Ethical Considerations of Marketing Research
Marketing researchers must consider business ethics, such as refraining from harming anyone and acting with integrity. They must also consider research ethics and marketing ethics. The combination of different systems can be confusing, so organizations, such as the American Marketing Association and the Marketing Research Association, suggest that ethical marketing researchers consider established industry norms. Market researchers also have different ethical responsibilities depending on their area of specialty.
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Basic Research Ethics
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Before they are marketers, marketing research professionals are researchers. Accordingly, they have the same responsibilities as any other researchers. Their work must be methodical, standardized and unbiased. Research must be conducted and presented honestly. Researchers must adhere to relevant regulations and laws. Researchers should also conform to the ethical exceptions or official conduct codes of their organizations or institutions.
Refraining from Harm
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Refraining from harm is a general ethical idea, but marketing researchers have specific considerations when it comes to this moral rule of thumb. The data collected by market researchers is based on the opinions of a group of research subjects know as a sample. Researchers must treat the people in their samples with care and ensure that the information collected is never used to harm the subjects. Ethical researchers should also avoid the conflict of interest that comes from working for competing companies, as this could harm ethical or both businesses.
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Encouraging Trust
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Market researchers are often attempting to obtain honest opinions from customers and potential customers, with the intention of turning those opinions into usable data. To gain honest opinions, market researchers must foster trust in themselves and in the research process. Acting ethically is one of the best ways to encourage trust. To protect the privacy rights of survey participants, ethical market researchers should not use their subjects' personal information for anything but the research, unless the subjects agree to the use. Researchers can also contribute to trustworthiness by always beginning honest and working transparently.
Specific Marketing Research Ethics
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Focus group researchers often give out test products or prototype products to receive the opinions of the subjects before the prototype is available to the public. Researchers should refrain from giving their subjects potentially dangerous, untested prototypes. Ethical researchers who present opinion data must ensure that the receivers of the data never know who gave the original opinions, this could cause retribution for negative opinions or unfairness for positive opinions.
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