Consulting incidents- work ethics

Question

Hello experts,

I have a work ethics question.
I was having a dinner with a colleague of mine and he told me about an incident that happened in his last project; which was closed.
Towards the end of his work in OM for a client, he knew that the team (consultant and an intern) who worked on the benchmark exercise, made up some data that they were not able to find. The intern told him that as he thought that this is how consulting firms do it and that the consultant asked him to do it.
My friend told him that he should have told someone because this is wrong. When the intern knew that what he did was wrong, he said that he told the previous manager who was on the project but then he left the firm and the manager told him that it is ok. My friend and I doubt that he told the manager; he was just afraid abt it.
My friend didn’t do anything and they continued the project and delivered the results.

I told my friend that ethically he should have informed the manager or PIC.

But now, I feel that ethically I should tell someone. However, the project ended and I have no connection whatsoever with the project or the practice.

Question:

1) what should I do?
2) If I didn’t say anything and later on for some reason they found out what happened, will there be any consequences on me?

Answer 1

Hi there!

From my experience in the Middle East, it can certainly be challenging sometimes to get access to good data. That said, if you don't have data, you can't just cook it up and attribute it to reality. What you can do is make guesstimates, explain your thinking behind them, and also provide a range for the data to cover for multiple potential scenarios. This is the right practice for a situation like this — it's transparent and scientific.

In this situation, I'm not really sure if any of this due diligence took place. If you think that it didn't, you should certainly initiate a conversation with the project leaders. If you already have, and didn't get much of a response, and you aren't directly involved with the project and don't have more of an insight into it, then it seems to me that you've done all you can.

Typically, consultants who are not involved in a project are not given access to the project's materials, because consulting firms work for a number of clients who may be each other's competitors, and so, collusion between consultants across projects presents conflicts of interest. So, I think I would perhaps stay out of other projects and allow the concerned project leaders to take charge.

Hope this helps!

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