Since 2010, AMR Group is proud to be an official member of ESOMAR. We ensure that every service we provide to our customers follows the ESOMAR Code of Conduct.
ESOMAR has taken a proactive role in reviewing and reforming all marketing research standards and guidelines. A workshop in Amsterdam in July 2003 brought together specialists from the USA, Japan, and Europe to explore the current advances in the industry and their impact on the quality of marketing research as part of ESOMAR’s Quo Vadis project. To them, this shift in marketing research focuses from data collecting to organizational decision-making was obvious, and that the current norms of conduct had not kept up with this change. According to the experts, a concise list of norms would be a tool for self-regulation and would facilitate international convergence: ‘A good ethical basis helps minimize legal restrictions.’ They decided and presented eight principles to the outside world that would capture the scientific goal and character of marketing research, as well as its unique obligation to respondents, clients, and the public.
The eight principles that have now been incorporated into the ESOMAR code of conduct are:
1. Conform to Laws
Marketing researchers will conform to all relevant national and international laws.
2. Ethics & Reputation
Marketing researchers will behave ethically and will not do anything which might damage the reputation of marketing research.
3. Vulnerable Groups
Marketing researchers will take special care when carrying out research among children and other vulnerable groups of the population.
4. Respondent’s Cooperation
Respondents’ cooperation is voluntary and must be based on adequate, and not misleading, information about the general purpose and nature of the project when their agreement to participate is being obtained and all such statements must be honoured.
5. Rights of Respondents
The rights of respondents as private individuals will be respected by marketing researchers and they will not be harmed or disadvantaged as the result of cooperating in a marketing research project.
6. Use of Personal Data
Marketing researchers will never allow personal data they collect in a marketing research project to be used for any purpose other than marketing research.
7. Transparency
Marketing researchers will ensure that projects and activities are designed, carried out, reported and documented accurately, transparently, objectively and to appropriate quality.
8. Fair Competition
Marketing researchers will conform to the accepted principles of fair competition.
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Reference
AMR Group qualification as ESOMAR member: https://www.esomar.org/community/our-community/member-search/profile3803_Nguyen-Thanh-Tung.php
Source of content: Malhotra, N., & Birks, D. (2007). Marketing Research: an applied approach: 3rd European Edition.