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Abstract

The consideration of research ethics to protect the research participants is a central element of empirical social research. Empirical research in organizations has certain characteristics: the research field is organized hierarchically and characterized by formal membership, specific control mechanisms, positive and negative sanctions, etc. Drawing on existing literature, we use the concept of “organizationality” to argue the characteristics of organizations lead to specific ethical challenges, for example dealing with layered field accesses, power asymmetries, and potentially strong sanctions. These challenges make it difficult to ensure confidentiality and non-maleficence and protect participants from risks. We present ethical challenges that typically arise at critical stages of the qualitative research process (planning, field access, the field, data storage, publication, and data archiving). This paper offers a heuristic to identify ethical challenges in qualitative organizational research. It extends the debate on research ethics in qualitative social research to organizational contexts, thereby bringing into focus the structural dimensions of harm.

Keywords

research ethics qualitative research interviewing organization studies management studies employment relations

Introduction

Any empirical research project must address issues of research ethics, such as harm reduction (principle of non-maleficence), data protection and privacy, voluntary participation, informed consent, anonymity, and confidentiality (American Sociological Association, 2018; DGS und BDS, 2017; British Sociological Association, 2017; European Commission, 2013). Internationally, there is a rich debate on research ethics and qualitative social research (Blee & Currier, 2011; Hammersley, 2015; Iphofen, 2020; Miller et al., 2012; Roth & Unger, 2018; Taquette & Borges da Matta Souza, 2022; Wiles, 2013) arguing that paying attention to the ethical dimension of research is crucial for all researchers. Accordingly, scholars who conduct qualitative research in organizations are no exception.

Research in organizations takes place in a specific context (Buchanan & Bryman, 2011a; Symon & Cassell, 2012). Therefore, several authors point out specific ethical challenges in organizational research and call for greater attention to the issue (Bell & Bryman, 2007; Bell & Wray-Bliss, 2011; Brewis & Wray-Bliss, 2008; Jeanes, 2017). We build on and extend those debates by arguing that the “organizationality” of the research field (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2011) shapes ethical challenges. This means, for example, that researchers have to deal with the hierarchical structuring of their field of inquiry. Based on this assumption, we attempt to answer the question: How can (specific) ethical challenges in organizational research be identified and anticipated? To address this question, we will focus on fields with a high degree of organizationality, that is, research in formal organizations. We show that the characteristics of formal organizations can lead to ethical challenges throughout the research process.

Our paper aims to support researchers who conduct research in organizations, primarily early career researchers, doctoral students, and advanced students, and those new to research in organizations, in two ways. First, we aim to suggest a heuristic for conducting research that enables researchers to anticipate ethical problems in organizational contexts from the outset. Recognizing potential ethical challenges for your project helps to develop possible strategies and ways of dealing with them right from the start. Our heuristics may also assist members of ethics committees in recognizing potential challenges and dimensions of harm that arise due to the structured nature of the research field.

Second, we want to guide researchers on handling research ethics issues throughout the research process. Ethical challenges can arise at any stage of the research process, from planning to publication, and we seek to provide practical suggestions based on the expertise and experience of researchers in the field to help address these issues.

Therefore, we offer a heuristic based on the concept of organizationality (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2011), which helps to identify key challenges. Even though ethical challenges often arise spontaneously and sometimes unpredictably in the qualitative research process, it is useful for researchers to anticipate potential challenges in their projects. With our heuristic, we hope to stimulate a broader debate on research ethics in organizational research and the “ethical reflexivity” (von Unger, 2021) of one’s practice.

To this end, we will first use the broader social science debate on research ethics as a starting point to develop central features for organizational research. Second, we will focus on qualitative methods that are traditionally established in organizational research and face unique ethical challenges due to their openness and proximity between researchers and the individuals studied. We will illustrate how ethical challenges in organizational research can be identified using characteristics of organizationality (membership, rules, hierarchy, sanctions, and control) as a heuristic. Third, we will point out specific ethical challenges and ways to address them during the distinct critical stages of the research process (planning, field access, the field phase, data processing and analyzing publication, and secondary analysis). For this, we will draw on empirical examples from organizational research and show how our heuristics can help identify typical ethical challenges in the research process. Finally, we will summarize key findings and recommendations, limitations, and possibilities for future research.

Research Ethics in Qualitative Research

Internationally, an extensive methodological debate on research ethics issues illustrates the challenging application and implementation of ethical principles and discusses ethical dilemmas in the research process (Baez, 2002; Blee & Currier, 2011; Ciuk & Latusek, 2018; Taquette & Borges da Matta Souza, 2022). According to this debate, ethical principles should guide the relationship between researcher and participant:

Under the keyword “research ethics” it is usual in social sciences to group together all those ethical principles and rules in which it is determined – in a more or less binding and a more or less consensual way – how the relationships between researchers on the one hand and those involved in sociological research, on the other hand, are to be handled. (Hopf, 2004, p. 334)

Common ethical principles include the avoidance of harm and risk, the protection of personal rights, the voluntary nature of participation, and the principle of informed consent, as well as data protection and confidentiality (American Sociological Association, 2018; British Sociological Association, 2017).

Qualitative scholars agree that research ethics should be understood as a process that continues throughout the research (Blee & Currier, 2011; Hammersley, 2015; Iphofen, 2020; Kara & Pickering, 2017; Miller et al., 2012; Roth & Unger, 2018). For example, Guillemin and Gillam (2004) argue for a reflexive approach to ethical challenges that emerge throughout the research process. They state that researchers can use reflexivity, a fundamental characteristic of qualitative research, to deal with what they call “ethically important moments.” They describe such moments as “difficult, often subtle, and usually unpredictable situations that arise in the practice of doing research” (Guillemin & Gillam, 2004, p. 262). Von Unger (2021) distinguishes three dimensions of ethical reflexivity. An ethical reflexive stance can help “(1) to anticipate ethical issues in advance, (2) to engage in ‘ethics in practice’ [...], and (3) to reflect on more fundamental issues concerning the larger role of social science research” (p. 192). We follow Guillemin and Gillam (2004) and von Unger (2021), who argue that an ethically reflexive attitude throughout the research process is crucial to respond to unpredictable ethical challenges. However, our aim in this paper is to draw attention to specific ethical challenges that arise when conducting research in organizations, which is, therefore, primarily related to the first dimension of ethical reflexivity. Nonetheless, there may be other unforeseen challenges due to the nature of qualitative research.

Even though “ethically important moments” often emerge unpredictably in the research process, several ethical challenges are already known in the literature. For example, researchers point out ethical challenges arising from different power relations between researchers and participants (Braye & McDonnell, 2013), the positionality of the researchers (Britton, 2020; Shaw et al., 2020), the close relationship to the field and their members (Råheim et al., 2016) as well as the regional context of the study (Wackenhut, 2018; Yusupova, 2019). There is also a rich body of literature on the challenges researchers face regarding specific ethical principles (see, e.g., the literature review by Taquette & Borges da Matta Souza, 2022). Furthermore, the literature also discusses challenges about different methods, such as interviews (Allmark et al., 2009; Lowton, 2018; Mero-Jaffe, 2011), ethnography (Delmont & Atkinson, 2018; Fine & Schulman, 2009; Ryen, 2009) or digital methods (Eynon et al., 2017; Legewie & Nassauer, 2018; Markham & Buchanan, 2017; Sugiura et al., 2017).

These various ethical challenges that arise through positionality and relationships in the field, specific ethical principles, and different qualitative methods also need to be considered for research in organizations. Building on this literature and keeping those challenges in mind, we would like to broaden the debate and, in particular, draw attention to such challenges that arise due to the structure of the research field in organizational research. We, therefore, propose to look at every stage of the research process individually (planning, field access, in the field, data storage, publication, and data archiving) to identify specific challenges in organizational research. Thus, in the next section, we discuss the main features of organizational research and show how these impact the challenges in research ethics.

Conducting Research in Organizations – Specifics of a Research Field

The field of organizational research is interdisciplinary and includes social psychology, sociology, organization studies, management research, employment relations, and labor economics. Each of these fields has distinctive historical trajectories, epistemological traditions, and norms of practice regarding their research. For example, Frege (2007) has shown that employment research traditions differ significantly in the US, the UK, and Germany.¹ The variety of approaches and methods in organizational research (Bell et al., 2019; Liebig et al., 2017) are sometimes described as “a new pluralism in methodology” (Buchanan & Bryman, 2011b, p. 4). Despite the lack of a unified qualitative paradigm, qualitative methods have gained a firm place in organizational research (Mauskapf & Hirsch, 2016). Interviews, observations, and case studies are among the traditional methods implemented. They are complemented by more innovative approaches (such as visual images, discourse analysis, online research methods, etc.) (Elsbach & Kramer, 2016). All methodologies bring specific research ethics challenges, including anonymization needs and harm prevention necessities.

However, research in organizations has specific features that differ from other fields, regardless of the methodology chosen. According to the literature (e.g., Buchanan & Bryman, 2007; Pflüger et al., 2017) research in organizations:

• often takes place in a hierarchical environment (e.g., company) with complex formal and informal relationships.

• can typically only be conducted in close coordination with organizational cooperation partners because access is usually mediated or at least approved by “gatekeepers” (e.g., management, works council, administration).

• means that researchers are regularly confronted with different and sometimes conflicting expectations, for example, management, work councils, employees, the scientific community, third-party funding bodies, etc.

• results in multidimensional publication requirements, which must be clarified with companies and employees (if they are part of the study group).

It is evident that these characteristics lead to specific ethical challenges, which have already been discussed in organizational research. For example, Bell and Bryman (2007) identify four key ethical challenges regarding management research:

First, conflicts of interest and a possible bias are seen as a problem with ethical consequences. Second, there is a power asymmetry between researchers and management. Researchers are often in a weaker negotiating position, and management can control access to the field and the ways of publishing. The third challenge for management studies is the question of risk and potential harm. It can be questioned whether the principle of non-maleficence applies only to organizational members, i.e., the individuals or the organization itself (p. 68). The fourth challenge that Bell & Bryman, (2007) address is the question of anonymity and confidentiality for organizational research. Again, the extent to which the principle of anonymity applies to the organization is debatable. Based on their analysis, Bell and Bryman call for further development of codes of ethics for management studies to better address the characteristics of the research field.

Thus, existing literature acknowledges specific ethical challenges in organizational research. However, we believe there is a lack of heuristics to systematically identify the ethical challenges in organizations. Following Mees-Buss et al. (2022), heuristics are “aids for discovery that stimulate generative thinking, creativity, and imagination” (p. 406–407) and could be seen as “thought patterns to assist the generation of new questions and new insights” (p. 419) – in our case ethical questions in the research process. Furthermore, VanWynsberghe and Khan (2007) understand a heuristic at its most general level “as an approach that focuses one's attention during learning, construction, discovery, or problem-solving” (p. 81). Researchers must transfer the abstract ethical principles into practice in the research process. We believe that in this process, researchers should draw attention to the dimensions of organizationality as “thought patterns” to discover potential ethically important moments and challenges.

In the following, we would like to propose such a heuristic as an orientation tool. To pursue this, we refer to the concept of “organizationality”, which is currently being discussed in organizational research. According to Ahrne and Brunsson (2011, 2019), organization should be understood as the degree to which five elements are present. These elements of an organization, which are already known from the classical sociological theory of organizations, are: Membership (defining who is and is not a member); Rules (members have a shared understanding about what they are doing and how to do it); Hierarchy (shared knowledge about who has the initiative and power); Sanctions (members must be able to get others members to do what is expected of them in organizations, therefore, positive and negative sanctions are in place); Control/Monitoring (participants in organizations need to be able to observe each other to know how to continue, specific forms of monitoring accomplish this). Their aim is, among other things, to show the extent to which even those social settings that are not typically seen as (formal) organizations exhibit characteristics of organizations and can thus be understood as “partial organizations” (or “Organizations outside Organizations”, Ahrne & Brunsson, 2019). Whereas formal organizations have access to all elements of an organization, partial organizations are based on only one or a few of these elements. Organization, it is argued in the sequel, is to be understood in terms of its “degree of organizationality” (Dobusch & Schoeneborn, 2015, p. 1008).

We think that these considerations are also fruitful with regard to research ethics. First, we assume that research ethics challenges can be systematized based on the respective elements (membership, rules, hierarchy, etc.). For example, when we focus on the voluntary nature of participation, we need to consider how organizational rules and hierarchies, membership, and the organization's potential monitoring or sanctioning of participants might influence their decision to participate. Hierarchical structures within an organization may affect the voluntariness of participation if managers or supervisors force employees to participate in a study. Participant impartiality may be compromised if the organization sanctions participants for expressing critical opinions during an interview. These are just a few examples, but we will discuss such challenges along the research process in the next section in more detail.

And second, we assume that in highly structured fields with a high degree of organizationality (formal organizations like companies, schools, hospitals, and prisons), participants tend to be exposed to particular risks of harm. The reasons for this include the pronounced hierarchical structure, existing power asymmetries, a high degree of regulation, and the field-specific density of membership, which influence the control and sanctioning possibilities in the field (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2011).

Therefore, in the following, we focus on research in formal organizations. There are two reasons for this. First, despite the tendencies of fragmentation and dissolution of classical organizations, the “archetype” (see Arnold et al., 2021) will continue to play an essential role in societies. Second, for analytical reasons, we have limited ourselves to formal organizations to explore the benefits and limitations of organizationality as a heuristic. Nevertheless, we contend – in the spirit of the “degrees of organizationality” idea – that the individual dimensions of organizationality can also be helpful in less structured fields for thinking about one's own ethical practice.

For clarity, we have illustrated the heuristics in the following figure (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Dimensions of “organizationality” and research ethics. (Illustration by the authors'; based on Ahrne & Brunsson, 2011; Dobusch & Schoeneborn, 2015).

As depicted in the figure, researchers must adopt a reflective approach throughout the entire research process. To anticipate challenges in implementing ethical principles, researchers can utilize the dimensions of organizationality as important factors to consider. As we have stated earlier, ethical challenges are not only depending on the organizationality, but also related to other factors (choice of method, regional context of the study, positionality, power asymmetries). As a limitation, our heuristic does not fully incorporate these factors but focuses on the specifics researchers encounter in organizations. For this field, these dimensions of organizationality are critical in addressing potential ethical challenges.

Ethical Challenges in Organizational Research along the Research Process

We build on and extend the discussions about ethical challenges in organizational research through an examination of those challenges during critical phases of a qualitative research process: the planning, the field access, the phase in the field, the preparation, storage, and anonymization of the research data in the course of analyzing, the publication of the results as well as the subsequent use of the data. We demonstrate ethical challenges and questions known from the literature and examples from empirical studies to give an orientation of ethical questions along the research process. As we have already outlined, we use the dimensions of organizationality as a heuristic to address specific challenges in the research process, especially in relation to field access and the field phase. At the end of this section, we will summarize recommendations in a table on this basis.

The qualitative research process is not as linear as the following sections may suggest. The circularity of the process, the constant adaptation of the research question, and the research design are fundamental characteristics of qualitative research (Glaser & Strauss, 1980), which, however, tend to become invisible in the following account.

As mentioned earlier, ethical challenges are highly context- and situation-dependent. Dealing with them is therefore to be understood as continuous relational work between researchers and researched people. Again, this tends not to become clear in the following sections, but we accept this to be able to provide an overview (of ethical challenges in organizational research).

Planning Phase: Determining the Research Design

A research design is defined at the beginning of every empirical research project. Several elements are determined in a coordinated fashion: the research interest and question, methodology, field and object, the particular methods for sampling, data generation and evaluation, and the aim of generalization (Flick, 2018). The research design—which is fundamentally flexible and open in qualitative research—determines the project’s orientation and, therefore, its’ ethical challenges.

Where applicable, the planning phase is used to obtain the approval of an ethics committee. Qualitative researchers often criticize ethics committees and the assessment of compliance with ethical principles; a standardized review of ethical research principles at the beginning of a research process would not do justice to qualitative and, thus open-ended research practices (Bamber & Sappey, 2007; Hammersley, 2009, 2015; Heimer & Petty, 2010; van den Hoonaard, 2011). However, since universities, third-party funding bodies, or other institutions sometimes require the researcher to obtain ethical approval, this needs to be considered. Obtaining ethical approval for social science research is not mandatory in all countries. Many countries also lack local ethics committees at universities and research institutes. For example, obtaining ethical approval in Germany is only recommended for selected projects (Rat für Sozial- Und Wirtschaftsdaten, 2017).

From an ethical perspective, it also seems advisable to consider the following key steps:

Research Question and Research Interest

The definition of the research question determines whether potentially sensitive information about individuals is collected. This is thus directly related to the principle of no harm. The possible risks for the participants depend on the general research interest. For example, from a research ethics perspective, whether sexual harassment in the workplace or the process of introducing a new management practice is being researched is decisive. Therefore, depending on the research question, it seems essential to determine (e.g., with regard to the dimensions “hierarchy”, “membership” and “sanctions”) how sensitive the possible information is and what potential risks are (for the organization and/or its’ members). It can be assumed that the data will be more sensitive when research questions are directed toward the subject than when organizational processes are in the foreground. Similarly, it can be surmised that research interests, in fields of high organizational nationality (e.g., prisons) are sensitive.

Research Field and Groups Involved

Determining the research design also establishes which group will be part of the research project. For ethical reflection and risk assessment, we believe it is helpful to analyze the position of the organizational members being researched. Again, the characteristics of organizationality, hierarchy and sanction, help to identify the dependency of the research participants’ relationships considering what risks the participants will be exposed to is necessary. For example, the potential risks for sanctions or even job loss differ for a precarious worker and a manager.

Overall, developing an ethical reflexive attitude already in the planning phase is important. This can be achieved through a discussion with colleagues, a detailed analysis of one’s project, and a review of reflexive literature on one’s field. Our proposed heuristics, based on the concept of organizationality, may also help to anticipate ethical challenges in the planning phase.

Field Access

Qualitative research is not feasible without field access; at the same time, field access can represent a significant challenge (Irvine & Gaffikin, 2006) for research in organizations (Grant, 2017; Saharan et al., 2021). From an ethical perspective, in this phase, the closely linked principles of voluntary participation and informed consent are fundamental:

Informed consent is at heart an interpersonal process between researcher and participant, where the prospective participant comes to an understanding of what the research project is about and what participation would involve and makes his or her own free decision about whether, and on what terms, to participate. (Guillemin & Gillam, 2004, p. 272)

When obtaining informed consent and voluntariness during field access, the hierarchical structure of the research setting must be taken into account, as many empirical studies have shown. Organizational researchers rarely have the opportunity to approach respondents directly; access to the field is usually gained through gatekeepers from the management level (Buchanan & Bryman, 2011b). Researchers encounter typical attitudes among those responsible in organizations that need to be dealt with skillfully to gain field access (Pflüger et al., 2017). Even if field access is allowed generally, uncertainties remain in organizational research because of the hierarchical structure, membership, and typical control and monitoring practices in organizations, as various examples from research show:

Johnson (2014) vividly recounts how the CEO prevented him from obtaining formal consent from all participants during ethnography in a company. Au and Marks (2013) describe seeking informed consent to analyze email data from management first and team members second, pointing to related ethical issues: “Employees may well have felt that they could not deny researchers access that had been authorized by colleagues in positions of power” (Au & Marks, 2013, p. 883). Plankey-Videla (2012) conducted ethnographic research in a Mexican textile factory and emphasized that these hierarchical power relations not only impact research ethics and informed consent during field access but remain in effect throughout the research process (see also the “In the field” section).

These examples show that gaining access to organizations is a (multistage) process, or as Buchanan and Bryman put it, characterized by “layered permissions” (Buchanan & Bryman, 2011b, p. 8). When researchers make contact through organizational gatekeepers (and thus receive “gatekeeper consent”), they have not reached actual research participants. The participants are typically approached by management or the work council. In practice, this means that researchers must ensure that potential participants are truly volunteering to participate in the study and do not feel obliged to do so by their organizational membership and unclear positive or negative sanctions. In addition, information about the research project needs to clarify that, if this is the case, research is not being carried out on behalf of the organization; participants may perceive researchers as “servants of power” because management permission is usually a requirement (Buchanan & Bryman, 2011b, p. 8). It also seems useful to reflect on researchers' dependencies on their organizational partners and to make explicit and record mutual expectations (e.g., regarding anonymization or publication requirements) early on.

In many cases, however, communication with potential participants and those responsible for the organization takes place in writing as the field is being opened. An information letter is sent that includes the details of the research project, interest in the findings, procedure, choice of method, and the effort required of the participants. Typically, the information letter contains information on the research ethics procedure, such as data collection, confidentiality, data access, anonymization, and publication. If a subsequent use of the data is planned, the participants are usually asked to give permission. In addition to written information, it has proven beneficial to inform participants of these procedures in a personal conversation and clarify any questions that may arise. It is critical that the participants can assess the consequences of their participation.

However, informed consent should not be reduced to simply “signing a form” (Heimer & Petty, 2010, p. 612),² and sometimes written informed is not possible or useful in practice. Informed consent in organizational research will likely be an “ongoing negotiation” between the researcher and participants (Ciuk & Latusek, 2018, p. 198). This is particularly true for studies carried out over a long period (on issues of consent in qualitative longitudinal studies, see, e.g., Warin, 2011).

In the Field

Organizational researchers are well aware of (institutionally established) power structures in the field and often critically observe whether these impact the relationship between the researcher and the researched. Buchanan and Bryman (2011b, p. 13) argue that the researcher’s role in organizations is inevitably politicized. We illustrate this with examples from qualitative studies in organizations, drawing on ethical principles.

Ricciardelli (2022) points out how the organizational power structure and the hierarchy of the field (in her case, a training program for prison officers) affect one's research practice and relationship with participants:

Moreover, in doing research within a hierarchical prison structure, I recognized very quickly that my relationships simply did not align with the organizational structure and its inherent relationships of power and position, which I then had to navigate. For instance, recruits (who are not researchers) did not typically have a direct line of contact with the Academy director, nor would it be appropriate for a recruit to contact the Academy director without progressing through a chain of command. As a researcher […], I already was connected directly with the Academy director and could bypass any chain of command. (p. 11)

In our view, these particular structures of the field, which could be understood as “high degree of organizationality” call for an assessment of potential risks. Therefore, as a reflective tool, the characteristics of organizationality can again help to identify those risks.

During the field phase, the principle of confidentiality requires particular attention. Hierarchy, membership in organizations, and control in the field may lead to specific challenges. For example, interviewees often want to know (or already know) which other people have already been interviewed, or responsible parties in organizations want to know about the opinions of their employees. They may also like to learn about organization members' resistant or formally forbidden practices. Such disclosures contradict the principle of confidentiality. For example, Zum-Bruch (2019) described a situation in ethnographic research at a police station. She reported that a precinct commander asked her to say to him when she observed improper actions (p. 141). Nielsen’s (2010) study also shows a particular role of the dimensions of hierarchy and rules in relation to her ethical practice. She conducted ethnographic research in a prison and observed illegal activities such as drug use by an inmate; she described how she respected confidentiality so as not to harm him.

In general, a distinction can be made between internal and external confidentiality. External confidentiality involves people outside the research field; internal secrecy, on the other hand, aims at confidentiality within the field (Tolich, 2004). Especially in organizational research, maintaining internal confidentiality is a challenge. Even the typical access to the field entails structurally conditioned restrictions on internal confidentiality because certain organizational insiders know who is involved in the respective study (Menz & Nies, 2018, p. 286). Moreover, research regularly takes place on the company’s premises and during working hours (Pflüger et al., 2017).

In fields with very strong organizationality, such as prisons, challenges may arise regarding the voluntariness of participation due to different dimensions of organizationality. For example, Meisel (2008) reflects that inmates in prison have forced membership. In an ethnographic study with her students, inmates did not have the opportunity to avoid observation altogether. The characteristics of organizationality, hierarchy, rules, monitoring and sanctions lead to other ethical challenges too. For example, employees in a company may have specific rules, about how to talk about the company and what they are allowed to say to researchers (Grønning, 1997). This influences the relationship with the researchers and challenges the voluntary participation because the participants cannot freely report what they want to do.

Other examples show how the different dimensions lead to challenges in terms of non-maleficence. In her prison research, Meisel (2008) showed how possible sanctions can be an ethical challenge: Inmates who do not participate in research may be perceived as “troublemakers” and be subject to harassment or social exclusion. In some cases, researchers are also perceived as “spies or controlling instance” who have been assigned by management or higher authorities. During Plankey-Videla’s (2012) ethnographic research, a strike broke out in the textile factory. The following illustrates how changes in the field lead to ethical challenges.

Everyone knew the company had spies to keep tabs on worker mobilizations. Some workers from other teams thought I was one of them. […] These were difficult and emotional times for me, but, more importantly, disruptive to workers. My teammates […] went out of their way to defend me instead of concentrating on their own work and the movement’s objectives. My desire to have as little impact on my teammates and other workers was clearly failing. Moreover, a significant number of workers believed I was deliberately marring their efforts. I immediately decided to end the participant observation portion of the study. (p. 17)

As this research situation illustrates, the characteristics of organizationality, and especially hierarchies, monitoring, and possible sanctioning, affects the relationship between researchers and the participants. The presence of researchers in the field can lead to conflicts between the participants the field. These conflicts are in tension with the principle of non-maleficence.

Additionally, actors in the field are aware of the hierarchy, rules, and possible sanctions. For example, in her study on dockworkers in Bulgaria, Kremakova (2014) explained how potential interviewees were suspicious because she was also perceived as a spy. One participant initially refused to be interviewed because he was “not authorized” to give an interview. Grønning (1997) recounted that individual interviewees canceled because they mistook the researchers for trade unionists: “I would rather keep my job and my mouth shut” (p.4).

In their workplace study, Morrison and Sacchetto (2018) describe how they used the engaged research approach to deal with such challenges. They describe a situation where workers in a workshop setting, were reluctant to share information due to various reasons. Some of these reasons include loyalty to their superiors and a wish to hide illicit practices:

A classic case concerned productivity problems in the workshops. Top management insisted that workers were “a bunch of alcoholics”, whereas western consultants dismissed workers’ behaviour as irrelevant. Middle management lamented top executives’ absenteeism as well as workers’ lack of discipline. (p. 1124)

Initially, the author faced challenges in conducting interviews because the workers refused face-to-face interviews and only agreed to answer written questions:

Ethically, the workers’ reluctance was more than justified; they jealously protected their craft from intrusive eyes, fearful that disclosure might unleash reforms at their expense. […] Ignoring the topic to respect their silence, however, risked misrepresentation and constituted a de facto collusion with managerial practices aimed at silencing workers. The practical solution was to rely on those with whom the author had trust relations while seeking to expand them beyond cadre workers who felt safer and were therefore more outspoken. (p. 1124)

This quote illustrates how the structural characteristics of organizations, or their degree of organizationality, shape or impede trusting relationships with participants, making it necessary to engage in particular self-reflection.

Preparation, Storage, and Anonymization of Research Data

Careful anonymization plays a significant role in building and maintaining trust. Anonymizing qualitative data is complex but manageable. Anonymization of data is intended to protect the personal rights of participants and is central to the principle of harm avoidance. The unique position of anonymization for research in the workplace is emphasized in the literature (Menz & Nies, 2018). The organizational nature of the field, especially hierarchy, possibilities of control, and sanctions, requires that special care be taken to ensure that the anonymity of dependent employees is preserved to avoid consequences such as a loss of employment (ibid, p. 286).

Therefore, anonymization is associated with different specific challenges (Saunders et al., 2015). First, anonymization is particularly challenging in small fields and when using different data types. For example, the established case study approaches in organizational research based on interviews and document analyses are usually rich in contextual information about the specific case since the subject (e.g., a company) is explicitly studied in its context with relevant contextual factors (industry, region, employment structure, turnover developments, etc.) (Bell & Bryman, 2007).

Second, Menz and Nies (2018) also mention:

It is not only a matter of ensuring that a general (mostly scientific) audience […] cannot make any references to concrete individuals but that this must also not be possible for workplace actors with insider knowledge. This is particularly tricky if the study results are fed back directly into the companies, which is good and customary practice in the sociology of work. […] For this purpose, not only must all personal details be omitted, but also the life history and backgrounds of the interviewees; even individual formulations that may be typical of a person can lead to the identification of the interviewees by colleagues or superiors. Even a differentiated presentation […] according to distinct groups of employees or departments, for example, must sometimes be dispensed with if the number of respondents within these individual groups is too small (Menz & Nies, 2018, pp. 286–287, translated by the authors).

Third, anonymity compliance becomes challenging when participants do not wish to be anonymized (Tilley & Woodthorpe, 2011) or anonymization causes an inability to report on researched inequality relations or discrimination practices in organizations (Baez, 2002). If people do not wish to be anonymized, this may be stated in the consent form.

To deal with these challenges, Richter et al. (2021) propose an anonymization model through which the two maxims of data protection and preservation of data quality can be balanced on a case-by-case basis. Careful anonymization requires many resources and several careful passes through the data.

Publication and Handling of Results

Three questions about research ethics are central for publications, and they concern the relationship between researchers and researched. First, how were the participants involved and represented in the analysis and writing of findings. This question is particularly important in participatory research projects. Here, the participants are involved (as equally as possible) in the research process, and changes are already initiated together (Sauer, 2017). If knowledge has emerged in a collaborative process, this should also be clarified by the publications (Milan, 2014). Second and related, determining how the results are fed back to the research field is important. Typically, even before the actual data collection, how the research results can be published is discussed with management and others (Ciuk & Latusek, 2018). Particular attention should be paid to anonymization (see previous section), as inadequate anonymization may jeopardize the non-maleficence of participants. The dimensions hierarchy, control and possible sanctions should be given special consideration when presenting the research results in the field. In addition, agreements are often made during the data collection phase on whether and how the results will be presented to the field itself. Special preparation of the results for the field, in which the (practically) relevant results are highlighted and briefly and succinctly presented or presented, has been proven. Third, commissioning or third-party funding agencies may wish to influence the results, which should be prevented to ensure good scientific practice (Bell & Bryman, 2007).

Here, it becomes clear that organizationality can only be one of several concepts if research ethics challenges are to be fully understood. While organizational structures receive close attention, external factors (such as the underlying institutional or cultural environment of organizations) and subjective researcher identities can only be captured to a minimal extent.

Post-use and Archiving for Possible Secondary Analysis

Qualitative data can be archived and made available for secondary analysis (Heaton, 2008). There is a broad and controversial debate on the after-use and archiving of qualitative data. Archiving qualitative data can present challenges, risks, and opportunities (such as the expansion of sampling and longitudinal studies) (Chauvette et al., 2019; N. S. Mauthner, 2012). Whether archiving makes sense must be decided individually for each case. If re-use is desired, it is helpful to consider this when planning the research process. Informed consent typically includes archiving of the data. To prepare the data (anonymization of the transcripts and other data, compilation of contextual information, creation of meta-data), it is often recommended to allow sufficient personnel and time resources. In addition, contact with a local research data center may be made at an early stage.

In this phase, if the organizationality of the field is considered, it seems to make sense, for example, to examine particularly closely what damage can be caused to the participants or the organization in the long term. Potentially, for example, organizational members also have access to (open access) data archives. It is conceivable that information made available in this way could be incorporated into management practices (monitoring).

Summary and Recommendations

As we have shown, ethical questions are relevant in all phases of the research process. There are no one-fits-all approaches to ethical challenges, but some challenges tend to emerge at specific stages in the process. Developing an ethically reflective attitude is a key element in dealing with challenges. On the one hand, an ethically reflexive stance means anticipating possible challenges. The following table (Table 1) helps here, in which we point out major principles and challenges along the research process and provide orientation on how to deal with them. On the other hand, ethical problems can always arise unpredictably. As already described, an open, ethically reflexive attitude is essential to recognize further and beyond challenges.

Table 1.

Overview of Central Ethical Principles Along the Research Process.

Research process	Central Ethical Principles	Remarks and Recommendations
Planning	Non-maleficence	Risk analysis (sensitivity of information, hierarchical position of the researched)
		Obtaining an ethics vote (where applicable)
		Consider and plan for secondary use options
Field access	Voluntary participation, Informed consent	Reflect hierarchies and possible sanctions in the field (“gatekeeper-consent”)
		An information letter with a declaration on data protection and research project
		Obtain (written) informed consent
Field phase	Non-maleficence, Confidentiality	Develop a reflexive attitude towards questions of research ethics
Field phase	Non-maleficence, Confidentiality	Recognize field-specific challenges along the dimensions of “organizationality”, especially: Hierarchy, control, sanction
Preparation, storage, and anonymization of the data	Non-maleficence, anonymization	Anonymization at an early stage; plan sufficient resources for this purpose
Preparation, storage, and anonymization of the data	Non-maleficence, anonymization	Possible harm, in particular, due to sanctions
Publication	Non-maleficence	Collaborative knowledge production
Publication	Non-maleficence	Critical examination of anonymization
Re-use	Non-maleficence, Informed consent, Anonymization	Decide whether archiving the data makes sense; if so:
		Plan resources (documentation, preparation, contextual information)
		Contact a research data center at an early stage
		Anonymization
		Consider possible harm in the long term

Discussion and Conclusion

The paper has asked what ethical challenges researchers face in organizational research and how researchers can identify and anticipate them. Qualitative social researchers emphasize that “ethically important moments” (Guillemin & Gillam, 2004, p. 262) can occur at all stages and that, ideally, these challenges should be met with an ethically reflexive stance. This is also the case for research in organizations, which is characterized by specific features. Among other things, researchers in this field have to deal with (often strong and explicit) hierarchies and power asymmetries, which are well-known to organizational researchers from their practice (Bell & Bryman, 2007; Greenwood, 2016).

To contribute to anticipating ethical challenges in organizational research practice, we took two interconnected approaches:

First, based on existing knowledge about ethical challenges in organizational research, we developed a heuristic for identifying ethical challenges. Based on the concept of organizationality (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2011), we assume that the characteristics of organizationality, namely membership, sanction, control, hierarchy, and rules, lead to specific ethical challenges. Our heuristics can show how the implementation of ethical principles is shaped, and often complicated, by these characteristics.

Second, we looked closely at some critical phases of the research process (planning, field access, field phase, preparation/storage/anonymization of the data, publication, and re-use) to anticipate specific challenges and possible strategies to address them. We highlighted typical ethical issues that need to be considered in the different phases of the research process, such as risk assessment and obtaining ethics votes during planning or anonymizing data in the data analysis phase.

For two phases in the research process in particular, we have shown how the heuristic can help identify typical challenges. Especially for the field access and in the field phase, we have tried to use various examples of empirical research to demonstrate how the characteristics of organizationality can lead to ethical challenges. For example, hierarchical structures in the research field influence field access and obtaining informed consent. Existing sanctioning options and surveillance in the field lead to specific potential harm for participants. The dimensions of membership and hierarchies challenge the principle of confidentiality. Also, researchers must reflect on the extent to which participants feel pressured to consent. Voluntariness is affected by forced organization membership (such as in prisons) or rules about how to talk about an organization. In addition, researchers can be perceived as being spies or monitors, which can lead to conflicts in the field and possible harm, etc.

How to deal with the different challenges needs to be decided case-by-case reflexively (Guillemin & Gillam, 2004; von Unger, 2021). Our heuristics can help develop such a stance for organizational research and strategies for dealing with these challenges in specific cases.

But we are also aware that our heuristic alone is not enough to identify and deal with ethical challenges fully, and we would now like to discuss two limitations briefly. First, the heuristic refers primarily to organizationality and thus to the “inner life” of organizations. Challenges arising from other factors are therefore not visible. As mentioned earlier, numerous other factors can influence ethical practice and lead to challenges, for example, subjective positions and identities (Blee & Currier, 2011; Shaw et al., 2020), informal relationships between participants and researchers (Ciuk & Latusek, 2018), the methods used (Allmark et al., 2009; Eynon et al., 2017; Fine & Schulman, 2009), external factors (such as the institutional or cultural environment of organizations), or even the research setting (this is especially true when researchers from the “global north” conduct research in the so-called “global south”, as many theories, methods, and ethical principles are ethnocentric, Connell, 2007; Gobo, 2011; Israel, 2018). Our heuristics cannot cover such challenges but must be addressed situationally and managed reflexively (Ryen, 2004). Again, this does not mean that there are no (field-specific) structural dimensions in and of organizations.

Second, our discussion refers primarily to research in formal organizations characterized by a high degree of organizationality. However, we assume that the individual dimensions can also be helpful for researchers who conduct research in fields with a lower degree of organizationality. This is because individual dimensions such as hierarchy, rules, or sanctioning exist even in partial or more fluid organizations.

It seems tempting to argue that the idea of “degrees of organizationality” goes hand in hand with a “degree of self-reflexivity” (in short, the stronger the organization, the greater the research ethics challenges and thus the need for self-reflexivity). On the other hand, one could also argue in the opposite direction (one reviewer pointed this out to us): Highly structured organizations have certain advantages over less structured ones because, for example, unclear hierarchies or rules may lead to greater difficulty in predicting potential ethical challenges.

To answer such questions, we believe that more empirical research on ethical challenges in organizational research is needed to examine and explain in detail the relationship between organization and ethical practice. This should be done in areas with high and low levels of organization, in different types of organizations, various regions, etc. It is important to continue addressing ethical concerns in organizational research, especially in light of the growing use of digital qualitative methods (Akemu & Abdelnour, 2020; Costello et al., 2017; Marres, 2018). These methods have introduced new ethical issues, such as privacy, anonymity, informed consent, and data ownership (Burbules, 2009; Eynon et al., 2017; Legewie & Nassauer, 2018; Markham & Buchanan, 2017; Sugiura et al., 2017). We have demonstrated that ethical challenges are closely linked to the unique characteristics of research fields. We, therefore, believe that the general debate on digital research and research ethics can also benefit from a field-specific approach in the future. This paper is intended as an invitation to pay more attention to these various matters, to identify specific problems, and to propose viable case-based solutions, but this is by no means the end of ethical issues in organizational research.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

We want to thank the anonymous reviewer for providing appreciative feedback and very helpful suggestions for improving our paper.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Carla Scheytt receives a DOC Fellowship from the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The University of Innsbruck funded the Open Access publication.

ORCID iDs

Carla Scheytt

Jessica Pflüger

Notes

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Conducting Qualitative Research in Organizations Ethically: Organizationality as a Heuristic to Identify Ethical Challenges

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Research Ethics in Qualitative Research

Conducting Research in Organizations – Specifics of a Research Field

Ethical Challenges in Organizational Research along the Research Process

Planning Phase: Determining the Research Design

Research Question and Research Interest

Research Field and Groups Involved

Field Access

In the Field

Preparation, Storage, and Anonymization of Research Data

Publication and Handling of Results

Post-use and Archiving for Possible Secondary Analysis

Summary and Recommendations

Discussion and Conclusion

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iDs

Notes

References