By Julie Grisham | Guest Columnist
This column features ethics scenarios and issues that may affect technical communicators in the many aspects of their jobs. If you have a possible solution to a scenario, your own case, or feedback in general, please contact column editor Derek G. Ross at dgr0003@auburn.edu.
Jake Davidson is a project manager, assigned to the proposals group of a major international education publisher. In this position, Jake is responsible for writing and researching specific portions of proposals that his company creates as part of contract bid efforts. One day, a request for proposals (RFP) for the development of a major assessment is released and Jake is assigned as lead for this proposal initiative, tasked with overseeing the development of a proposal to provide assessment test development and scoring services for an international customer. The proposal has the potential to generate millions of dollars for the company and Jake is excited about this chance to prove himself a leader. The biggest challenge is the proposal deadline at the end of the month, just 3½ weeks away.
The deadline made it impossible to do research to be incorporated into the proposal, so Jake needed to make efficient use of the team’s time. He knew he had to delegate various portions of the proposal to key personnel with strict deadlines. For most proposals written for the company’s contract bids, there would be portions that contained standard text that writers replicated across proposals. When presented with time constraints such as what Jake was facing with this proposal, it was common practice to take existing text from various portions of past proposals, such as introductory text, information related to services, and research related to testing results. When research information is replicated, the text might either remain the same or change to be proposal-specific. Several groups within the company were assigned different portions of the proposal for which they needed to provide information for Jake’s team. These groups included the program team, procurement, packaging/distribution, accommodated testing, publishing, and psychometrics. Jake had no problem getting information from most of the groups.
Putting It Together
After a week of working on the proposal draft, Jake and his team are having difficulty getting information from the psychometrics group in a timely manner. This group’s responsibility is to analyze the design of assessment tests, to provide interpretation of results that represent student performance on various types of test questions, and to provide forecasts for future test design and administration. Doka, the psychometric lead, and his team had been tasked with providing statistics behind each type of test question, and providing statistics from other testing programs. He met with Jake to provide the information he needed for the proposal. Jake skimmed through the statistics and text. As he began to incorporate pieces into the proposal, modifying text where necessary to make sure it was understood by the public members of the proposal team, he became puzzled. While the information looked familiar, the trend it presented was not the usual. Jake went to the proposal archives. As he skimmed through previous proposals, he discovered that, while much of the information in the new proposal was replicated word-for-word, the trend did not support the research. Jake then looked in the source file for the original research stats. He found the numbers used in the proposals did not correlate with the source research. The numbers were greatly inflated, making certain “money-making” products look better than other products. This painted a picture that the stats were manipulated to lead a customer to choose one product over another—clearly benefitting the company, not the customer and not aligning with the company’s goals of meeting the needs of the customer.
Seeking Support
Sharing his findings and concerns with Doka, Jake requests changes to the research section to ensure that the proposal is accurate. Doka said that the presentation of the research was always done that way and, in the end, it didn’t hurt anyone. He said no changes would be made. Jake went to Doug, his manager, expressing concern because the information for this proposal showed an unusual trend that would be suspicious if left as is. Jake shared that he felt it compromised the integrity of the company to show abnormalities like these, especially if unsupported by source research. Doug responded with a simple shrug and said, “It is what it is, and if Doka says it’s how we’ve done it, then so be it.”
His manager’s response was both surprising and disappointing. Jake felt he was torn between his personal ethics and doing his job. He knew that there were times when people working on other proposals requested to be removed or replaced for various reasons. It was assumed by many that there were no ramifications for doing this. Jake’s “gut feeling” was that it was not an option for him because he was the lead, and if he were to ask to be removed or replaced on this proposal writing team, it would have an effect on his future advancement. His manager’s words, “It is what it is,” just echoed in his head.
What should Jake do?
“Cherry Picking” Information
Reproducing information across proposals is not anything new with many companies. The reasons for this practice vary from unchanging research statistics that may still apply to no time to gather new research, which was the situation in the case of Jake and his proposal. This case underscores an ethical issue of providing accurate information that best represents a company’s ability to deliver the work and a personal ethic of accepting the work of others as is or pursuing the issue further.
The act of “cherry picking,” or even manipulating data, may seem harmless, but in some fields, it can be harmful. For example, several cases were brought forth in the courts against Merck & Co. for misleading information that related to the efficacy of the MMR vaccine. One in particular, United States v. Merck & Co., resulted from claims of former scientists that stated Merck falsified test data to meet FDA standards (Chatom v. Merck, 2012). In this case, there is a possible result of physical harm to someone. In another case, Takata, the manufacturer of vehicle airbags, was investigated for airbag issues and forced to conduct a recall. It was found that the Takata workers were pressured to manipulate test data; however, the company, while acknowledging this occurred, stated that these practices did not affect the current recall issues. The Senate investigators in the Takata case found information that suggested otherwise. In this case, it was likely harmful (Kieler, 2016).
With both Merck and Takata, the falsification/fabrication of data was a result of the companies’ desire to achieve a positive, and most likely profitable, outcome. On the other end of the spectrum, in the fields of publishing and education, many schools and publishing companies have attempted to avoid research situations like those with Merck and Takata, and established research policies to stem rampant plagiarism or data manipulation in research. In spite of such policies, many researchers give in to pressure and take short cuts by fabricating research.
Back to Jake
In the scenario of Jake and the dilemma of falsification of research data, the psychometric team “cherry picked” the data to direct the customer’s favor to a specific product that will benefit the company financially. While the outcome might not dramatically change the way the company does business, or the way products are viewed by clients, presenting only a partial view of information has ethical implications.
Questions to Consider
- Should Jake have brought his concerns about the inaccurate research to his manager?
- Should Jake escalate this issue to his manager’s boss?
- Should Jake incorporate the research he’s been asked to include and not question the results since he is not the “subject matter expert”?
- If Jake incorporates the information into the proposal, is it ethical for him to assume that it’s not going to have an effect on the overall services the company can provide to the customer?
References
Chatom v. Merck, Civ. 609. 2012. United States District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania. http://probeinternational.org/library/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/chatom-v-merck.pdf.
Kieler, A. 2016. Senate Report Claims Takata Falsified Data on Airbag Inflators. https://consumerist.com/2016/02/24/senate-report-claims-takata-falsified-data-on-airbag-inflators/.
JULIE GRISHAM is a project manager for accessibility with the Pearson Accessibility Group for School. She is a 2014 graduate of Texas Tech University with a Master of Arts in technical communication. Julie also holds an MEd from University of Texas at San Antonio, and a BA from Texas A&M University. Her research interests include technical/professional communication, accessible rhetoric, disability studies, and Web accessibility for the deaf/hard of hearing.
Editorial Note
Deadlines. We’ve all worked with them, and we know the particular kind of stresses that working under a time-crunch can bring. Add multiple groups, each with its own particular project component, to the mix and you’ve got a stress-inducing recipe for disaster, especially if one of your groups has its own agenda. In this month’s Ethics case, Julie Grisham takes us through the problems a project manager faces when groups don’t want to cooperate in expected ways, asking us what it means to make decisions when we’re faced with someone else’s cherry-picked data.
In January’s column, Jessie Lambert took us through a technical communicator’s dilemma when asked to make technical and scientific information more entertaining. In it, a scientific illustrator, Keanu, was asked to alter his drawings. Tammy P., from Central Wisconsin, had this to say about the case: “My recommendation to Keanu would be to attempt a compromise, incorporating the comic strip idea and even the cell dialog while retaining at least some of the detailed information that he hoped to include in his diagrams. In the technical writing role, we’re often asked to consider changes to what we’ve written (or illustrated). This, in fact, is true in most roles in business. It’s part of our jobs to create what is best for the end user while also considering the concerns and wishes of those we work with. Doing that will demonstrate his creativity and flexibility while also showing that he can create an end product that satisfies as many needs as possible.”
As always, we welcome your responses. Let us know your answers to the questions we’ve posed, your thoughts on our roles as technical communicators in general, or send us your own Ethics cases or column ideas. Please send your responses to derek.ross@auburn.edu. Responses will be printed in an upcoming issue of Intercom as space permits.
—Derek G. Ross
