Toward an Understanding of Ethical Issues in Cross-Cultural Research

The role of research in society is extremely important as it helps us to understand the world around us and to make the right decisions. Because research is sometimes concerned with the collection of data from people, ethical issues arise regarding the way in which researchers should treat the people who provide the data. The most important ethical considerations for research involve three key concepts: ensuring voluntary and informed consent, maintaining confidentiality and anonymity, and protecting the respondents from harm (Fontana &Fray, 2005).In this paper, the ethical issues concerning informed consent, deception, and confidentiality and anonymity will be discussed, and some possible solutions to problems related to these issues are presented. Moreover, difficulties associated with applying ethical concepts in some cultures to meet and satisfy the requirements of ethics committees in Western universities will be examined