Unethical Behaviour in Research
The source names seven, and introduces them with two words that matter as much as the list itself: things such as. Three of the seven are about money and contracts rather than participants, which tells you a good deal about the kind of researcher the list was written for.
The seven, as the source names them
The supplied teaching source asks the question directly — what is unethical behaviour — and answers it with a numbered list. The list is reproduced below without alteration, including its order and its opening phrase.
Hold onto the three words in front of the colon. Things such as is the source telling you this is an illustrative sample. Nothing in the material claims the seven are exhaustive, and several behaviours the same week's teaching treats seriously do not appear on it at all.
What each looks like in a project management study
The list as given is abstract. Rendered into the setting most readers of this library will actually work in — a study of your own or a client's projects, run alongside delivery work — each item becomes concrete and, in several cases, uncomfortably familiar.
The third column is the important one. Nobody commits these while thinking of them under the names in column one. They are committed under the descriptions in column three.
THE SEVEN, RENDERED INTO A PROJECT STUDY
| Behaviour | What it looks like in a project study | How it is usually rationalised |
|---|---|---|
| Violating non-disclosure agreements | You signed an agreement to get access to a contractor's cost model or a client's programme, and the thesis reproduces the figures. Or an appendix carries the actual instrument with commercial line items still on it. Or the arrangement is described in enough detail that anyone in the sector could name the parties. | "The agreement was about competitors, not academic work." "It is anonymised." "Nobody outside the industry will connect it." |
| Breaking participation confidentiality | Quoting a project manager whose role makes them the only possible speaker. Reporting a team of five by job title. Telling the sponsor which of their people raised a problem, so that the sponsor can act on it. | "I removed the names." "The sponsor paid for this and needs to be able to fix it." "They would want the problem addressed." |
| Misrepresenting the results | A trend claimed from four responses. A difference that did not reach significance described as an emerging pattern. The one case that contradicted everything left out of the write-up. A recommendation that travels well beyond what the data supports. | "The direction is right even if the numbers are thin." "That case was an outlier." "They need an answer, not a page of caveats." |
| Deceiving people | Telling participants the study is about scheduling practice when it is about a named manager's decisions. Observing meetings without disclosing why you are there. Presenting an evaluation as a routine review. Not saying who is funding the work. | "Telling them would change the behaviour I need to observe." "It is a small omission, not a lie." "They would have refused and the data would be worse." |
| Using invoicing irregularities | Research time charged to a delivery project code because the study has no budget line. A consultant billing days on a study that were spent elsewhere. Fieldwork expenses claimed for travel not undertaken. | "The hours net out across the portfolio." "That budget was going to lapse anyway." "The client benefits from the research either way." |
| Avoiding legal liability | A finding about a safety or contractual failure softened, deferred or dropped because of the exposure it would create. A participant information sheet that disclaims more than it discloses. A report drafted around a live dispute so the dispute never appears in it. | "Legal advised it." "That is not what the research was commissioned to look at." "It is out of scope." |
| Lying | Claiming a clearance you do not yet hold. A response rate stated higher than achieved. A source cited but never read. A sample described as random when it was whoever replied. | "It is a rounding." "I will have the approval before anyone checks." "It is true in substance." |
Column one is the source's list, verbatim and in its order. Columns two and three are synthesis added here — the source names the behaviours without illustrating or explaining them.
Three of the seven are about money and contracts
Split the list by who is exposed and something unusual appears. Most ethics lists are entirely about participants. This one is not.
Four concern people and findings
- Breaking participation confidentiality
- Misrepresenting the results
- Deceiving people
- Lying
Three concern money and contracts
- Violating non-disclosure agreements
- Using invoicing irregularities
- Avoiding legal liability
That right-hand column is the tell. A list written purely for the protection of human subjects would have no reason to mention invoicing at all. This one does, which means it was written with a researcher in mind who works under a contract, bills time, holds confidential commercial information and carries legal exposure.
That researcher is you. A master's-level project study run inside an employing organisation, or commissioned by a client, sits in exactly that position — and the surrounding material makes the same assumption when it discusses the sponsor relationship in Sponsors and Researcher Independence.
What the commercial three change about your practice
The contract is an ethics document
Every agreement you signed to obtain data is a live constraint on what may appear in your findings and appendices. Read them again at write-up, not only at access. The instruments you reproduce are a common leak point — see Appendices and Research Instruments.
Your timesheet is part of the study
Research done on a delivery budget is on this list by name. Where the study has no funding of its own, get the arrangement written down and agreed rather than absorbed quietly into a project code.
Liability is not a scope boundary
Narrowing what you report because of what the finding would expose is the sixth item on the list. A scope limit decided before collection is a delimitation you declare; a scope limit decided after you saw the result is an omission.
Deception, lying and misrepresentation are three different failures
The source lists all three and distinguishes none of them. Separating them is worth doing, because they are caught by different controls and at different moments. The distinctions below are synthesis, not the source's.
THREE INTEGRITY FAILURES COMPARED
| Failure | Who is misled | When it happens | What catches it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deceiving people | Participants, about the study they are agreeing to join | Designed in, before collection starts | Ethics review, because it is visible in the method and the information sheet |
| Lying | Anyone — a supervisor, a committee, a reader, a sponsor | Situational, usually under time pressure | Almost nothing, systematically. It surfaces through audit, or through someone else's memory of the same event |
| Misrepresenting the results | Readers of the findings, about what the evidence supports | At analysis and write-up, after the data is in | Supervision, examination and peer review — provided the claims are stated precisely enough to check |
The source names all three without commentary. This comparison is synthesis added here.
The practical point is in the last row of the middle column. Deception is a design decision you can be stopped from making. Misrepresentation is an interpretation someone can challenge. Lying has no structural control at all, which is why it depends on habits set long before the pressure arrives.
The rationalisations, and what to say back
Column three of the main table is not seven unrelated excuses. The same handful of moves recur, which makes them learnable. If you hear yourself producing one, treat it as a signal rather than as a conclusion.
If you hear yourself saying this
What the list leaves out
For the behaviours the list omits, go to the principles rather than the enumeration: The Four Ethical Principles covers harm, free choice, plagiarism and honest reporting, and Plagiarism and Research Integrity covers the one the source rates most seriously.
Catching it in your own study
Run this at two moments: when the design is settled, and again when the findings chapter has a full draft. Most of these behaviours become available only at the second moment.
Before the findings go anywhere
- Every agreement you signed to obtain access is listed, with what each one prohibits you from publishing
- You have named the person who would be identified if a reader guessed at your most-quoted participant
- Every claim in the findings has a stated basis, and the thin ones say that they are thin
- Participants were told the actual purpose of the study, in the words you actually used
- Time spent on the research has been charged to the research
- Nothing has left the write-up since you first saw the results, or you can say why it did
- Every work in the reference list was read, not only cited
- No clearance, response rate or sampling method is stated more favourably than it was
Where a claim survives the outside reader only by being softened, say so in the limitations rather than quietly weakening the wording; the conventions for that are in Stating Limitations and Contribution.
What to carry forward
- Seven behaviours are named and the list is explicitly a sample. Never treat it as a complete compliance check.
- Three of the seven are commercial — non-disclosure agreements, invoicing and liability. The list assumes a researcher working under contract, and that is you.
- Nobody commits these under the names in the list. They commit them under a rationalisation, so learn the rationalisations.
- Scope narrowed before collection is a delimitation. Scope narrowed after you saw the result is an omission.
- De-identification is a property you demonstrate to someone who knows the setting, not an operation you perform on a transcript.
- The source attaches no consequence, no reporting route and no remedy to any of the seven. That has to come from your institution and your organisation.
Frequently asked questions
Is the list of seven complete?
No, and the source says so. It introduces the list with "Things such as", which makes it explicitly illustrative. Behaviours the same teaching material treats as serious — plagiarism, coercing participants, using data collected before clearance — do not appear among the seven at all.
Why would invoicing be an ethics issue in research?
Because the list assumes a researcher operating in a commercial relationship: under contract, billing time, holding confidential information. In a workplace study, the common form is research time charged to a delivery project code because the study has no budget of its own. The source names it alongside deceiving people, at the same weight.
I anonymised my transcripts. Can I still breach participation confidentiality?
Easily. Removing names does not remove identity when a role, a project or a phrase makes the speaker obvious to anyone inside the organisation. In small project teams the combination of role and topic is often enough. The test is whether an informed insider could identify the speaker, not whether a stranger could.
What is the difference between deceiving people and lying, if both are on the list?
The source lists both without distinguishing them. In practice deception is usually designed into the method — what participants are told before they agree — and is therefore visible to an ethics review. Lying is situational and is caught by almost nothing systematic, which is why it depends on habits formed before the pressure arrives.
My legal team asked me to remove a finding. Is that unethical?
Avoiding legal liability is the sixth item on the source's list, so the request sits squarely in the area the list is warning about. The source does not tell you how to resolve it. What you can do is separate the two cases: a scope limit set before collection is a delimitation you declare openly, while removing a finding after it emerged is an omission that has to be disclosed or resisted.
What happens to a researcher who does one of these things?
The supplied source does not say. It names the seven behaviours and attaches no consequence, no reporting route and no remedy to any of them. Consequences come from your institution's research conduct policy and your organisation's own code, both of which the source tells you to read before you write the proposal.
References and source attribution
- Cooper, D. & Schindler, P. 2008, Business Research Methods, 10th ed., McGraw-Hill — the text the supplied source draws on for its treatment of ethics in business research.
- Quinlan, C. 2011, Business Research Methods, 1st ed., Cengage Publishing, Chapter 3 — the prescribed reading accompanying the ethics material.
- Swinton, J. 2009, 'Why bother with research ethics?', Journal of Community Nursing, vol. 23, no. 9, pp. 25–27.
- Whiteman, N. 2012, Undoing Ethics: Rethinking Practice in Online Research.
- The supplied teaching source: consolidated weekly teaching notes and slide material on research ethics, which supplies the seven-item list quoted on this page, its "things such as" framing, and nothing further about consequences or remedies.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Work through the seven behaviours against my study design and tell me where I am exposed.
- My findings quote a project manager by role in a team of five. Is confidentiality broken?
- I signed a non-disclosure agreement to get the cost data. What can appear in my appendices?
- Help me distinguish a delimitation I declared from a finding I dropped after the fact.
- Draft the questions an insider reader should be asked when reviewing my findings chapter for identifiability.