INTRODUCTION

The International Association for Chinese Management Research (IACMR) is the leading academic organization for the creation and dissemination of theory and knowledge of organization and management in the Chinese context with the following primary objectives:

• To encourage wider acceptance and active idea exchanges among those interested in the science, education, and practice of Chinese management.
• To provide opportunities for closer cooperation and collaboration among scholars, educators, practitioners, and policymakers about management research and education in Chinese contexts.
• To advance an educational organization with unquestioned reputation for excellent scholarship and intellectual integrity.

The IACMR Code of Ethics establishes foundational principles underlying the professional responsibilities of IACMR and ethical standards for IACMR officers, members and all those participating in IACMR-sponsored activities. IACMR officers are expected to be exemplars in fulfilling the professional responsibilities and adhering to the ethical standards; all members should adhere to the ethical standards when participating in and carrying out the work of IACMR; nonmembers should also agree to conduct themselves according to the ethical standards when they participate in IACMR activities. These standards may also be viewed as guides for positive professional practices even outside the sphere of IACMR. 

FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES

The principles set forth here are both foundational and inspirational and they represent moral ideals. They challenge IACMR members to strive for excellence in their personal and professional conduct by regulating their own moral reasoning, judgment, decision and action and possibly exerting a positive influence on others.

1.    Duties and Responsibilities
IACMR members strive to contribute to the well-being of society, communities they work in and people they work with. They clarify and accept their personal, professional, and societal duties and responsibilities and perform them conscientiously to the highest standard. They volunteer their time and expertise to help build lives and communities. They are also concerned with the ethicality of their colleagues’ conduct and contribute to the development of ethical climate and culture in their working environments. 

2.    Personal Integrity
IACMR members strive to reach overall excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service by cultivating and strengthening their personal integrity. They are trustworthy in utilizing their professional status and expertise and in abiding by fair procedures instead of abusing authority, manipulating processes, or exploiting opportunities for advancing self-interests, favoritism, or factionalism. They seek to promote accuracy, honesty, and truthfulness in research, teaching, and practice of their profession and will not engage in stealing, cheating, fraud, subterfuge, or intentional misrepresentation of facts. 

3.    Respect for Individual Dignity
IACMR members value and respect the dignity and worth of all individuals without prejudice and discrimination on the basis of social categories such as age, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. IACMR members make efforts to reduce and eliminate effects of such prejudices and biases on their teaching, research, and service. IACMR members are also committed to helping to create academic and professional work environments that are free of sexual and other forms of harassment. 

ETHICAL STANDARDS

These are more specific standards of ethical conduct applying to IACMR officers and members and nonmembers participating in IACMR-sponsored activities. The operation and effectiveness of IACMR depend on the participation, cooperation, and initiative of its members. IACMR members should adhere to the ethical standards and abide by specific rules and policies set forth by IACMR when assuming official roles, interacting with other association members, and participating in IACMR activities. 

1.    Professional Knowledge and Expertise
1.1. Knowledge and Expertise: IACMR members should strive to acquire and remain current in their professional and scientific knowledge and expertise. In research, teaching, service, or other situations where they present and apply their knowledge and make judgment, they should accurately and fairly represent their areas and degrees of expertise. 

1.2. Professional Standards: In teaching, research, and service, IACMR members should know and adhere to the professional and scientific standards regardless of their personal (career or financial) interests or those of their employers or clients. They should rely on their scientific and professional knowledge in their judgment, decision, and action.

Examples of Ethical Issues Involving Competence and Expertise

• Speaking as expert on subjects outside the boundary of one’s own competence or expertise.
• Presenting others’ concepts, data or findings without acknowledgement.
• Citing only existing works that support one’s own ideas while ignoring those that contradict them.
• Cite existing works one is not familiar with to support one’s own ideas.  

2.    Professional Relationships
2.1. Fair Treatment: IACMR members should promote respectful, non-discriminatory treatment for all people they come to work with including students, colleagues, employees or research participants, regardless of their demographic backgrounds.

2.2. Non-harassment: IACMR members should not engage in sexual and any other forms of harassment, such as demeaning, intimidating, hostile, offensive, or abusive verbal and nonverbal behaviors, including those by electronic and social media.

2.3. Non-abuse of Power: IACMR members should not discriminate against, coerce, or abuse any person on whom they have direct or indirect supervisory, evaluative, or other authority.

2.4. Confidentiality: In addition to confidentiality obligations to law, institutional customs or any legal agreements, IACMR members should take precautions to protect sensitive information obtained in research, teaching, practice, and service.

Examples of Ethical Issues Involving Professional Relationships

• Making sexual, sexist or other degrading and discriminatory comments.
• Requesting false information for reimbursing costs of research or attending academic conferences.
• Coercing junior colleagues or students into agreement on co-authorships of grant submissions, conference presentations, or journal publications. 
• Requesting personal favors from students in exchange for granting grades, positive evaluation or recommendations. 

2.5. Fraud and Misrepresentation: IACMR members should not misrepresent, fail to declare information about, or take unfair advantage of rules and regulations regarding IACMR functions and activities.

3.    Conflicts of Interest
3.1. Conflicts of Interest. Conflicts of interest arise when personal interests or relationships may prevent a person from performing his or her professional work faithfully, objectively, and fairly. 

3.2. Avoiding Conflicts of Interest. IACMR members should refrain from taking roles that may impair their objectivity, competence, or effectiveness or cause any harm to the professional association due to their personal interests and relationships. 

3.3. Disclosure of Relationships. IACMR members should disclose their personal or professional relationships that may cause the appearance of or the potential for a conflict of interest. 

Examples of Ethical Issues Involving Conflicts of Interest 

• When invited to serve on a review committee for a grant, prize, or promotion where the candidate is a relative, friend, or former student or colleague, IACMR members should declare the conflict of interest and request to be recused. If the committee is made aware of the relationships but still request service, IACMR members should provide relevant information without participating in the discussion and voting. 
• Disclose information or materials received in a confidential context (e.g., knowledge obtained from reviewing a manuscript or serving on a proposal review panel) without the knowledge of or authorization from the appropriate authorities.

4.    Public Statements 
4.1. IACMR members do not speak for or represent the IACMR unless authorized by its President to do so.

4.2. IACMR members should ensure the accuracy of public communication and not make public statements that are false, deceptive, misleading, or fraudulent, either because of what they state, convey, or suggest or because of what they omit.

Examples of Ethical Issues Involving Public Communications 

• In press interviews, seminars, and expert witness testimony, IACMR members should state that their opinions are their own and not present their personal views as being the consensus of IACMR members. 
• IACMR members should take steps to ensure that their online digital presence accurately represents and does not inflate their scholarly activities (e.g., publications on Google Scholar).

4.3. When authorized to make public statements by the association, IACMR members should ensure that IACMR is credited and the statements are truthful and consistent with the code of ethics.

5.    Research and Publication
5.1. Research Planning, Implementation and Dissemination: IACMR members should conduct and report research with the highest ethical and scientific standards.

5.1.1 Clearly and accurately describe and discuss data, research methods, and theoretical proofs in disseminated work.
5.1.2. Report sources of financial support in written papers and note any special relations to any sponsor.
5.1.3. Acknowledge prior and contemporaneous contributions of other researchers in publications and other forms of dissemination (e.g., lectures, consulting, and conference presentation).
5.1.4. Make citations on the basis of relevant contribution rather than reputation of authors and avoid unrelated or excessive self-citations.
5.1.5. Follow all appropriate rules and guidelines that apply to research involving human subjects (including surveys). Take reasonable steps to correct any significant errors discovered in publications or presentations through correction, retraction, or erratum.

5.2. Representation: In conducting cross-border and cross-cultural research, IACMR members should pay close attention to the characterization and representation of peoples, organizations, countries, and cultures, including but not limited to:
5.2.1.       Ensuring that research does not harm the safety, dignity or privacy of the people with whom we work, conduct research, or perform other professional activities.
5.2.2.       Determining in advance whether the entities being studied (e.g., people, organizations) want to remain anonymous or receive recognition, and making every effort to comply with these wishes.
5.2.3.       Obtaining in advance the informed consent of persons being studied and recognize their cooperation and support.

5.3. Plagiarism: IACMR members should guard against plagiarizing other’s as well as their own published works. They should:
5.3.1.      Explicitly identify, credit, and reference the author of any data or material taken verbatim from written work, whether it is published, unpublished, or electronically available.
5.3.2.       Explicitly cite and reference other’s work (published, unpublished, or electronically available) even if it is not quoted verbatim or paraphrased. 
5.3.3.       Not publish multiple papers that are slight variations of each other without explicit acknowledgment of them. 
5.3.4.       Not publish the same work in different languages without obtaining copyrights or explicit acknowledgment of the original work. 
5.3.5.       Refrain from recycling portions of their own previous writings in subsequent research papers without quotation or citation

5.4. Authorship:
5.4.1.       IACMR members should take responsibility and credit only for work they have performed and to which they have contributed. 
5.4.2.       In co-authored publications, IACMR members should ensure that authorship and other publication credits are proportional to the relative scientific or professional contribution of the coauthors involved instead of professional status or rank.

5.5. Submission of manuscripts for publication: 
5.5.1.       For non-single author manuscripts, confer with all coauthors prior to submitting work for publication and establish mutually acceptable agreements regarding submission.
5.5.2.       Do not submit manuscripts to more than one journal at a time unless this is explicitly allowed by the conferences, journals or publishers.
5.5.3.       Acknowledge any previously published data or findings that overlap with the manuscript.
5.5.4.       Do not engage in questionable practices (e.g., deletion of data to obtain the best results) or selective reporting of findings in ways that would mislead or deceive readers.

5.6. Responsibilities of Reviewers: In their role as reviewers, IACMR members should:
5.6.1.       Act confidentially and without prejudice. Provide honest, precise, constructive and respectful feedback to authors by carefully explaining the reasoning behind their assessments, striving to be constructive, and phrasing assessments in a temperate and scientific manner, free from insulting or unnecessary negative comments.
5.6.2.       Disclose conflicts of interest or decline requests to review others’ work when they are aware of conflicts of interest.
5.6.3.       Inform editors or organizers if they have done prior reviews of the same work.
5.6.4.       Do not use their advanced access to unpublished research for their own purposes. For example, they should not undermine the original authors by rejecting the paper and then pursue the research idea on their own. Nor should they delay providing feedback to the advantage of their own competing work.
5.6.5.       Provide referee reports in a timely fashion, both out of professional courtesy and in the interest of expedient communication of research results.
5.6.6.       When providing reviews as part of a promotion or tenure process, review the records of candidates carefully without prejudice (including reading their work rather than only relying on bibliometric ratings) and submit their evaluations in a timely fashion.

Examples of Ethical Issues Involving Research 

• Conducting research in ways that violate accepted ethical principles with regards to human subjects (e.g., without participant consent). 
• Pressuring colleagues or advisees to be added to a paper as a co-author or to be listed as the lead or corresponding author. 
• Adding one’s name to a paper without making appropriate contribution after accepting invitation to join a research project.  
• Not informing all co-authors when a subset of the authorship team is presenting or disseminating the work.

6.    Teaching and Education
As teachers, educators, and providers of training, IACMR members are encouraged to adopt the motto “teaching knowledge and cultivating character” (教书育人), which places dual emphasis on intellectual and ethical education.

6.1. Practice high ethical standards as role models for students and as members of the higher education profession.

6.2. Obtain permission to use teaching materials that are not already in the public domain from people who originally developed them.  

6.3. Build constructive professional student-teacher relationships in the spirit of mutual care and respect.

6.4. Make decisions concerning textbooks, course content, course requirements and grading solely based on educational criteria without regard for their own financial or other advantage.

6.5. Do not reveal confidential information concerning students, unless disclosure has a compelling professional purpose or is required by law.

6.6. Do not accept gratuities, gifts or favors that might impair or appear to influence the impartiality of the evaluation or grading of the student’s performance.

6.7. Do not engage in a romantic or sexual relationship with a student where the teacher or educator is supervising, grading or overseeing the student.

6.8. Provide proper training and supervision to teaching assistants and other trainees, and take reasonable steps to ensure that they perform their roles responsibly, competently and ethically.

6.9. Facilitate the research, educational, and professional development of junior colleagues, subordinates, and students, including providing safe, supportive work environments.

Examples of Ethical Issues Involving Teaching and Education 

• Failure to update course syllabi and reading materials to reflect current knowledge and pedagogical practices. 
• Failure to provide teaching assistants with adequate supervision, support, and mentoring. 
• Accepting gifts from students in exchange for better grades or for successful defense of theses.
• Grading on the basis of personal relationship with students.

7.    Ascribing to the Code of Ethics
7.1 Joining the IACMR, members agree to uphold and promote the principles of the “IACMR Code of Ethics” and to adhere to its ethical standards.

7.2 Familiarity with the “Code of Ethics”: IACMR members have an obligation to be familiar with this “Code of Ethics.” Lack of awareness or misunderstanding of an ethical standard is not, in itself, an excuse for unethical conduct.

7.3 The president of IACMR appoints IACMR Ethics Education Committee to communicate and promote the IACMR Code of Ethics to IACMR members, participants of IACMR activities, and partners of IACMR.

Endnotes

1. The IACMR Code of Ethics was drafted by the IACMR Code of Ethics Committee composed of Chao C. Chen, Lirong Long, Liangding Jia, Xuhong Li, and Wei Shen. The Committee has received comments from past presidents of IACMR and members of the Board of Governors, 2019. 
2. The IACMR Code has been adapted from the codes of ethics from the Academy of Management (AOM) and the Academy of International Business (AIB), two international academies with which IACMR shares similar mission and overlapping membership. The IACMR Code of Ethics Committee expresses acknowledgement and gratitude to the AOM and the AIB but owe responsibility for any errors or shortcomings in the IACMR Code.
3. Due to limited resources and expertise, the current IACMR Code does not provide enforcement mechanisms or procedures as do the codes of the AOM and the AIB in handling ethical complaints, disputes, and violations.