Research in Business/Administration and Research Ethics Boards: Test of Practice
Based on the authors’ practical experience as active members of an reb (Research Ethics Board) in a Canadian business school, this paper explores unintended consequences of the implementation of the tcps (Tri-Council Policy Statement – Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans) through rebs. rebs, and the conception of research ethics on which they are based, tend to 1) reduce research ethics to the issue of the relationship between researchers and the people under study, 2) reinforce the view that the people under study necessarily need to be protected from scientific research and researchers, 3) deepen the gap between research based on fieldwork and research based on databases, 4) jeopardize the possibility of collective learning and 5) accentuate the impunity felt by a number of researchers regarding the conduct of scientific research.