Insider and Action Research Ethics
Two problems the source names plainly in two paragraphs: doing action research where you are the boss, and the promise to participants that quietly lapses once the researcher has left and is writing up. Both are real. Neither gets a procedure.
The two problems, quoted
Both are correctly identified and both are common. For a project management readership they are close to universal, because the natural research site for a practising project manager is the organisation they already work in — which is exactly the situation the first paragraph describes.
Problem one: researching where you hold authority
The source's phrase is worth keeping: "a department or company where the student is actually the boss". It names the sharp case rather than a general concern about insider research, and the sharp case is the one that breaks consent.
What authority does to a study
Refusal stops being free
A participant who reports to you cannot decline in the way a stranger can. They may agree because declining is awkward, or because they suspect it will be remembered. Their consent is real in form and compromised in substance.
Answers bend toward the expected
People tell their manager what is safe to tell their manager. The effect is strongest on exactly the topics worth researching — what is going wrong, who is not coping, which process is being quietly bypassed.
You already know the answer
Insider knowledge is the reason to do the study and the threat to it. You will read ambiguous data in light of what you believe about the organisation, and you will usually be unaware of doing it.
The findings have consequences
You remain in post. A finding that names a failure names people you manage, and they know it. This is the part participants think about even when the researcher does not.
If your research site is your own workplace
Problem two: the promise that lapses
The second paragraph describes something less discussed and, in its way, more corrosive. During fieldwork you make commitments — to share findings, to check interpretations back with participants, to return and present what you learned. Then fieldwork ends, analysis and writing take over, and the commitments quietly do not happen.
Three terms this slide relies on and never defines
NAMED, NOT TAUGHT
| Term | Position in the supplied material |
|---|---|
| Action research | Carries the whole of the first problem. Appears three times on this slide and nowhere else in the week. Defined here nowhere. |
| Respondent validation | Named once, in two words, with no definition and no procedure. |
| Collaborative research | Named twice. Its relationship to action research — which is what the paragraph is about — is left entirely to inference. |
The library treats action research as a methodology elsewhere, from a different week's material.
Where the actual framework is
Two paragraphs are not an ethics framework, and the source does not pretend otherwise — its remedy for the first problem is explicitly to send the reader to a committee. The library's ethics stream comes from a different batch of the subject and does the work this slide defers.
WHAT YOU ACTUALLY NEED, AND WHERE IT IS
| Question this slide raises | Where it is answered |
|---|---|
| What does an ethics committee want to see? | Writing an ethics application — an eight-part structure, section by section |
| How do I handle participants who cannot freely refuse? | Dependent groups and unequal power |
| What does consent actually require? | Voluntary participation and informed consent |
| What if my employer is also the sponsor? | Sponsors and researcher independence |
| What goes wrong in real applications? | Ethics application failures — three worked cases |
All five come from a different week of the subject. None is referenced from this slide.
Getting it right
Before you research your own organisation
- You have written down who reports to you, directly and indirectly, and excluded or protected them
- Recruitment runs through someone outside your reporting line
- Participants know what you will and will not see
- Your ethics application names the authority relationship rather than leaving it to be discovered
- Every promise made during recruitment has a date in your project schedule
- You have said in writing what you already believe about the organisation, so you can check your analysis against it later
- You have decided in advance what you will do if a finding names someone you manage
What to carry forward
- The natural research site for a practising project manager is the one where consent is hardest to obtain freely. Design for that rather than hoping around it.
- Authority damages consent, distorts answers, and biases analysis — three separate problems needing three separate controls.
- Promises made in fieldwork break because they have no deadline. Give them one, in the schedule, before you collect.
- The source states the cost of a broken promise as damage to relationships and future access. The cost to the participants is the one it leaves out.
- Two paragraphs are not an ethics framework. The source refers you to a committee; the library's ethics stream is what you actually work from.
Frequently asked questions
Can I research my own organisation at all?
Yes — the source says part-time students often want to, and treats it as normal rather than prohibited. What it flags is the sharp case where the researcher holds authority over the participants, which requires clearance and, in practice, design changes that make refusal genuinely possible.
What is the difference between respondent validation and member checking?
There is none — they are two names for the same practice of taking your interpretations back to participants to check them. The supplied material uses one name on a slide and the other in the notes, never says they are the same, and defines neither.
Why do promises to participants get broken?
Not through bad faith. The thesis deadline is dated and real; the commitment to return with findings usually is not. The reliable fix is to give the commitment a date in your schedule before collection starts.
Does the source explain action research?
No. It carries the whole of the first ethical problem and is defined nowhere in this week — the term appears three times on one slide and nowhere else. The methodology is covered in a much earlier week of the subject, which is where the definition lives.
What safeguards will an ethics committee want if I am the boss?
This slide does not say — its remedy is the referral itself. The library's ethics stream, from a different week, sets out what an application must demonstrate for dependent groups, including a worked case where approval took five rounds over more than five months.
References and source attribution
- The supplied teaching source: weekly study notes, slide decks and assessment activities for a master's-level research methods subject in project management. Author, institution and year not stated in the supplied files.
- The two considerations on the source slide are attributed by the source to chapter 29 of a research-methods author's lecturer-resources set; that chapter is not supplied.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- What are the ethical risks of researching my own workplace?
- How do I get free consent from people who report to me?
- What is respondent validation and how does it differ from member checking?
- How do I keep the promises I make to research participants?
- What does an ethics committee look for in insider research?