Conducting industrial and organizational psychological research: Institutional review of research in work organizations

Although informed consent is a primary mechanism for ensuring the ethical t reatment of human participants in research, both federal guidelines and Ame rican Psychological Association ethical standards recognize that exceptions to it are reasonable under certain conditions. However, agreement about wh at constitutes a reasonable exception to informed consent is sometimes lack ing. We presented the same protocols to samples of respondents drawn from 4 populations: Institutional review board (IRB) members, managers, employees , and university faculty who were not members of IRBs. Differences in perce ptions of IRB members from the other samples with respect to the risks of t he protocols without informed consent and on the feasibility of conducting the research in employment organizations are discussed in terms of implicat ions for industrial and organizational psychology research.