Ethics in Industrial and Organizational Research

Ethics has to do with defining what is meant by right and wrong or good and evil (or bad), and justifying according to some rational system what one ought to do or what sort of person one should be. As applied to the conduct of research with human participants the ethics of research concerns the proper treatment of those participants—their protection—by researchers. This overlaps with, but is different in intent from, the ethics of science, which has to do with the protection of the scientific enterprise by means of norms concerning ways in which its integrity is maintained (e.g., providing full and accurate descriptions of procedures in published research reports).

Deontological (i.e., rule-based) moral principles generally guide the ethical strictures concerning research participation: treating people with ...