Unethical Business Research Essay Example for Free

Unethical Business Research Essay Research is important in any business to interpret data being collected to improve or make new discoveries. The article read was about Dr. Woo Suk Hwang who used unethical research to enhance his career in the world of science. Hwang hurt everyone who was involved in his work. Leading people to believe that his research was real he provided false hope into his new discoveries. Trying to figure out why he would want to ruin his career and how this could have been avoided is important to why he used fabricated research. Looking into the unethical decisions made by Dr. Woo Suk Hwang will help people see what could be possible consequences for using false results in research material. Dr. Woo Suk Hwang, a professor of theriogenology and biotechnology at Seoul National University (SNU), began his work in 1999 when he told how he could clone an animal (Logan, Park, amp; Jeon, 2010). People began to treat Hwang like a hero after publishing two papers about stem cells in 2004 and 2005 in Science and later a paper in Nature where it was talking of how he cloned the first dog (Logan, Park, amp; Jeon, 2010). In late December 2005, Hwang was found to have falsified data by an internal investigation at SNU (Logan, Park, amp; Jeon, 2010). SNU formed a panel to investigate the charges and within about four weeks they compiled a fifty page report (Kukak, 2009). The results of SNU’s investigation released in late December 2005 which was followed by the withdrawal of Hwang’s work by Science in January 2006 and Hwang’s acknowledgement of scientific fraud in March 2006 (Logan, Park, amp; Jeon, 2010). While conducting his research Hwang falsified his results by not citing accurate results and not providing the participants with information on the serious risks of egg donation. South Korean’s National Board of Bioethics indicated that not all the donors received information on the serious health risks of egg donation, furthermore, sixteen donors required treatment for effects from the procedure( Kukak, 2009). By not providing people accurate risks Hwang failed to protect his research participants. Hwang also falsified the papers in Science which were illed with false research that has never been accurately recorded. This could lead to people going off research that had never been tried and cause harm to new researchers. Hwang hurt several people by the inappropriate research that was acquired. Before the results of SNU’s results of the internal investigation Hwang was considered to be Korea’s most important scientist (Logan, Park, amp; Jeon, 2010). When it was uncovered to be false data and that the research was not real it hurt everyone who believed in him. This helped the community to see that further actions needed to be taken to see that this could no longer negatively impact the entire scientific community. The society saw that wanting to push further in stem cell research was important but making up false information was not the way intended to achieve this important landmark. The first reactions to the scandal focused on the case: the detrimental effects on public trust toward science and stem cell research, the economic damages in the field’s funding, the loss in the market value of the biotech industry, and also the negative effects on the policy debate (Kakuk, 2009). The unethical behavior committed by Hwang has caused scientific magazines and the press to be careful when publishing information for their articles (Kakuk, 2009). After the scandal the journal decided to establish an independent panel to evaluate the publication process (Kakuk, 2009). Dr. Hwang was affected by having his papers editorially retracted form the Journal after the huge amount of fabricated data was found (Kakuk, 2009). Hwang later admitted to various deceptions and was fired form the university on March 20, 2006 (Kakuk, 2009). The society was also negatively impacted because now further movement in this field may not be researched. This in turn can take away form the funding and jobs that might of developed upon successful results of the correctly gathered data. Unethical behavior used by Hwang could have been avoided by correctly reporting the gathered data. This case helped to highlight a need for internationally accepted guidelines for the conduct of research (Kakuk, 2009). If Hwang would have valued his coworkers and his own abilities as a scientist this case would have failed to exist. Hwang became pushed by the society to produce results and ended up letting everyone down. Trying to please others led to the dismissal of Hwang’s job and the respect of his believers. Dr. Hwang’s case showed how unethical research can lead to the dismissal of your livelihood and career. A highly talented individual is now living a life of what ethics can do when you decide to abuse them. Looking at his research people were amazed to hear what was being accomplished and saw him as a hero. Shortly after Hwang was dishonored and made to show the consequences of not using strong ethics to make positive decisions. Hwang affected his coworkers, scientists, and his society by using governmental funding to create false data that people used before the realization that what they thought to be true was only determined to be a lie.