In a short essay, list and discuss at least two specific sampling issues that are unethical in marketing research

What will be an ideal response?

The sample size is one of the major determinants of cost in a marketing research project. It may seem that if the sample size is statistically determined, this procedure is free from ethical conflicts. However, this may not be true. The sample size is directly proportional to the variance of the variable and estimates of the population variance are based on small pilot studies, related research, and the judgment of the researcher. Because judgment is involved, the researcher has the ethical responsibility to not use large estimates of the population variance simply to increase the cost of the project by inflating the sample size. Furthermore, the researcher may be faced with ethical dilemmas when the sample standard deviation varies widely from that assumed. In this case, the confidence interval will be larger than required if the actual sample standard deviation turns out to be much larger than that used to estimate the sample size. If this happens, the researcher should disclose the larger confidence interval to the client and jointly arrive at a corrective action.