Unethical Business Research Practices
What unethical research behavior was involved?
The antitrust case brought by Wal-Mart and other retailers against Visa and MasterCard in the U.S. Eastern District court, was settled in 2003 for $3 billion and primarily involved a dispute concerning the efficient pricing of access to payment information, including security data that confirmed or refuted the transactional identities of cardholders (Roberds & Schreft, 2009). In their pleadings, Wal-Mart and other class action litigants argued that third-party providers such as Visa and MasterCard required them to accept both debit and credit cards issued by MasterCard but the interchange fees were higher for debit cards (Ulzheimer, 2012). In sum, the suit filed by Wal-Mart and other large retailers claimed that Visa and MasterCard "required all merchants who accept their credit cards to also accept their signature debit cards [which] constitutes an illegal tie-in in violation of antitrust law" (Peterson, 2002, p. 31). In their responsive pleadings, the defendants maintained that the plaintiffs' argument failed to satisfy the definition of tying because their so-called "honor-all-cards agreement" with merchants did not preclude them from "steering their customers toward PIN-based debit transactions with their concomitant lower merchant fees" (Peterson, 2002, p. 32). In reality, though, the case focused on the fundamental right of the class action litigants to timely and accurate research information as discussed further below.
Who were the injured parties?
The class action was brought by Wal-Mart...
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Business Research The unethical research behavior discussed was conducted by Wyeth, and is symptomatic of the systemic issues that the pharmaceutical industry has with respect to research. The article details a case involving Wyeth that resulted in class action litigation. The ethical issue in this case is fraudulent research. The allegation is that Wyeth fabricated research by using "vendors to produce ghostwritten manuscripts and place them into medical journals." The research
If she decides to give the results to the company that is sponsoring her, it is her responsibility and she is liable of suffering the consequences. In order to avoid ethical issues, Jane could organize these interviews as concerning consumers, as a statistical survey that she can publish in the university's newspaper, therefore becoming public knowledge. The identity of the surveyed restaurants should be concealed, otherwise it is unlikely that
Business Ethics Palmeri, C&Rupp, L 2013, May 3, Disney Bangladesh Exit Pressure on Clothes makers Who Stay, Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-03/disney-bangladesh-exit-puts-pressure-on-those-who-may-stay-1-.html The work of Palmeri and Rupp (2013) is focused on highlighting the issues faced by the multinational organizations while operating in developing markets. It is highly likely for large organizations to develop their overseas presence. However the economically developing markets a number of issues including environmental, infrastructural, and compliance with health and
It is important that tomorrow's business leaders understand the good and bad science behind currently marketed drugs, and understand what constitutes ethical and unethical marketing practices. Also, over the course of the past five months, while working in a research lab in genetics has given me invaluable knowledge, I have realized the importance of science to communicate in layperson's terms with the outside world. On an individual level, I often
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