This document discusses the ethical challenges of studying organizational networks in contexts with cultural diversity. It examines a study of travel agents' personal and organizational networks in Moscow. Key ethical issues included maintaining confidentiality while revealing identities, managing power relations and hierarchies, and preventing potential harm from revealing sensitive information. The researchers addressed these by obtaining informed consent, substituting roles for identities, allowing voluntary participation, and being indirect in questions about social capital. The study highlights tensions between protecting privacy and opening data while giving ethics lessons to cultural others.

1. Studying travel agents: relational
capital and organizational factors
Isidro Maya Jariego, Deniza Alieva & Daniel Holgado
5th European Conference on Social Networks (EUSN 2021) 7-10
September 2021, Naples, Italy.

2. A professional role
based on relational
capital management

3. Challenges for
research of
organizational
networks in
contexts of cultural
diversity
Organizations Networks Contexts of cultural
diversity
Informed consent, voluntary
participation and
information confidentiality.
Obtain the commitment of third
parties through organizational
consent or community consent.
Access the participants in
collectivist relational contexts.
Respect the hierarchy and
organizational roles.
Manage the value of information
about informal relationships in
formal contexts.
Adapt to environments with
greater power distance.
Prevent information about
relationships that may have a
negative impact on
organizational life.
Safeguard the strategic value of
information on relational capital.
Be sensitive to environments
where priority is given to
group harmony.

4. Ethical dilemmas
in the analysis of
organizational
networks in the
Russian tourism
sector
Ethical questions Actions implemented
Reveal the
identity
 Confidentiality
 Anonymity
 Consequences in the
organization
1. Assess the risk of: (a) indirect consequences in the
organization, (b) identification of third-party data,
and (c) impact on third-party organizations.
2. Obtain informed consent from the tourism sector,
presenting the research objectives at tourism fairs
in Moscow and its region.
3. Substitute the personal information of the alters for
professional roles and make aggregate
representations of personal networks.
Power relations  Authority figures and
organizational hierarchy
 Voluntary participation
 Protection of vulnerable
individuals or groups
1. Travel agents were invited to participate
voluntarily, showing that their decision would have
no impact on the organizational context.
2. Create a climate of informal confidence with the
participants, reducing the perceived cost of
participating.
Interests and
damages
 Conflicts of interest
 Damages derived from
the investigation
1. The lack of prior connections with the context
under study contributed to the participation and
open transmission of information by agents.
2. The questions on social capital were indirect, so
that the travel agents showed no reservations
while providing information.

5. Six degrees of data privacy
• External and internal confidentiality
• Privacy in a transparency environment
• The tension between protecting
personal information and opening data
• Relational consent

6. Identity and power in organizational contexts
• Hierarchies and the politics of informal
relationships
• Preventing conflict and polarization
• Collectivism and power distance
• Giving ethics lessons to others

7. Laboratory of Personal Networks and Communities
University of Seville, Spain
Maya-Jariego, I., Alieva, D. & Holgado, D. (2021). Confidentiality, power
relations and evaluation of potential harm in the study of the personal
and organizational networks of travel agents in Moscow. Social
Networks, 67, 55-64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2019.10.009