Studying Data Ethics Management: Research Methodology

This chapter outlines our approach to investigating how corporations manage the threats and risks that their use of advanced analytics can create. Specifically, we deploy a mixed method research design combining insights from semi-structured interviews and an original survey of business data ethics managers as well as the attorneys, consultants, and think tanks who advise them. The interviews and survey hone in on five key areas of inquiry: (1) the risks big data can create, (2) motivations for why businesses attempt to mitigate the risks of big data when the law does not yet require them do so, (3) how businesses manage these risks via frameworks, management processes, and/or technological solutions, (4) how businesses attempt to use advanced analytics and AI for the social good, and (5) the broader regulatory and legal environment within which data ethics management operates. By using multiple research methods and focusing on multiple dimensions of corporate use of analytics, our analysis provides an entrée into the state of the art of data ethics management.