Members of the research ecosystem include many stakeholders including university and school leadership, senior scholars, journal editors, business executives, funders, accreditation agencies, students and alumni, and society at large (as taxpayers and beneficiaries of responsible business education and organizational practices). Responsible research 1 depends on an ecosystem that supports, recognizes, and rewards, in a coordinated fashion, the following seven principles.
Principle 1—Service to Society: Development of knowledge that benefits business and the broader society, locally and globally, for the ultimate purpose of creating a better world.
Principle 2—Valuing Both Basic and Applied Contributions: Contributions in both the theoretical domain to create fundamental knowledge and in applied domains to address pressing and current issues.
Principle 3—Valuing Plurality and Multidisciplinary Collaboration: Diversity in research themes, methods, forms of scholarship, types of inquiry, and interdisciplinary collaboration to reflect the plurality and complexity of business and societal problems.
Principle 4—Sound Methodology: Research that implements sound scientific methods and processes in both quantitative and qualitative or both theoretical and empirical domains.
Principle 5—Stakeholder Involvement: Research that engages different stakeholders in the research process, without compromising the independence of inquiry.
Principle 6—Impact on Stakeholders: Research that has an impact on diverse stakeholders, especially research that contributes to better business and a better world.
Principle 7—Broad Dissemination: Diverse forms of knowledge dissemination that collectively advance basic knowledge and practice.