I'm trying to write a paper at the moment, for publication. My PhD is sponsered by a company and I therefore do my research in that company. Problem is the research is quite 'revealing' and potentially could show them in a bad light. I've had my academic supervisor now change all the wording, all the quotes from interviews etc. because they are worried that the company supervisor will get in a mood about it (even though the company is never named throughout the whole thing).

I feel like I am actually having to change the findings I report, just to suit them. I know its part of the research game, but changing it this much just seems a little wrong. :-(

(sprout)

Hmm, I can understand your concerns. When the purpose of research is to uncover the truth (or at least some reasonably unbiased interpretation of it), then altering your results because of corporate interests must feel a bit fraudulent. Makes you understand why journals insist on disclosure of all conflicts.

Do the alterations actually change your conclusions, or just make them a little more murky for the reader to discern?

Hi Sneaks - you're right to be concerned. Not only is changing your results wrong, this also sounds unethical. Changing the quotes from interviews???? Completely unethical!!!!! That's just outrageous!! My sup and I had a big discussion about changing one very important word that one of my participants used, and we did change it in the end, but changing whole quotes?? Not right.

I also have findings that make my participants look bad, and I'm not going to change them. I don't think you should either. Rather than changing your results, maybe you could develop a strategy on how to manage this eg meet with the managers beforehand, warn them about what's coming out, develop some solutions how they could improve etc and give them somethig on this - so you look proactive, not like you're just criticising.

Failing this, could you maybe make the company anonymous? Or even tone down the writing? But don't change the results!!

Sneaks - changing interview quotes is *absolutely not done*! It's tampering with data at an unimaginable level! So, you are right to be concerned although your sponsored PhD must be putting you in a tricky spot. Oh dear. Good luck..

oh no! When I said "change all the quotes" I meant subsitute them with (her words) "less provocative" ones. Problem is the quotes I have chosen perfectly support my points, so it basically means deleting the quotes completely because I don't have any others that make the point so concisely i.e. people ramble on about the same thing for 2 pages, whereas the people I have taken quotes from sum it up in 3 lines.

I've done a bit at the beginning about how great the company is - and the company is anonymous the whole way through, being referred to as Company X (or similar :-) )

I just feel that its gone from having some real eye catching findings, to being dumbed down to the point where (I compare 2 groups, one comes out worse) both groups seem the same.

ok I'm really struggling now. The topic is so sensitive, I can't find any quotes that don't make the company look at least a little bad.

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B****r. It's a real nightmare having this conflict of interest from your funder.
Could someone else maybe cast a look over it for you? Fresh pair of eyes and all that.

Well I'm going to spend all tonight (in front of tv) pulling out a list of potential quotes for each point, then I can choose ones that are less 'provocative'. Although she wants me to change it so I'm saying "this could happen anywhere, in any company" when the literature has criticised studies for not looking at specific contexts. - oh well!

I'm going to have a go at pulling it all together. I read through a chapter of a friend recently and she has offered to do the same, and I know I can trust her not to want her name as an author on it if she does so - others in my dept aren't so forgiving!