Estrategias de PML para la gestión de residuos

Every research study will inevitably create a number of ethical questions and challenges, particularly when using qualitative research methods (Silverman, 2013). For this reason, it is important to examine them carefully in advance to ensure that the research is conducted in compliance with ethical requirements that may be defined by the academic institution. As Galletta (2013) outlines, prior to conducting

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the study, researchers are required to obtain ethics approval from the university, which usually asks for detailed information on research methods, research design, data collection and storage as well as how anonymity and confidentiality will be assured and how the researcher aims to reduce possible harm that may occur during or after conducting the study.

In this research, approval was granted by three different entities. First, institutional approval by the ethics committee of Goldsmiths, University of London, was given after assessing the submitted ethics form including all the required information on the study as detailed above. Second, approval from the customer service centre was received as detailed in section 3.2, which indicated that I could interview employees outside of working hours and also use my experiences as long as they did not disclose any confidential and identifiable information about customers, retailers and the service centre. Last of all, approval was granted by the research participants through informed consent. All approvals were received prior to conducting the research. My employer gave verbal consent for me to conduct this research, while approval from the university and research participants was given in a written format.

While each of these three approvals was crucial to conducting this study, closer attention herein will be given to informed consent. As Hammersley and Traianou (2012) note, one of the common requirements for conducting social research is that informed consent must be obtained from the participants before the research is conducted. Informed consent refers to the awareness of an interviewee participating in a research project and choosing to do so voluntarily (Berg and Lune, 2012). Therefore, it is important that the informed consent sheet is written in a way that is understandable to the participants (Bailey, 2007) while also making the research purpose clear (Flick, 2014). Nevertheless, informed consent can be a problematic issue in qualitative research. For instance, Marvasti (2004) points out that it is difficult to inform research participants fully in advance about the purpose of the study as well as the direction it may take, given that qualitative research often has an exploratory nature and it can take directions different than originally anticipated at the beginning of the study.

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Within this research project, a great deal of effort was taken to inform the research participants transparently about the project as well as their rights. All participants were provided in advance with an information sheet which indicated the purpose of the study, and they were informed that there was no obligation to participate in the research and that this participation must be voluntary. Furthermore, all participants were given a consent form, which they needed to sign before starting the interview. The interview questions, information sheets and consent forms were written in German and English, given that the study was conducted in Germany. Consequently, interviews were also conducted in two languages. The choice of language was given to the participants.

The interviews were digitally recorded with the consent of the participants. Two interviews out of the 32 were not used fully for this research – one was conducted over Skype at the participant’s request, but while the interview was being audio- recorded, it become clear afterwards that the equipment failed to record most of the interview properly, so only a very small amount of information could be understood and used. The second interview was disregarded, as we had some personal issues at a later stage. While this situation occurred a couple of months after the interview was conducted and did not affect the insights gained, it made me feel deeply uncomfortable when I started transcribing the interview. After a couple of attempts, I gave up on the transcription, due to the emotional distress it caused me. For this reason, I decided not to use this interview.

Many Interviews were fully transcribed in the original language and were translated into English while writing the findings in the form of quotes, while a few were translated during the transcription process, mainly to present them to the thesis supervisor in the English language.

Furthermore, all audio-recordings and transcripts were – and still remain – securely saved on the home computer to which only I have access through a password. The audio records will be deleted upon completion of this research project.

Another set of ethical questions arise when social scientists enter the lives of human beings. While taking part in the lives and experiences of research participants, they need to ensure that their rights are protected (Berg and Lune, 2012). These are often

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expressed through anonymity and confidentiality, which are defined as follows. Bailey (2007) points out that anonymity means that the researcher does not know the identities of the participants, while confidentiality refers to knowing their identities but not disclosing any information about them. Flick (2014) outlines that it can be fairly difficult to provide full anonymity or confidentiality to participants when several people in the same setting, such as a company, are interviewed, because the research participants may be known to each other. Similarly, Costley et al. (2010) note that it also might not be possible to provide full anonymity to an organisation, particularly when it involves an insider researcher, as the organisation is a part of the biography of the researcher.

This was an ethical challenge for this research project as well, because most of the employees were known to me personally and to each other as a result of sharing the same physical environment. For this reason, anonymity could not be provided. However, while the identities of the participants were clear to me, I did not wish to disclose any information about their identities to others and did not wish that their interview quotes would be traced back to them. For this reason, the quotes in the empirical chapters do not include any names at all, with the aim of providing full confidentiality to the participants, not to cause any harm and to protect their rights to privacy.

Another ethical concern was how to provide confidentiality to the company subject to this research. It was clearly communicated from the very outset to my former employer that the name or any other identifiable information about the company would not be disclosed in the thesis or in any other publications. It is also clear to me that my former employer, as a third-service provider, had a great deal of responsibility towards online retailer clients. For this reason, no information about online retailers was disclosed, in order to comply with the interests of the company and not to cause any possible harm. Furthermore, while as a researcher it is important to be aware of ethical challenges and make sure that the research meets ethical requirements in the best possible way, being an employee additionally created the strong moral obligation to remove any identifiable information about the company, clients, research participants and other names of participants mentioned

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during the interviews, not only because it was important for me to comply with the ethics of doing qualitative research, but also because they were my colleagues, people with whom I had a good relationships with whom I could identify. This created a stronger sense of responsibility to protect them and avoid any possible harm.

Moreover, protecting the rights of those who cannot speak for themselves was important from my perspective, because the research included very sensitive data about customers’ names and identities as well as information on customers who were identified by the police as fraudsters. All identifiable information was removed fully, to eliminate any possible chance of the study being detrimental to the customers or my former employer as the “owner” of the data.

Furthermore, while Hammersley and Traianou (2012) note that the primary obligation of the researcher is to conduct research to address “worthwhile” issues, it is fairly crucial to reflect on ethical issues that will arise before, during or after conducting the research. While participants provide valuable insights into their personal experiences, it should be the responsibility of the researcher to protect their rights and reduce possible risks of harm the research may cause. Additionally, Harding (2013) states that alongside having a moral responsibility toward research participants, researchers are also obliged to conduct ethically informed research for fellow researchers who might use the findings of a current study as the basis of their future studies. As such, ethical requirements, challenges and dilemmas were considered throughout the research and addressed to my best knowledge.

3.6 Conclusion

This chapter provided a detailed account of the methodological and ethical issues raised by conducting a qualitative and insider research study. While it is clear that all researchers are subject to different influences that affect how they design and conduct their enquiries, the aim was to provide as much transparency as possible on the pathways taken to carry out this study. As explored in the chapter, being an insider was very beneficial in many ways, particularly because it enabled access to a critical area of research which would not have been possible otherwise. Furthermore,

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insider knowledge was very useful in the identification of possible research participants as well as of other actors who were crucial to fully exploring fraud practices. The insider status also inevitably created some challenges as a result of the role as researcher and employee within the same organisational context.

Moreover, it was detailed how qualitative research methods were chosen on the one hand to address the gap in the literature and on the other hand as a matter of practicality. While the semi-structured interviews enabled in-depth insights into the fraud-related experiences of participants, the additional auto-ethnographic approach strengthened information gained from the interviews and enabled me to be more critical and self-reflexive. The mixed-method approach proved to be very fruitful. Moreover, it was also explored how this research is also methodologically informed by actor-network theory. Furthermore, any research project creates a number of unique ethical challenges and dilemmas, as outlined in the chapter. While ethical concerns were addressed, it was also discussed how the best efforts were taken to comply with the ethical requirements, which not only included receiving approval from the academic institution, the company and the participants, but also meant protecting the rights of the participants and not causing them any possible harm.

The following chapter is the first empirical part of this research and will explore automated and manual fraud detection practices as two interrelated methods that influence how they operate. Furthermore, it will provide in-depth insights into the manual categorisation of genuine and fraudulent customers.

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4. The Categorisation of Online Fraud through Digital Data