I’m a research scientist for a biotechnology company, and my colleagues and I are about to publish a research paper that we’ve been working on for several years. The problem is that our CEO, a former scientist who is now purely a businessman, has attached his name to the paper despite the fact that he had no hands-on involvement with the research.
He’s been a big champion of our project, which we greatly appreciate, but this is a scientific paper and having him credited as one of the researchers does not sit well my colleagues. At the same time, he’s the boss. Where’s the line?
Credit is a tricky thing in the business world, because you weren’t hired to work for yourself. You were hired to work towards the greater good of a company, where success should be, technically, shared by all. Still, we like to be recognized for what we do. But even more so than that, we do not like for others to take direct credit that they do not deserve.
When you’re talking about your CEO, the success of his employees is his success. He needs to take credit for that, because a stock-holder-beholdin’ CEO is subjected to the same code of credit as a sponsor-beholdin’ Nascar driver: we won the race; I crashed.
Your scenario is different, because we’re talking about credit for the actual science behind your research paper. I think you’re CEO has crossed the line. It would be perfectly acceptable for him to share the credit in media coverage of your research. “We won the race.” But a scientific journal is not for the business or popular press. It is for the scientific community, and the names of the researchers and the order in which they are listed is worded as carefully as the science itself.
As a former scientist, he knows this. As a CEO, he probably thinks he can get away with bypassing that ethical line because no one will know unless one of his own employees throws themselves on the sword to tattle on him. He’s exploiting a loophole - that bogus loophole that says a CEO can get away with anything - and you must stand your ground.
Of course, creating this level of drama is not good for anyone, so you’d be best to stop this before it gets there. Hopefully, there’s still time for you to delay the publication. Then, it’s time to approach your boss and make your case. For some reason, I think you will find this easier than you think. He’s making a credit grab - which is part of the CEO’s ethos - but as a former scientist, he probably has a gut feeling that this is wrong. And if you present your case as a group complaint (you had mentioned that your colleagues were upset as well), then he must perform another part of his job, which is to keep his star employees happy.
If all of this fails to show him the light, then it might be time to fall on the sword. Your scientific credibility is at stake.
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