. Javier will
have a quick publication, making him more attractive on the job
market. Javier will also have done a favor to his former professor
who wrote a strong letter that helped Javier get into the PhD
program. Since the book will be in Spanish, there is little chance
that Javier’s chapter will be read by non-Spanish speaking
scholars. Therefore, Javier does not think publishing his
dissertation chapter in this edited book will create a problem for
him submitting the chapter for publication in a scholarly journal
afterwards.

18. 10. Professor-Student contracts
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Stefanie's dissertation chair offers to let her use his hand-
collected private dataset. Her chair requests in return that he
be a co-author on all publications by Stefanie using his dataset.
She agrees verbally to do this.
They write several papers together. Ten years later, Stefanie
writes and publishes a single-authored paper using her chair’s
original dataset. Stefanie believe she does not have to give co-
authorship because the theory development is hers and
"enough is enough"; 10 years of joint work is long enough to
pay for the use of the original dataset.
Stefanie’s chair is furious, arguing they had an agreement that
all published work using the dataset would be joint authored.

19. IV. Research Ethics Guides – where
can you go to learn more?
• AOM Code of Ethics (http://aom.org/About-AOM/Code-of-
Ethics.aspx)
• The AOM Ethicist (http://ethicist.aom.org)
• AOM Ethics Videos (http://aom.org/About-AOM/Ethics-of-
Research---Publishing-Video-Series.aspx)
• British Academy of Management (BAM) Ethics Guide 2015
(http://charteredabs.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/06/Ethics-Guide-2015-Advice-and-
Guidance.pdf)
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V. BAM
ETHICS
GUIDE –
KEY ADVICE
FOR
ETHICAL
ESEARCH

21. 1. Integrity, honesty and transparency in scholarship
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a. Be self-critical and self-aware so can fairly assess the quality
of one’s work and others.
b. Be explicit about intellectual preferences, political and social
inclinations, and own biases in their work.
c. Avoid misrepresenting skills or results of one’s work.
d. Consider the ethical implications of own research at all
research process stages.
e. Uphold the integrity of data and analysis, and ensure that
data, analysis and evidence are the basis of one’s research.
f. Ensure that research findings are disseminated and shared
as freely as possible, consistent with funder requirements
and copyright considerations.

22. 2. Respect for persons and prevention of harm
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a. Avoid discrimination on the basis of gender, sexual orientation,
ethnicity, social background, age, religion, disability, political
beliefs or other aspects of personal identity which are not
relevant to the work being undertaken.
b. Consider the possible impact of power and authority in
interactions.
c. Consider the safety and well-being of others who might be
affected by their work. Evaluate the potential risk of harm and
mitigate this risk if potential harm exists.
d. Ensure that any advice or consultancy services do not cause
harm and that any political or social biases in such advice are
made explicit.

23. 3. Authorship and respect for intellectual property
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a. Acknowledge all substantive and identifiable contributions to the
work undertaken, and be clear about and respect intellectual
property.
b. Discuss questions of authorship and achieve consensus among
participants. Consider the order of authors and agree to the order
based on best practice of the discipline. All listed authors bear
responsibility for the work.
c. Identify any material from others and attribute it appropriately to
the original authors (unless they wish to remain anonymous).
d. Avoid listing as an author an individual who has not contributed
substantively to the work.
e. Avoid citation for reasons other than to improve the work, for
example, do not cite to improve the impact factor of a journal where
the work is submitted.

24. 4. Consent
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a. Ensure that participants in research understand the
process enough to make informed decision about
whether to take part.
b. The principle of informed consent may be set aside
in exceptional circumstances (not feasible, not
desirable, strong public interest case for undertaking
research without consent).
c. Appreciate that where consent has been given, the
original commitments given are observed. Material
changes should be made only with further consent.
d. Approach covert research with caution since it
breaches the principle of informed consent.

25. 5. Privacy, confidentiality and anonymity
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a.
b. Respect individual and collective rights to privacy.
c. Ensure the privacy of personal data.
d. Carefully consider confidentiality and anonymity of potential
participants in research and ensure confidentiality and
anonymity where there is a prior commitment to do.
e. Consider pseudonyms rather than real names for anonymity.
f. There is no need for confidentiality or anonymity where
participants have agreed to their identities being public,
provided that informed consent procedures were followed.
g. Make provision for confidentiality or anonymity clear and,
preferably, in writing prior to data collection.
h. Be careful using online media as a data source.

26. 6. Declare affiliations, funding and support
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a. Declare conflicts of interest relating to
commercial contracts and other connections.
b. Make others aware of ethical issues that
relate to ongoing work. Provide briefing and
training to staff and students on ethical
issues.
c. Conduct all financial dealings with probity.

27. 7. Misleading, misreporting,
misunderstanding and deception
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a. Collect and use data without fabrication, falsification or
inappropriate manipulation.
b. Communicate results honestly and transparently.
c. Avoid deception (lies, misleading behavior, misrepresenting
or false reporting).
d. Acknowledge the work of others, explicitly reference any
prior work used verbatim and avoid self-plagiarism.
e. Approach covert research with considerable caution since it
breaches the principle of informed consent.
f. When in doubt about about the probity of an approach or
action, seek advice from someone charged with ethical issues.
g. Notify the relevant parties (funding bodies, journal editors) in
a timely and explicit manner if mistakes, false reporting or
other breaches of accepted standards are discovered.

28. Thanks! Questions?
You can reach me at leden@tamu.edu.
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