16.3: Professional Code of Ethics
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Most professional associations have established and published formal codes of conduct describing what constitutes acceptable professional behaviour for their members—for example the Association of Information Systems (AIS)’s Code of research conduct which is summarised in Table 16.1.
The AIS Code of research conduct groups ethical violations into two categories:
Category I includes serious transgressions such as plagiarism and falsification of data, research procedures, or data analysis, which may lead to expulsion from the association, dismissal from employment, legal action, and fatal damage to professional reputation.
Category 2 includes less serious transgressions such as not respecting the rights of research subjects, misrepresenting the originality of research projects, and using data published by others without acknowledgement, which may lead to damage to professional reputation, sanctions from journals, and so forth.
The code also provides guidance on good research behaviours, what to do when ethical transgressions are detected (for both the transgressor and the victim), and the process to be followed by AIS in dealing with ethical violation cases. Though codes of ethics such as this have not completely eliminated unethical behaviour, they have certainly helped clarify the boundaries of ethical behaviour in the scientific community, and consequently, reduced instances of ethical transgressions.