Investigate business scenarios from a systematic perspective based on biblical eschatological and Christian ethics.
Biblical eschatology has to do with end time and last day events. Therefore, Christian researchers must be honest and uphold ethical behaviour and standards.
This competency helped to guide me to incorporate the ethical approaches presented in my study of both quantitative and qualitative research designs. The application of ethical rules are of paramount importance to the researcher. The researcher must demonstrate, integrity, honesty, and confidentiality.
One of our assignments was to review the book “The National Committee for Research Ethics in the Social Sciences and the Humanities.” (NESH) chaired by Elisabeth Staksrude. In reviewing the book Staksrude, (2021) states that the responsibilities of research should be to protect human dignity, avoid harm, respect for others, respect for privacy and family life, and protection of children. The book does not provide guidelines on how to live a good Christian life, but all the ethical principles are good Christian principles and if followed can help us live a good Christian life.
These ethical guidelines or principles have a strong Biblical base. The Bible provides strong ethical principles that guides us into making the right decisions. The guidelines will assist you in doing excellent research, to be honest, have respect for other people, especially the participants. We must endeavour to be great thinkers and “not mere reflectors of other people’s thoughts.” God wants to bring out the best in us and the Research Ethics Committee wants to bring out the best research in us. We must always keep our standards high and be committed to what we are doing.
As a Christian researcher I must be guided by Christian ethical and moral principles. I must determine to work hard, study hard to produce good research that can benefit the researcher and help to solve problems that in turn can help other people. The guidelines and ethical principles I learned from this book certainly helped me in writing my own research. There are so many problems in the world today that research can help to solve. My research is based on how professional competence, culture, lifestyle and religious beliefs affect financial behaviour in the Eastern District 1 of the Grenada Conference.
Reflections: While doing an assignment for class I recalled reading an interesting book put together by ‘The Norwegian National Research Ethics Committee’ entitled “Guidelines for Research Ethics in the Social Science, Humanities, Law and Theology.” (2016.) these guidelines have helped me to be honest, have respect for other people especially the participants in doing research.
Chapter II and Chapter III, along with the newly developed instrument to assess financial behaviour from a biblical perspective afforded the opportunity to put these principles in place and to share the knowledge that only comes from God through His written word. (Luke 14:28 – 30; Matt. 25: 14 – 23 and Ecclesiastes 10: 19). Chapter V presents all of the findings of this research