Skip to main content
Log in

Justifications and procedures for implementing Institutional Review boards in business organizations

  • Published:
Journal of Business Ethics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The present paper describes a number of ethical quandaries facing the implementors of motivational interventions in organizational settings. A critical analysis of the traditional solutions to these issues within the organizational literature finds them lacking for want of considering unwitting cognitive biases and self presentational doublespeak, both of which may result in the rights of research participants being underprotected. The establishment of an Institutional Review process, loosely analogized from the biomedical and behavioral science research traditions, is suggested as a means of protecting the rights of research participants as well as humanizing future motivational interventions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Anastasi, A.: 1979, Fields of Applied Psychology (New York: McGraw Hill).

    Google Scholar 

  • At Emery Air Freight: Positive reinforcement boosts performance: 1973, Organizational Dynamics, Winter, 41–50.

  • Barry, V.: 1983, Moral Issues in Business (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth).

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, D. T. and Cecil, J. S.: 1982, ‘A proposed system of regulation for the protection of participants in low-risk areas of applied social research’, in J. E. Sieber (ed.), The Ethics of Social Research (N.Y.: Springer-Verlag).

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavanagh, G. F., Moberg, D. J., and Velasquez, M.: 1981, ‘The ethics of organizational politics’, Academy of Management Review 6, 363–374.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E. and Crandall, R.: 1978, Ethics in Social and Behavioral Research (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Farson, R. E.: 1963, ‘Praise reappraised’, Harvard Business Review 41, 61–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giacalone, R. A., Robinson, B., Gracin, L., Greenfeld, N., and Rosenfeld, P.: 1982, ‘Concern for ethics in social, industrial, and clinical psychology as reflected in textbooks and journal articles’, Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society 20, 1–2.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giacalone, R. A. and Rosenfeld, P.: 1986, ‘An impression management approach to organizational behavior modification’, unpublished manuscript, University of Southwestern Louisiana.

  • Gioia, D. A. and Sims, H. P.: 1985, ‘Self-serving bias and actor-observer differences in organizational empirical analysis’, Journal of Applied Social Psychology 15, 547–563.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gray, B. H.: 1982, ‘The regulatory context of social and behavioral research’, in T. L. Beauchamp, R. R. Faden, R. J. Wallace, and L. Walters (eds.), Ethical Issues in Social Science Research (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins), 329–355.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gray, G. H., Cooke, R. A., and Tannenbaum, A. S.: 1978, ‘Research involving human subjects’, Science 201, 1094–1101.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenwald, A. G.: 1980, ‘The totalitarian ego: Fabrication and review of personal history’, American Psychologist 35, 603–618.

    Google Scholar 

  • Institute for Social Research: 1976, Research Involving Human Subjects, A Report to the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan).

    Google Scholar 

  • Kazdin, A. E.: 1980, Behavior Modification in Applied Settings (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey).

    Google Scholar 

  • Keith-Spiegel, P. and Koocher, G. P.: 1985, Ethics in Psychology (New York: Random House).

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelman, H. C.: 1972, ‘The rights of the subject in social research: An analysis in terms of relative power and legitimacy’, American Psychologist 27, 989–1016.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelman, H. C.: 1982, ‘Ethical issues in different social science methods’, in T. L. Beauchamp, R. R. Faden, R. J. Wallace, and L. Walters, (eds.), Ethical Issues in Social Science Research (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins), 40–98.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kimmel, A. J. (ed.): 1981, Ethics of Human Subject Research (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass).

    Google Scholar 

  • Kreitner, R.: 1982, ‘Controversy in OBM: History, misconceptions, and ethics’, in L. W. Fredricksen (ed.), Handbook of Organizational Behavior Management (New York: Wiley).

    Google Scholar 

  • Larwood, L. and Whittaker, W.: 1977, ‘Managerial myopia: Self-survey biases in organizational planning’, Journal of Applied Psychology 62, 194–198.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luthans, F. and Kreitner, R.: 1975, Organizational Behavior Modifications (Glenview, Ill.: Scott Foresman).

    Google Scholar 

  • Lutz, W. D. 1983, ‘Corporate doublespeak: Making bad news look good’, Business and Society Review 44, 19–22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maier, N. R. F.: 1973, Psychology in Industrial Organizations (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin).

    Google Scholar 

  • Markus, H.: 1977, ‘Self-schemata and processing information about the self’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 35, 63–78.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mehlam, R. C. and Snyder, C. R.: 1985, ‘Excuse theory: A test of the self-protective role of attributions’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49, 994–1001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, D. T.: 1976, ‘Ego-involvement and attributions for success and failure’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34, 901–906.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morse, S. J., Gruzen, J., and Reis, H. T.: 1976, ‘The nature of equity-restoration: Some approval-seeking considerations’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 12, 1–8.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mirvis, P. H. and Seashore, S. E.: 1982, ‘Creating ethical relationships in organizational research’, in J. E. Sieber (ed.), The Ethics of Social Research: Surveys and Experiments (New York: Springer-Verlag), 79–104.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muchinsky, P.: 1983, Psychology Applied to Work (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey).

    Google Scholar 

  • Orwell, G.: 1949, Nineteen Eighty-four (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich).

    Google Scholar 

  • Payne, S. L.: 1980, ‘Organization ethics and antecedents to social control processes’, Academy of Management Review 5, 409–414.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pedalino, E. and Gamboa, V. V.: 1974, ‘Behavior modification and absenteeism: Intervention in one industrial setting’, Journal of Applied Psychology 59, 694–698.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reis, H. T. and Gruzen, J.: 1976, ‘On mediating equity, equality, and self-interest: The role of self-presentation in social change’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 12, 487–503.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reynolds, P. D.: 1979, Ethical Dilemmas and Social Science Research (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass).

    Google Scholar 

  • Reynolds, P. D.: 1982, Ethics and Social Science Research (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall).

    Google Scholar 

  • Schlenker, B. R.: 1980, Impression Management (Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole).

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, M. R. and Lyman, S. M.: 1968, ‘Accounts’, American Sociological Review 33, 46–63.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sieber, J. E. (ed.): 1982, The Ethics of Social Research: Surveys and Experiments (New York: Springer-Verlag).

    Google Scholar 

  • Tymchuk, A. J.: 1982, ‘Strategies for resolving value dilemmas’, American Behavioral Science 26, 159–175.

    Google Scholar 

  • Velasquez, M. G.: 1982, Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall).

    Google Scholar 

  • Warwick, D. P.: 1982, ‘Types of harm in social research’, in T. L. Beachamp, R. R. Faden, R. J. Wallace, and L. Walters (eds.), Ethical Issues in Social Science Research (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins), 101–124.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Additional information

Robert A. Giacalone is Assistant Professor of Management at the University of Southwestern Louisiana. He has been given the Outstanding Young Men of America Award, 1985. One of his articles has been published in Group and Organization Studies (1985), another will be published in Basic and Applied Social Psychology.

Paul Rosenfeld is a Personnel Research Psychologist at the Navy Personnel Research and Development Center in San Diego. The Outstanding Young Men of America Award has been given to him in 1986. He is the co-author of Introduction to Social Psychology (1985), St. Paul, MN: West.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Giacalone, R.A., Rosenfeld, P. Justifications and procedures for implementing Institutional Review boards in business organizations. J Bus Ethics 6, 399–411 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00382897

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00382897

Keywords

Navigation