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1. Research Ethics

2. Ethical considerations in research are a set of principles that guide your
research designs and practices.
Scientists and researchers must always adhere to a certain code of
conduct when collecting data from people. The goals of human
research often include understanding real-life phenomena, studying
effective treatments, investigating behaviours and improving lives in
other ways. What you decide to research and how you conduct that
research involve key ethical considerations.

3. These considerations work to-
▪ protect the rights of research participants
▪ enhance research validity
▪ maintain scientific integrity

4. Objectives: -
▪ The first and comprehensive objective – to guard/protect human
participants, their dignity, rights and welfare.
▪ The second objective – to make sure that research is directed in a
manner that assists welfares of persons, groups and/or civilization as a
whole.
▪ The third objective – to inspect particular research events and
schemes for their ethical reliability, considering issues such as the
controlling risk, protection of privacy and the progression of informed
consent.

5. Importance of Ethics in Research:-
1) Frame a proper plan: - The first and foremost point of realizing the Importance of Ethics in
Research, it is quite important to plan the entire modus operandi of the research. Starting
with
understanding the primal objectives of why the research is being conducted, working on the
time
frames and deadlines for the entire process, the target audience for whom the research is
being
conducted, and planning the number of team members and expert talent that will be
required to
conclude the research in a successful manner. It is also vital to figure out if the overall
research
will be primary or secondary in its overall approach or a mix of both.

6. 2) Safeguard the information gathered: - Next comes in the line of
understanding the Importance of Ethics in Research is to protect and
safeguard the research information that is gathered through the
primary and secondary sources and resources. As many a time, the
data collected is quite confidential in nature and can literally make or
break the future of the firm.
Hence, this aspect bears a lot of onus and responsibility on the
shoulders of the research team as even a small leak of information
knowingly or unknowingly, can hamper the brand and have a cascading
effect on the entire firm.

7. 3) Take care of the people involved in the research: -One of the major
ethics and responsibilities of research is that the subject matters and
the people that help in conducting the research process and help in
gathering all the confidential and crucial information have to be taken
care of and protected in the most dedicated manner. Many a time
information that is related to politics, economy, and legal implications
can harm on the subject matters by the opposition parties

8. 4) Keep it confidential: -Keep the data and all the information gathered
highly confidential is yet another crucial aspect of the research process.
There are quite many layered facets over the factor of confidentiality as
various external factors such as competition from the other brands in
the market, maintaining the levels of trust and faithfulness of the top
management and brand cynosures of the firm, and more.

9. 5) Understand the perils of the internet: -The era of the internet and
social media has its own merits and demerits and the researcher and
his team have to be extra careful in understanding the perils of the
same. There are quite many unethical and ethical hackers in the
industry that can have access to the information quite easily. Research
team needs to be extra careful whilst conducting the primary and
desktop research and make sure that are the systems, pen drives, hard
drives, and other mediums of storage of the data.

10. 6) Research team needs to be capable enough: -It is very imperative for the top management to
hire
the research staff internally that is backed by the wealth of knowledge, experience, and expertise
in the domain. As simple it may sound, but research work can get quite tedious at times as it
involves a lot of fieldwork and mystery shopping jobs as well that require a lot of time, efforts,
and energy. The team also needs to be smart and confident to face any sort of obstacles in a
prudent manner without revealing confidential data to anyone especially the competitors. Many
a time, the company also hires an external research agency to support the internal staff to make
the entire exercise successful.

11. 7) Check on Plagiarism: -If the research work involves more of a desktop work and
gathering the
details using the various websites and industry related portals, the team has to carefully
understand the importance of plagiarism. If the data such as images and numbers are
collected
from the website of some external party, due credit needs to be given incorporating the
source
links. If not adhered to the rules and objectives of plagiarism, the company will have to
pay hefty
penalty fees and other serious consequences that can affect its brand strength and value
in the
market and industry as a whole.

12. 8) Take consent: -Research tasks involve a lot of activities such as taking
interviews from the general public to the high-end and prolific
individuals along with getting the questionnaires filled for keeping the
record. Hence, before taking this step, it is a must to take their consent
and fix the interview time as per their feasibility and availability keeping
in mind that the research work is completed well on or before time
keeping a buffer in hand.