Marketing Research Ethics

1. Asif Jamal
Visiting Lecturer
University Of Sindh, Mirpurkhas campus
MARKETING RESEARCH
ETHICS

2. CLASSIFYING RESEARCH
z BASIC RESEARCH
z APPLIED RESEARCH

3. BASIC MARKETING RESEARCH
 Expands existing knowledge base
 Becomes part of public domain
 Published in scholarly journals
 Conducted primarily by individuals with terminal degrees
 Used for purposes of theory discovery and theory verification

4. APPLIED MARKETING RESEARCH
 Conducted in order to solve specific real-world problems
 Usually propriety information
 Employs knowledge gained in basic research

5. Research Suppliers
Internal External
Full Service Limited Service

6. FULL SERVICE
 Syndicated Data Services - collect information that is
available to multiple subscribers
 Standardized Services - the service used to collect
the data is standardized but the data collected is
unique to each buyer
 Customized Services - the research service provided
to each client is tailored to meet needs of that client

7. LIMITED SERVICE
 Field Services - specialize in data collection
 Market Segment Specialists - specialize in
conducting research pertaining to particular market
segments
 Data Entry Services - specialize in editing and coding
questionnaires and entering data
 Sample Design & Distribution Services - provide
distribution lists to firms and/or conduct surveys
 Data Analysis Services - analyze data already
collected
 Specialized Research Technique Firms - employ
highly -specialized services such as eye-tracking,
skin-response testing, brand naming, packaging
services

8. ETHICS IN MARKETING RESEARCH
 Objectivity in Interpretation
purposely withholding information
changes in wording from original survey
overstating generalizability of findings
 Integrity in Data Collection
false data
failure to abide by agreed-upon data collection
procedures

9. ETHICS IN MARKETING RESEARCH
 Proper treatment of subjects
lack of privacy in responses
harmful treatment of subjects
 Plagiarism
copying another’s survey instrument
reporting another’s results as your own

10. ETHICS IN MARKETING RESEARCH
 Deontology - Focuses on individuals’ rights
 Teleology - Focuses on trade-offs between individual costs and
group benefits

11. ETHICS IN MARKETING RESEARCH
 Sugging - selling under the guise of a survey (Illegal)
 Frugging - fund raising under the guise of a survey (Unethical)

12. ETHICS IN MARKETING RESEARCH
If you think you might be doing something unethical,
it probably is unethical.

13.  What are ethics?
 What are ethical
principles
 Ethical business
behaviour
 Brief history of
evolution of ethics in
research
 Ethical principles
 Ethics in research
 Qualitative vs
quantitative data

14. WHAT ARE ETHICS?
 Societal norms adopted by a group
 A conception of conduct that is right or wrong
 Deal with fundamental human relationships
 Are a universal human trait

15. ETHICAL PRINCIPLES – WHAT ARE THEY?
 Guides to moral behaviour
 Good: honesty, keeping promises, helping others, respective
rights of others
 Bad: lying, stealing, deceiving, harming others
 Universality of ethical principles: should apply in the
same manner in all countries, cultures, communities
 Relativity of ethical principles: vary from country to
country, community to community

16. ETHICAL RELATIVISM
 Defined by
 Various periods of time in history
 A society’s traditions
 The special circumstances of the moment
 Personal opinion
 Meaning given to ethics are relative to time, place,
circumstance, and the person involved

17. REASONS FOR ETHICAL BUSINESS
BEHAVIOUR
 Fulfill public expectations for business
 Prevent harming others
 Improve business relations
 Improve employee productivity
 Reduce penalties
 Protect business from others
 Protect employees from their employers
 Promote personal morality

18. BUSINESS ETHICS ACROSS
ORGANIZATIONAL FUNCTIONS
 Accounting ethics – honesty, integrity, accuracy
 Marketing ethics (Professional Codes of Conduct in Marketing
& Information Systems – from American Marketing
Association)
 Information systems ethics
 Others

19. HISTORY OF ETHICS IN RESEARCH
 In the past – not given attention
 Changed with Nuremberg trial findings
 Nuremberg Code (1948)
 Thalidomide (late 1950s)
 Declaration of Helsinki (1964)
 Tearoom Trade (1960s)
 Milgram (1963)
 Tuskegee Syphilis Study (1932-1972)

20. ETHICS IN RESEARCH – WHY?
To protect rights and welfare of
research participants
and
to protect the wider society or community within which the
research is being conducted

21. MECHANISMS OF PROTECTION
 Ethical regulations or guidelines
 Law
 Universal principles of human rights

22. ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
 In research, help to make and to justify decisions
 Are abstract and difficult to implement in practical
situations
 Key phrases:
 Voluntary participation
 Informed consent
 Risk of harm
 Confidentiality
 Anonymity

23. HUMAN SUBJECTS
 Canada
Tri-council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving
Humans
 Medical Research Council of Canada
 Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)
 http://www.pre.ethics.gc.ca/english/policystatement/policystatement.cfm

24. ETHICAL PRINCIPLES GUIDING
RESEARCH
 Respect for human dignity
 Respect for free and informed consent
 Respect for vulnerable persons
 Respect for privacy and confidentiality
 Respect for justice and inclusiveness
 Balancing harms and benefits
 Minimizing harm
 Maximizing benefit

25. 1. HUMAN DIGNITY
 Cardinal Principle
 Basis of ethical obligations
 Two essential components
 The selection and achievement of morally acceptable ends
 The morally acceptable means to those ends
Protect the multiple and interdependent interests of
the person (bodily, psychological, cultural integrity)

26. 2. CONSENT
 Presumption that individuals have capacity and right
to make free and informed decisions
 In research = dialogue, process, rights, duties,
requirements for free and informed consent by the
research subject
 Your research cannot proceed without consent
 Consent must be maintained throughout

27. 3. VULNERABLE PERSONS
 Ethical obligations towards vulnerable persons
 Diminished competence
 Diminished decision-making capacity
 Entitled to special protection, special procedures to
protect their interests
 Entitlement (based on grounds of human dignity,
caring, solidarity, fairness) to special protection
against abuse, exploitation, discrimination

28. 4. PRIVACY & CONFIDENTIALITY
 Fundamental to human dignity
 Standards protect the access, control, dissemination of
personal information
 Helps to protect mental, psychological integrity
 9-11

29. 5. HARMS AND BENEFITS
 Balance critical to ethics of human research
 Foreseeable harms should not outweigh anticipated benefits
 Harms-benefits analysis affects welfare and rights of subjects

30. 6. JUSTICE AND INCLUSIVENESS
 i.e., fairness and equity
 Procedural justice
 Application process
 Distributive justice
 Harms and benefits

31. 7. NON-MALFEASANCE
 Duty to avoid, prevent or minimize harm
 No unnecessary risk of harm
 Participation must be essential to achieving scientifically and
societally important aims that cannot be realized without the
participation of human subjects
 Minimizing harm requires smallest number of human subjects
that will ensure valid data

32. 8. BENEFICENCE
 The duty to benefit others
 The duty to maximize net benefits
 Produce benefits for subjects themselves, other individuals
 Produce benefits for society as a whole and for the
advancement of knowledge (usually the primary benefit)

33. QUALITATIVE VS QUANTITATIVE DATA
 Quantitative
 Logic rests on generalizability & representativeness
 Sample size is criterion for judging rigour
 Respondents can refuse to answer questions
 Qualitative approaches
 Designed to best reflect experiences
 Therefore most qualitative research less formally structured
 Logic rests on notice of saturation – the point at which no new
insights are likely to be obtained
 Saturation guides sample size

34. QUALITATIVE ISSUES
 More invasive therefore ethical issues more subtle
 Tendency to investigate more completely
 Reliance on observations, interviews, stealthy methods can
lull subjects
 Easy to violate confidentiality and trust
 Power and status differentials

35. CONFIDENTIALITY & ANONYMITY
 Quantitative
Techniques
 Can be easier
 Anonymity of the firm
sometimes impossible
 Pseudonyms common
but do not eliminate
problem
 Qualitative
Techniques
 Smaller sample sizes
 Informed consent more
critical
 Problems with data
presentation/
publication

36. OBLIGATIONS OF THE RESEARCHER
 Follow code of ethics
 Objectivity
 No misrepresentation
 Preserve anonymity and confidentiality
 Competing research proposals

37. RIGHTS & OBLIGATIONS OF SUBJECT
 Right to informed consent
 Obligation to be truthful
 Right to privacy
 Right to confidentiality
 Right to no harm
 Right to be informed

38. RIGHTS & OBLIGATIONS OF CLIENT
(USER)
 Ethical conduct between buyer and seller
 Obligation to reduce bias
 Do not mis-represent data
 Privacy
 Commitment to research
 Pseudo-pilot studies
 Advocacy

39. LANGUAGE
 The language you use is very, very important. What may be
clear to you may not be clear to the reader. The reader, who
is your prospective participant, is in a different world than you
– don’t expect the reader to read your mind, to know your
intentions….

40. CASES

41. QUESTIONS?