Creating Ethical Relationships in Organizational Research

When social and behavioral scientists leave their laboratory, clinical practice, or survey center to conduct research in organizations, they are not fully prepared for the challenge of being ethical. The ethical problems encountered in real-life settings take on unique and disconcerting features arising from the fact of social organization. In these cases, researchers are dealing with a social system composed of people who have positions in a hierarchy and who, in the collective identity as an organization, also have relationships with supporters, consumers, government, unions, and other public institutions. As a result, researchers cannot approach participants in the study as independent individuals because they behave within an interdependent framework of rights and responsibilities. Nor can they invoke existing distinctive guidelines for dealing with employees, managers, clients, or sponsors because all have overlapping interests that are sometimes in conflict. Finally, they cannot single-handedly manage the ethical dilemmas that arise because they are a weak force in a field of powerful forces, with only limited means for ensuring moral action or for redressing moral lapses. Questions are raised for researchers of their responsibilities, not only to individuals but also to the social system that encompasses them, for according to law and to custom, to harm a living system is analogous to harming a person.