Yes, SIOP members, whether they belong to APA or don't, agree to adhere to APA's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct.

Three elements contribute to the nature of ethical issues:

1. A choice, often difficult and emotional, must be made.
2. The situation invokes one or more ethical implications (e.g., as identified by the APA Ethics Code)
3. The decision will have a significant impact on others.

We depend on the trust of others in order to do our work and we don't earn that trust without treating them honestly and respectfully (i.e., ethically). While the ethical path is sometimes obvious, studying ethical decision-making strategies helps I-O psychologists identify and navigate ethical considerations that may not be evident at first glance. SIOP members agree to adhere to the APA Principles of Conduct and Ethics Code, a resource that sensitizes us to potential areas of concern. The excerpts sheet on the CAPE web page lists standards that are particularly relevant to I-O psychologists. Note that most other parts of the ethics code are applicable to I-O psychologists as well (e.g., Boundaries of competence, Conflict of interest, Exploitive relationships, Maintaining confidentiality, Sexual harassment).

No. CAPE serves an educative function and does not have the resources or expertise to consult with members about specific ethical matters. While individual CAPE members may be willing to serve as a sounding board to you, we are not necessarily ethics experts and should not be viewed as such.

There are steps you can take to work through the dilemma, and you can approach the issue using the following:

1.  Identify stakeholders that may be impacted by the course of action you pursue.
2.  Research relevant guidance (e.g., APA Ethics Code, organizational policies and procedures, pertinent laws or contract language).
3.  Consult one or more trusted colleagues to ask for help in thinking through the situation and potential courses of action.

Some unethical behavior is of a particularly serious nature, warranting a formal response. Consistent with APA Ethics Code Standard 1.05, consider reporting unethical behavior if someone is experiencing substantial harm as a result of the unethical behavior.

While CAPE does not provide guidance on individual cases, you may want to consider the following when determining whether to report unethical behavior:

•   Have you attempted to address the unethical behavior through informal means (e.g., talking directly to the person who you believe to be acting unethically)?
•   Is the unethical behavior directly violating a person's human rights?
•   Does your company/organization require you to report unethical behavior of this nature?
•   Are you required by law to report unethical behavior of this nature?
•   Are there confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements that are relevant to disclosing information?

There are many options for reporting unethical behavior. It is important to consider your company/organization's existing protocol, as well as relevant policies and laws.

Some options that may be appropriate for reporting unethical behavior may include the following:

•   Your supervisor (Fisher, 2016)
•   Your HR Department
•   SIOP (see SIOP's Whistleblower Policy)
•   The American Psychological Association - if the offender is a member
•   A state licensing board - if offender is licensed
•   Other authorities

Being accused of unethical behavior, when you disagree with the allegations, may seem unfair and stressful, however, there are steps you can take if this happens.

•   Begin with honest self-reflection. Is it possible that you unknowingly engaged in a behavior that may appear to or actually be unethical?
•   Consult one or more trusted colleagues to get help thinking through the situation and potential courses of action you might consider taking.
•   Cooperate with any investigation into the matter.

Although the nature of the problems will manifest differently, the same principles apply across each one.

If you are in an environment where there are not many or any peers that you can reach out to, you may consider developing external resources. Utilize professional networks (e.g., LinkedIn, other SIOP members) to begin building a trusted network of competent people you can reach out to for guidance or advice on ethical matters.

•   APA Ethics Code adopted by SIOP (Free Access) 
•   Updates from the Ethics Code Revision Task Force (Free Access)
•   Canadian Psychological Association. (2000). Canadian code of ethics for psychologists, (3rd Ed.). Ottawa, Canada.
•   Academy of Management. (2002). Academy of Management code of ethical conduct. Academy of Management Journal, 45, 291–294. (Free Access)
•   Society for Human Resource Management Code of ethics (Free Access) 
•   The Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research (Free Access)

•   Hill, R.P. & Rapp, J.M. (2014). Codes of ethical conduct: A bottom-up approach. Journal of Business Ethics, 123, 621-630.

•   Stevens, B. (2008). Corporate ethical codes: effective instruments for influencing behavior. Journal of Business Ethics, 78, 601-609.

•   Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological review, 108(4), 814–834.

•   Jones, T. M. (1991). Ethical decision making by individuals in organizations: An issue-contingent model. Academy of management review, 16(2), 366-395.

•   Kohlberg, L., & Hersh, R. H. (1977). Moral development: A review of the theory. Theory into practice, 16(2), 53-59.

•   MacDougall, A. E., Martin, A. A., Bagdasarov, Z., & Mumford, M. D. (2014). A review of theory progression in ethical decision making literature. Journal of Organizational Psychology, 14(2), 9-19.

•   Murphy, J. M., & Gilligan, C. (1980). Moral development in late adolescence and adulthood: A critique and reconstruction of Kohlberg’s theory. Human development, 23(2), 77-104.

•   Banks, G. C., Knapp, D. J., Lin, L., Sanders, C. S., & Grand, J. A. (2021). Ethical decision making in the 21st century: A useful framework for industrial-organizational psychologists. Industrial and Organizational Psychology. (Free to SIOP members) 

•   Lefkowitz, J. (2011).  Ethics in industrial-organizational psychology (Vol. 2, Chap. I.8), In S. Knapp, L. VandeCreek, M. Gottlieb & M. Handelsman (Eds.), APA Handbook of ethics in psychology. Wash., DC: American Psychological Association. 

•   Lefkowitz, J. (2017).  Ethics and values in industrial organizational psychology (2nd Ed).  New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis. (Espec. Chap. 15, “Taking Moral Action.”)

•   Lefkowitz, J. (2021). Forms of ethical dilemmas in industrial-organizational psychology. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 14(3), 297 - 319. (Free Access)

•   Lefkowitz, J., & Watts, L. L. (2021). Ethical incidents reported by industrial-organizational psychologists: A ten-year follow-up. Journal of Applied Psychology. Advance online publication. (Free Access)

General Guides:

•   Cooper, T. L. (Ed.). (2001). Handbook of administrative ethics, 2nd Ed.. New York: Dekker.

•   Hunkenschroer, A. & Kriebitz, A. (2022). Is AI recruiting (un)ethical? A human rights perspective on the use of AI for hiring. AI and Ethics, July, 1-15. doi: 10.1007/s43681-022-00166-4

• Knapp, D. J. (2008). Handling ethical matters. In W. C. Borman & J. H. Hedge (Eds.), The I/O consultant’s handbook. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

•   Lowman, R.L., & Cooper, S.E. (2017). The ethical practice of consulting psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

•   Lowman, R. L. (Ed.), Lefkowitz, J., McIntyre, R, Tippins, N. (Assoc. Eds.). (2006). The ethical practice of psychology in organizations (2nd ed.) Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Personnel Selection:

•   Lefkowitz, J. & Lowman, R.L. (2017).  “Ethics of Employee Selection.”  Chap. 26 in J.L. Farr & N.T. Tippins, (Eds.).  Handbook of Employee Selection, 2nd ed.  New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.  (1st ed. Published 2010.) (Free Access)

Organizational Change and Development:

•   Church, A. H., Burke, W. W., & Van Eynde, D. F. (1994). Values, motives, and interventions of organization development practitioners. Group and Organization Management, 19, 5–50.

•   Nielsen, R. P. (1989). Changing unethical organizational behavior. The Academy of Management Executive, 3, 123–130.

General Guides:

•   Israel, M. & Hay, I. (2006). Research ethics for social scientists: Between ethical conduct and regulatory compliance. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

•   Kalichman, M., Magnus, P.D. & Plemmons, D. (2016). Conflicts of interest. In Resources for Research Ethics Education. (Free Access)

•   Office of Research Integrity.  (2014, Dec. 2).  Handling misconduct. (Free Access)  

Reproducibility and Replicability:

•   National Science Foundation Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences. (2015, May). Social, behavioral, and economic sciences perspectives on robust and reliable science. Washington, DC: Author. (Free Access)

•   Open Science Collaboration. (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science, 349(6251), 943-951. (Free Access)

•   Simons, D.J. (2014). The value of direct replication. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9(1), 76-80.

•   Simons, D.J., Holcombe, A.O. & Spellman, B.A. (2014). An introduction to registered replication reports at Perspectives on Psychological Science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9(5), 552-555. (Free Access)

Data Collection:

•   Broder, A. (1998). Deception can be acceptable. American Psychologist, 53, 805–806.

•   Brody, J. L., Gluck, J. P., & Aragon, A. S. (2000). Participants’ understanding of the process of psychological research: Debriefing. Ethics & Behavior, 10, 13–25.

•   Chastain, G., & Landrum, R. E. (Eds.). (1999). Protecting human subjects: Departmental subject pools and institutional review boards. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

•   Groves, B. W., Price, J. H., Olsson, R. H., & King, K. A. (1997). Response rates to anonymous versus confidential surveys. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 85, 665–666.

•   National Research Council. (2003). Protecting participants and facilitating social and behavioral sciences research. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press.

•   Sashkin, M., & Prien, E. P. (1996). Ethical concerns and organizational surveys. In A. I. Kraut (Ed.). Organizational surveys: Tools for assessment and change (pp. 381–403). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Data Sharing: 

•   American Psychological Association. (2015). Data sharing: Principles and considerations for policy development. (Free Access)

Data Analyses:

•   Bosco, F.A., Aguinis, H., Field, J.G., Pierce, C.A. & Dalton, D.R. (2016). HARKing’s threat to organizational research: Evidence from primary and meta-analytic sources. Personnel Psychology, 69(3), 709- 750. (Free Access)

•   Wasserman, R. (2013). Ethical issues and guidelines for conducting data analysis in psychological research. Ethics & Behavior, 23(1), 3-15.

International Research 

•   Blackman, G. M. (2021). Ethical considerations in international leadership research. In Y. Tolsitkov-Mast, J. Walker, & F. Bieri (Eds.), International Leadership Research Handbook. Routledge. 

•   United States Office of Human Research Protections. (2019). International compilation of human research standards. (Free Access)

•   Hartner, D.F. (2015). Should ethics courses be more practical? Teaching Ethics, 15(20), 349-368.

•   Korenman, S.G. (2006). Teaching the responsible conduct of research in humans (RCRH). Chap. 4. Conflicts of interest (COI). (Free Access)

•   Medeiros, K. E., Watts, L. L., Mulhearn, T. J., Steele, L. M., Connelly, S., & Mumford, M. D. (2017). What is working, what is not, and what we need to know: A meta-analytic review of business ethics instruction. Journal of Academic Ethics, 15, 245-275. (Free Access)

•   Steele, L. M., Mulhearn, T., Medeiros, K. E., Watts, L. L., Connelly, S., & Mumford, M. D. (2016). How do we know what works? A review and critique of current practices in ethics training evaluation. Accountability in Research, 23, 319-350. (Free Access)

•   Watts, L. L., Medeiros, K. E., McIntosh, T. J., & Mulhearn, T. J. (2020). Ethics training for managers: Best practices and techniques. New York: Routledge.

•   Watts, L., Medeiros, K., Mulhearn, T., Steele, L., Connelly, S., & Mumford, M. (2017). Are ethics training programs improving? A meta-analytic review of past and present ethics instruction in the sciences. Ethics & Behavior, 27(5), 351-384. (Free Access)