Responsible metaverse: Ethical metaverse principles for guiding decision-making and maintaining complex relationships for businesses in 3D virtual spaces

A metaverse is a three-dimensional virtual space (3D VS) where businesses and individuals worldwide can engage, interact, communicate, transact, and exchange information in real-time through an immersive and collaborative platform. These interactions can create complex relationships influenced by the decision-making processes of businesses. Such complexity can lead to challenges in maintaining relationships, ensuring exclusiveness, preventing misuse, and addressing other ethical issues. Therefore, this study aims to identify ethical principles within the metaverse to guide decision-making and maintain complex relationships between users and businesses. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected for analysis, and simple random sampling was employed for primary data collection. The empirical analysis was conducted using a mixed-method approach. The study identified four ethical principles that guide complex relationships within the metaverse: business benefit evaluation, fairness, explainability, and reliability principles. These principles positively influence decision-making, which, in turn, positively affects the maintenance of complex relationships within 3D VS. • The study identifies ethical principles in the metaverse to guide decisions and user-business relations. • Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected using simple random sampling for analysis. • The empirical analysis was conducted using a mixed-method approach. • The study identified four ethical principles that guide complex relationships within the metaverse. • These principles include business benefit evaluation, fairness, explainability, and reliability principles.