Applied Business Research and Ethics: Customer Behavior Study Report

This report delves into the ethical implications of using digital scent technology to understand customer behavior, focusing on XYZ social media. It addresses key concerns such as privacy, security breaches, and informed consent. The research employs a mixed methodology, combining qualitative and quantitative data collection through questionnaires, focus groups, and secondary research to identify privacy issues and propose solutions. The study explores the impact of olfactory triggers on user behavior, the potential for emotional manipulation, and the importance of safeguarding customer data. The report emphasizes the need for ethical practices in data collection and analysis, aiming to balance customer understanding with privacy rights and data security.

Running head: APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH AND ETHICS
Applied Business Research and Ethics
Name of Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1
APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH AND ETHICS
Executive Summary
The ethical business functioning is one of the prime concerns of the organizations. The online
digital technology has been adopted by XYZ social media and it aims to measure the customer
behavior in this process. The customers would be subjected with the olfactory triggers and their
subsequent behaviors would be noticed and monitored. This also gives rise to ethical issues such
as privacy of consumers and security breach of confidential data. There may also be issues with
the informed consent of the users. This report would strive to carry out the process of
understanding customer behavior in an ethical manner. The gaps of the literature review would
be considered for the research and the possible solutions for the research problem would be
sought.

2
APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH AND ETHICS
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Literature Review............................................................................................................................3
Research Objectives.........................................................................................................................5
Research Questions..........................................................................................................................6
Research Methodology....................................................................................................................6
Data Collection Methods.............................................................................................................7
Sample unit and sampling methodology......................................................................................7
Data analysis................................................................................................................................8
Data Validity................................................................................................................................8
Reliability....................................................................................................................................9
Limitations.......................................................................................................................................9
Ethical Consideration.....................................................................................................................10
Summary Statement.......................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................12

3
APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH AND ETHICS
Introduction
The digital scent technology is one of the latest olfactory technologies that consider the
engineering discipline which is concerned with the art of feeling of the different senses (Di
Fuccio et al. 2016). This technology is increasingly used by the companies to transmit, sense and
receive the various smell related attributes of their digital media tools such as video games, web
pages, music and movies. The sensing part of this new technology is being created through the
use of electronic noses and olfactometers (Faden, Beauchamp and Kass 2014). XYZ network is
eager to understand the emotional state of their customers in such a manner that the process is
considered to be ethical (Di Fuccio et al. 2016). They are eager to find out the effect of smells on
the users and how it impacts the act of updating the self- social media page. It is important to
understand the customer behavior, which does not violate the ethical values. The company
strives to engage in the research process without compromising the ethical aspects. Apart from
this, XYZ is also eager to know if the emotional states of the customers can be altered and how
it can be tapped in a positive manner.
This research process would commence with the brief literature that would understand
the existing research made by various authors. The gaps of this literature would be identified,
which would be the primary focus of this research. It would be followed by an in-depth research
methodology, which would include the process of data collection and data analysis in detail.
Literature Review
As opined by Gosain and Sajwan (2014), there have been significant changes in the smell
perception and the related olfactory communication, which is also used for various business
purposes. The technological process is allowing the measure as well as reproduction of various

4
APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH AND ETHICS
type of odors. They are also becoming important part of the human-computer interaction, in
which there is a technical transfer of communication (Di Fuccio et al. 2016). The digital smell is
considered as a combination of hardware and software in which the hardware part of the odor
would be responsible for the smell production and the software component would evaluate the
various smell equation (Gosain and Sajwan 2014). The digital control technology is being used
in an increasingly number of companies in which there is a broadcast of smell over the internet.
This has been proved to be quite effective as per as the business revenues are concerned and the
tech savvy companies are implementing it.
As argued by Amores and Maes (2016), the digital smell technology has a great impact
on the behavior of the customers especially on their social media pages. The act of inducing
different kinds of odors as well as smell have a long effect on the behavior of the customers and
their altering of their emotional components (Gosain and Sajwan 2014). This also affects their
judgements and further decisions about a particular organization and their products.
The process of implementing the digital smell technology should be carried out by
following all the ethical principles. As identified by Nebeker et al. (2016), the informed consent
is concerned with the process for getting the permission of the concerned subject before
conducting an intervention or before working with their personal interests. There has been
growing concerns regarding the public perceptions and the privacy of the online users (Gosain
and Sajwan 2014). For ensuring that there is informed consent of the users who are surfing the
various online channels. It is important to focus on various aspects of the informed consent such
as competence, disclosure, agreement and voluntariness (Weinberg et al. 2015). Before engaging
into any digital smell technology campaigns, it is important to give privacy disclosures to the
customers, which would allow the company to analyze their personal data.

5
APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH AND ETHICS
As argued by Mackey and Gass (2015), there are certain issues over the privacy on
internet related matters, which has been the major dispute causing parameter over the recent
years. In the recent years, where there are number of concerns relating to the internet, the
companies are increasingly trying to understand the role of ethics and the role of privacy of the
customers. The consumers have a right to prevent their personal information from being
circulated over the internet or to a third party (Gosain and Sajwan 2014). The internet privacy is
considered as a subset of the big umbrella of the data privacy (Flaherty 2014). The privacy
matters are directly related with the personally identifiable information (PIIN) or the non- PIIN
information such as the behavior of a user on the website. PIIN can be used to identify an
individual or a group of individuals (Gosain and Sajwan 2014).
The literature failed to identify the privacy concerns that would be breached by the
application of the digital smell technology and how this issue can be resolved. Since the
olfactory communication is in the nascent stage, hence there are limited studies that show the
inter relationship between these two variables.
Research Objectives
The objective of this research is to understand the role of privacy in the process of digital
smell technology when detecting the emotional state of the users. There can be number of
privacy concerns from the point of view of the consumers when the effect of various kinds of
olfactory sensations would be tested on them. There would be certain privacy issues when these
olfactory parameters would be used to understand the behavior of the customers in updating their
own social media network. This research also aims to seek solutions to the issues of privacy
when undergoing the above customer behavior studies. It is important to identify how the XYZ

6
APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH AND ETHICS
social network can understand the behavior of their customers while safeguarding their privacy
rights.
Research Questions
The research questions would help in the fulfillment of the research objectives and would
help in the fulfillment of the research goals. The following research questions would help in the
establishment of the research objectives-
1) What are the privacy concerns when the company sis engaging itself in the study of the
customer emotional component?
2) Is there any possibilities of security breach if the company opts for understanding the
customer behavior and the corresponding emotions?
3) How do the company ensure that the research would be carried out without
compromising the privacy concerns of the users?
4) What are the probable solutions for ensuring that the privacy of the customers can be
restored?
Research Methodology
A mixed research methodology would be used to determine the research objectives.
There would be the integration of both qualitative data as well as quantitative data (Treiman
2014). This kind of research would help in the better understanding of the research problem than
any one of the chosen methods. The mixed research methodology would also help in the using of
strengths of both the individual research methods (Treiman 2014). The rationale behind the use
of mixed research approach is that the strengths of each approach would make up for the
weaknesses of both.

7
APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH AND ETHICS
Data Collection Methods
The quantitative data would be collected through the use of the open-ended
questionnaires, which would measure the attitudes, behaviors, thinking and the mindset of the
participants (Silverman 2016). There would be questions that would be open ended, which would
ensure that the participants would have enough scope to give their appropriate answers. The
questionnaires would be asked to the selected sample frame in the five selected multinational
companies (Treiman 2014). Focus would be given on the employees working in the IT domain
since the issue is related to the technological aspects. However, the department heads would also
be considered for the purpose of data collection.
The qualitative data would be collected through the use of three tools namely
observations, focus groups and online research (Gentles et al. 2015). The secondary research
data would be used by going through the government websites, international publications,
reputed international journals where there is a wide variety of literature concerning the privacy
aspects of the digital smell technology. The focus groups would be selected from five
multinational companies and there would be group discussions between them (Gentles et al.
2015). The different views of the participants regarding the privacy components of the ethical
business would be discussed. There would be a moderator in the group discussions who would
measure the level of thinking of the participants and strive to seek answers to the research
questions. He would note down the important points made by the participants.
Sample unit and sampling methodology
The sampling unit of this research is the employees working in the multinational
companies. In the terms of market research, the sample unit is the smallest unit that cannot be
divided into further smaller units (Liberty, Lang and Shmakov 2016).

8
APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH AND ETHICS
In this research, random stratified sampling would be used to undertake the research.
This method of sampling concerns the division of the population group into comparatively
smaller groups known as strata (Gelman et al. 2014). The strata are being formed by the shared
attributes as well as different characteristics of the group. A random group of ten employees
would be selected from each of the selected five multinational companies, who would be used
for research purposes. The ten employees from each of the multinational firms would comprise
of the operation heads, IT managers and the various senior level employees who have decision-
making power. Hence, the sample size of 50 would be used for research purpose and necessary
results should be derived from them.
Data analysis
The data analysis is important for understanding the various market trends and the
viewpoints of the participants concerning the research topic (Cox 2017). This process is used for
making logical conclusions out of the collected data. There would be two types of data analysis
that would be considered for this research- explorative and descriptive. The explorative type of
data analysis is helpful in analysis of the data for the purpose of establishing of unknown
relationships (Wickham 2016). This process has led to the understanding of the inter relationship
between privacy and digital smell technology. The descriptive type of data analysis would be
done for understanding the important aspects of the data being collected (Wickham 2016). This
research has helped in the understanding of the privacy issues and the confidentiality issues of
the customers when they are surfing the social media network.
Data Validity
The data validation process is concerned with the ensuring that the research process is
correct and it only sues validated data (Hussein 2015). This gives an opportunity of making a

9
APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH AND ETHICS
sound research and this applies to both the design as well as research methods. This research has
solid claims that the data collected in a legit way and they represent data ethics and data privacy.
The employees have given their valid viewpoints regarding the subject matter (Hussein 2015).
The content validity is used to validate the extent to which all the individual facets of the data
collection are concerned. The questionnaire has been part of the overall measurement procedure,
which is a measure of the construct it is aimed to measure (Hussein 2015). The recent data has
been collected, which makes sure that the research is a valid one.
Reliability
The reliable research is used to assess the degree to which the assessment process and
produces consistent results (Zimbardo and Boyd 2015). This research is reliable since the same
test has been performed more than twice on the employees of the different multinational
companies (Zimbardo and Boyd 2015). This research is reliable since it produces stable as well
as consistent results. In this research, the internal consistency reliability would be used to
measure reliability to evaluate the degree to which the individual test items would produce
similar results.
The reliability should be checked with the help of administering the same test to certain
group of individuals over a fixed period of times. It is one of the most important processes of the
research proposal since it is concerned with the collection of valid data that can be tested,
analyzed and logical conclusions can be drawn from it. The measurement procedure to collect
the data for the research should be a valid one so that the overall data collected is a reliable one.

10
APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH AND ETHICS
Limitations
The limitations of the research should be considered as these are beyond the control of
the researcher. These are the various shortcomings and the influences that place various
restrictions on the methodology as well as research conclusions (Shipman 2014). The research
limitations would influence the nature of results that would be deduced from the research. The
following are the research limitations that should be considered-
 Low sample size as there are only fifty participants involved. This may pose challenges
for establishing significant relationships between the key variables (Shipman 2014). The
low sample size may give inaccurate test results, which may have given accurate data if
the sample size was large.
 There was a lack of reliable data which may limit the scope of the analysis and the size of
sample. The research strictly adhered on the reliable data and hence any unnecessary data
was completely ruled out.
 The research topic is a comparatively new and upcoming one, which implies that there
are limited resources (Shipman 2014). There are insufficient literary works and prior
research studies, which has been done on this topic.
 Data collection process was not appropriate to measure this unique set of data and they
can be considered as outdated (Shipman 2014). New method of data collection was not
used to perform this research.
Ethical Consideration
The ethical aspects are important to consider while making a research process (Gajjar
2013). The following are the ethical considerations that should be followed while designing the
research-

11
APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH AND ETHICS
 Participants are not harmed in any ways during the research process
 The research would be done in a manner that is meets the criteria of honesty and
transparency (Gajjar 2013)
 Dignity of the research participants is not hampered and there is prioritization of the
research
 Privacy and confidentiality of the research participants so that their identity is not
disclosed to any third party
 Confidentiality of the research data should be ensured
 True and honest data collection way has been adopted for doing the research (Gajjar
2013). Any kind of falsification, misinterpretation and exaggeration of the research data
has been avoided
 No personal bias has been made while collecting primary data for the process of data
collection
 Research aims and objectives has not been exaggerated and deception was not used while
performing the research (Gajjar 2013)
Summary Statement
This pattern of the research design would be appropriate in understandings the research
problem of XYZ firm. The primary data collection process would help in the identification of the
various privacy issues that are actually faced by the social media user, who are also the
employees of multinational companies. This would help XYZ company to identify the data
privacy attributes that they should consider while understanding the emotional constituents of the
customers. The secondary research has helped in the understanding of the views of the existing
researchers and the opinions of the various well-known authors.