Business Research Ethics Is an Case Study

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If she decides to give the results to the company that is sponsoring her, it is her responsibility and she is liable of suffering the consequences.

In order to avoid ethical issues, Jane could organize these interviews as concerning consumers, as a statistical survey that she can publish in the university's newspaper, therefore becoming public knowledge. The identity of the surveyed restaurants should be concealed, otherwise it is unlikely that their staff would be willing to participate in such a study.

If Jane could introduce other factors of interest for the surveyed restaurants in this research project, they might be interested in participating. Also, Jane could reveal the results of her work after she stops being a student at this university. However, this does not eliminate the ethical issues from this situation, but it clears the university of taking part of such actions.

4. It is not surprising that Jane, same as many other people, think that the mystery customer method is an ethical one. Authors like Calvert and Erstad have addressed this issue in several articles. Given the fact that numerous companies provide and promote their services regarding mystery shopping and mystery customers surveys, one cannot help to think that such services are perfectly ethical. Even more, staff recruiting websites offer a series of mystery shopping jobs. Also, given the fact that several specialists in the field consider that these practices become ethical if customers are informed that they will be subjected of such surveys, it is not abnormal that Jane believed mystery shopping as being ethical (Douglas, 2007).

As Calvert mentions in a 2005 article that Jane has based her research proposal on, mystery shopping is by definition a form of participant observation, even if the research techniques is used without participants' knowledge. In other words, this research method is granted by Calvert, which determined Jane to consider the mystery customer method as a perfectly legitimate research method that she can use, especially for such a research project where participant agreement would deteriorate the results of the study.

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Jane's considerations on the mystery customer method are also entitled by Erstad's 1998 article on the subject. The writer agrees with this method because of the advantages it presents. In the writer's opinion, the method is useful because it is able to identify employees' genuine desire towards providing high quality services to their customers. Even more, this method is recognized by Erstad as a positive, motivational tool that favors both the company and its employees. Therefore, Jane thought that by implementing the mystery customer method, this could be helpful for her research project, for the employees, and for the companies.

Reference list:

1. Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A. (2007). Research Methods for Business Students. Prentice Hall. Retrieved September 2, 2010 from http://books.google.ro/books?id=43wDBmAKzA4C&pg=PA200&lpg=PA200&dq=mystery+customer+observation&source=bl&ots=xdG4kkCVGt&sig=rkqNg2pDvK3PfEj4jocQhnM3NgU&hl=ro&ei=scJ_TLf9A8vHswaC8MzkDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CEcQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=mystery%20customer%20observation&f=false.

2. Douglas, A. (2007). The Impact of Mystery Customers on Employees. Liverpool John Moores University. Retrieved September 2, 2010.

3. McGregor, F. (2005). Exploring the mystery of customer satisfaction. University of Wollongong. Retrieved September 2, 2010 from http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=asdpapers.

4. Brender-Ilan, Y. & Shultz, T. (2010). Perceived Fairness of the Mystery Customer Method: Comparing Two Employee Evaluation Practices. Retrieved September 2, 2010 from http://www.springerlink.com/content/y43737105u851682/.

5. Mystery Shopping Studies (2005). ESOMAR. Retrieved September 2, 2010 from http://www.esomar.org/uploads/pdf/ESOMAR_Codes&Guidelines_MysteryShopping.pdf.

6. Brandt, R. (2005). Effectively Using Mystery Shopping to Enhance the Customer Experience. Retrieved September 2, 2010 from http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/154000320/4024541.search?query=mystery+customers+method......

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