Research methods in business management

Research with vulnerable and protected groups is another ethical dilemma. It arises from the doctrine of justice that established the need for protecting the participants. The rules, however, restrict a researcher’s freedom to explore a research problem from a systematic approach and therefore tempt the researcher to breach the rules. The use of self as a research subject is another ethical dilemma in qualitative research. This is because of associated self-interest in the research together with increased chances that arise from the subjective nature of qualitative research, factors that undermine potential advantages of the approach to research such as a researcher’s rich experiences as a cheap and readily available source of data (Krishnaswamy, Sivakumar and Mathirajan, 2009). The scope of my study that involves an exploration of human experiences is susceptible to ethical issues such as “ autonomy, beneficence, and justice” (Academic Conference, 2010).
Fieldnotes
Developing a research methodology and proposed methods for implementing research is one of the fundamentals of successful research. Ensuring ethical research by providing for ethical considerations and implementing the considerations in a research process is however a challenge. This is because the ethical requirements restrict a researcher and scope of research. I have therefore realized that the need to conduct thorough research may force a qualitative researcher to compromise ethical principles.
References
Academic Conference. (2010). Proceedings of the 9th European Conference on research methods in business management. London, UK: Academic Conferences Limited.
Krishnaswamy, K., Sivakumar, A., and Mathirajan, M. (2009). Management research methodology: Integration of principles, methods, and techniques. New Delhi: Pearson Education India.
Lo, B. (2012). Ethical issues in clinical research: A practical guide. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.