What is the Importance of Ethics in Research?

Research and Development of all the vital information that is required hold quite a lot of importance and significance in each and every organization as lot many factors along with the internal and external elements are dependent on the research departments and its managers.

Right from planning, designing, and executing the product or the service, panning out marketing and promotional activities, deciding on the pay scales of the top management to the executive level employees, and working on the other technical, confidential, and crucial details of the firm; the department of research is one of the most crucial one in the firm.

Hence, with more power comes the more responsibility on the team that handles the research department as apart from gathering information within the time frames, the team has to understand the Importance of Ethics in Research and stay genuine and bonafide to the core as quite many important decisions of the firm are dependent on the research department.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The research department needs to be very smart and agile throughout the entire process and whenever required, use the code language that is encrypted in nature whilst communicating with the team members in front of the external parties. But the team has to make sure that no information is leaked or divulged to the external parties.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Conclusion :

Taking note of all the above-mentioned points, it can be very well understood that realizing the Importance of Ethics in Research is a must for the research team as well as the top management of the firm in order to make the entire exercise glorious and successful.