Ethics in Business Research

Week 2 DQ 1 Ethics in Business Research

Read the interview with Elizabeth Buchanan on virtual research ethics [Readings in virtual research: Issues and controversies. (2004, January-June).Information Technology Newsletter, 15(1), 22-25.].   You can find this article through the Ashford Online Library.   Write a summary of this interview and add your thoughts on how this affects the business research process.   Respond to at least two of your fellow students' postings.

This interview describes author Elizabeth Buchanan’s views about research on virtual business. In the beginning, she defines the overall ethics of virtual research and it is importance. Buchanan says ethics of virtual research takes classical principles of research ethics, goodness, justice, and honor for persons and places them in virtual empires, Internet intervened places like 3MUDs, chat rooms, Moos, discussion forums etc. (Buchanan, 2005).

Buchanan also tells in what way virtual business research is related to classical ideas of research ethics. For instance, similar to classical doctrines of research ethics, ethics of virtual research must reflect the rights of subjects and they should be handled fairly, impartially and ethically.

Additionally, Buchanan also tells the frequency of using virtual research and classifies some methods that practice virtual research. Buchanan tells the usage of internet intervened research is increasing exponentially; especially the rise of the World Wide Web in 1990s ignited this growth (Buchanan, 2005). Buchanan also pinpoints some disciplines approaching from social sciences group to humanities, use various types of internet places for conducting research and experiments (Buchanan, 2005). For instance, some methods use the internet for conducting online surveys. A lot of people know online surveys have got enormous popularity.

Buchanan also describes virtual research techniques and the method of implication of classical methodologies in...