What would you say is a unifying theme for the Ethics in Marketing Research examples related to research design in Chapter 3? Justify your answer

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

One important theme in the ethics examples featured in Chapter 3 was simply "communicating honesty from the start." Other ways of saying this is "truthfulness", or "integrity." The research agency must honestly fulfill its role from the beginning to the end. Honesty between the researcher and the client will lead the researcher to match the right design with the needs of the business at that time. If a longitudinal design is needed, as in the case of brand switching, then it must be done. If the research firm has no experience in doing a longitudinal design, then this must be disclosed at the outset along with the ways the research agency will ensure quality (such as contracting for a consultant to guide them, or for another firm to actually execute this part of the project. A research firm that justifies the use of a cross-sectional design simply because it has no experience in conducting longitudinal studies is behaving unethically. Also, if customer contact has to be restricted or if time is an issue, the client should make these constraints known at the start of the project.

Honesty is also needed from client firms at the start of projects. Theft of ideas must always be avoided. It would be unethical for a client to extract details from a proposal submitted by one research firm and pass them on to another who actually would do the project for the client. A proposal is the property of the research firm that prepared it, unless the client has paid for it.