Ethics and international business research: Considerations and best practices

Research integrity matters. It enables researchers to trust each other and their findings, and provides a basis for society’s trust in our research. We explore research integrity using the lens of international business (IB) research, focusing on IB research methods. We narrow the topic further by focusing on ethical issues associated with a single project by a single author. We examine the methodological challenges involved in conducting research in the complex IB environment and propose best practices for both quantitative and qualitative IB research methods. In some ways, this is a “back to basics” message; in other ways, we draw attention to the heightened complexity of the IB environment and the need to invest in rigorous methods and ethical practices in our unending pursuit of truth.