Research Ethics (§ 10 (5) PromO vom 06.04.2021)

Course Content

Day 1: Introduction & Ethics Proposal Part I

• Many shades of grey: Moral dilemmas
• How to write an ethics proposal: Informed consent forms

Day 2: Ethics Proposal Part II, Ethical Challenges Conflicts & Data Handling

• Filling in an ethics application form for an ethics application Part II
• Reviewing an application for ethical approval (feedback session)
• Case Study Academic Misconduct
• Research Data Management: Guest speaker Hossam El-Zalabany
• Time to work on group presentations

Day 3: Team Presentations Open Science

• Team presentations:

o What did you sign up for? The DFG recommendations for safeguarding good scientific practice (specific focus on (co-)authorship, e.g., exchanging authorship favors with colleagues, faculty members demanding authorship on a publication coming out of a dissertation)

o What is open science? An introduction to principles of transparent and reproducible research

o How to publish open access?

o New publication processes to increase transparency (RRs, results-blind submissions, and the difference to pre-registration)

o Plagiarism and Peer Review

• Wrap-Up: Open Topics & Final Thoughts

Intended Learning Outcomes and Competencies

Upon completing the course, you should be able to…

• Analyze and review the work of others on ethical standards
• Evaluate your own research in terms of ethics procedures
• Plan your data handling and analysis plan for studies
• Critically discuss publications policies
• Consider alternative routes in the publication process
• Conduct open and reproducible research

Instruction Type

In Fall semester - on WHU Campus Duesseldorf. In Spring semester - 100% online delivery.

Form of Examination

During the course, you are expected to…

• … actively participate in the class room (30%)
• … write an ethics proposal for your own research (40%)
• … present an ethics-related topic with your team (30%)

Literature

Aguinis, H., Banks, G. C., Rogelberg, S. G., & Cascio, W. F. (2020). Actionable recommendations for narrowing the science-practice gap in open science.Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,158, 27-35. Doi: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2020.02.007

Bhattacharjee, Y. (2013). The Mind of a Con Man.The New York Times,retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/diederik-stapels-audacious-academic-fraud.html?hp&_r=0

Colquitt, J. A. (2012). Plagiarism Policies and Screening at AMJ.Academy of Management Journal,55, 749–751. Doi: 10.5465/amj.2012.4004

Dominus, S. (2017). When the revolution came for Amy Cuddy.The New York Times,retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/magazine/when-the-revolution-came-for-amy-cuddy.html

Academy of Management (2019).Ethics Video Series.Retrieved from http://aom.org/Multi-Media/Ethics-Video-Series/Ethics-Video-Series.aspx?terms=ethics%20video%20series

Fanelli, D, (2009). How many scientists fabricate and falsify research? A systematic review and meta-analysis of survey data.Plos One,4: 5, e5738. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005738

Kacmar, M. K. (2009). An Ethical Quiz.Academy of Management Journal,52, 432-434. Doi: 10.5465/AMJ.2009.41330319

Kerr, N. L. (1998). HARKing: hypothesizing after the results are known.Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2(3): 196-217. Doi: 10.1207/s15327957pspr0203_4

Martin, BR, (2013). Whither research integrity? Plagiarism, self-plagiarism and coercive citation in an age of research assessment.Research Policy, 42, 1005-1014. Doi: 10.1016/j.respol.2013.03.011

Macfarlane, B. (2010).Researching with integrity: The ethics of academic enquiry.New York: Routledge.

Murphy, K. R. & Aguinis, H. J (2019). HARKing: How badly can cherry-picking and question trolling produce bias in published results?Business Psychology, 34. Doi: 10.1007/s10869-017-9524-7

Open Science Collaboration (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science, 349: 6251, aac4716. Doi: 10.1126/science.aac4716

Spector, P. E., & Brannick, M. T. (2011). Methodological urban legends: The misuse of statistical control variables.Organizational Research Methods,14(2), 287-305.

Tenney, E. R., Costa, E., Allard, A., & Vazire, S. (2021). Open science and reform practices in organizational behavior research over time (2011 to 2019).Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,162, 218-223. Doi: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2020.10.015