Work Situation (v. Conflict of Interest)

[RobertK]

Consider this to be completely speculative.

Say you work for a University department that does technical research work mainly for government contracts. (ie. Navy, Military, NNSA, waffleswaffleswaffles, DoD etc.) Most of your peers including the department head are all professors working with graduate students to complete this work.

Then lets say you accidentally find out that the head of your department has started consulting other businesses and govt' agencies via borrowing the name of a business that your department contracts specialized work to. The consulting work benefits your boss and the business he's using the name of to do business under.

Keep in mind none of this activity has been report or disclosed to the University.

I know it's a tangled web but would this be considered a conflict of interest?

What would you do if you knew about it?

[DEV0 E30]

Rhymes with blackmail.

[325Projectz]

Rhymes with blackmail.

.

you need something big in return. like a cut of his works without having to do work.

[KangamangusDriver]

Rhymes with blackmail.

HAHAH, clever!

[RobertK]

.

you need something big in return. like a cut of his works without having to do work.

Yeah.. I don't think that would work in my situation.

I'm thinking of just finding another job and washing my hands clean of it.

[ldsbeaker]

or you could blow the whistle.

[Jscotty]

No. It would not be a direct conflict of interests. The situation, however, can get messy in the event that something goes wrong with his "outside gig" and the client comes back after the university or if the department head uses university resources to do outside work without the university's knowledge or approval.

For instance, I am in property management and I had a guy working for me who would work directly with one of my vendors. At some point, my employee and the vendor decided to do business with one of my clients without my knowledge. From an ethical perspective they had no responsibility to explain to me what they were doing off of company time and outside of company business hours. The client knew my employee from previous dealings and things were probably going well for a while because after some time I got word of what they were doing but I had not seen it affect the overall service of my employee or vendor so I ingored it.

It was a little more than a month that went by when I got complaints that my employee was screwing up and causing the client to lose money. So at this point, I was stuck in a prediciment because I didn't have a specific policy against "moonlighting" yet my client was holding me accountable for something that my employee did outside of company hours. I had no choice but to break off relations with that client and fire the employee. Neither of which I wanted to do but my situation got complicated to the point where I could not figure out where my part of the deal ended and where the employee's part of the side deal began.

So in short, it was not a direct conflict of interest because they were not competing against me or causing me to lose business as a result of their side deals, however, when it got to the point where I am being held accountable for something that I had nothing to do with, then it gets ugly.

[Maluco]

That sounds like it goes beyond a conflict of interest. I say....

anonymously

or you could blow the whistle.

and find a way to still...

I'm thinking of just finding another job and washing my hands clean of it.

either way, once it gets out, everyone will most likely become part of the investigation... questioning for sure

[Maluco]

lol, somebody put a character limit on JScotty's future posts.......

[325Projectz]

lol, somebody put a character limit on JScotty's future posts.......

4 serial

[RobertK]

I'm not so sure I want to be a whistle blower as I do not want anything like that following me around when I search for future jobs.

My biggest concern is that we work with some classified projects but I figure since he is consulting the military they must know something about his job at the school.

I think the biggest conflict is that if he is doing consulting / research work for the military he is taking possible contracts away from the research dept. at the school.

[Maluco]

I'm not so sure I want to be a whistle blower as I do not want anything like that following me around when I search for future jobs.

My biggest concern is that we work with some classified projects but I figure since he is consulting the military they must know something about his job at the school.

I think the biggest conflict is that if he is doing consulting / research work for the military he is taking possible contracts away from the research dept. at the school.

sounds like you are trying or simply downplaying it now. You better than anyone what's really going on. I guess number 1, you should look out for your best interests, needless to say. Maybe just bouncing like you said is the best. With military/govt/info involved, I would imagine shit would hit the fan if they find out this guy is even sharing info, much less charging and doing so under the name of another agency...

[Jscotty]

lol, somebody put a character limit on JScotty's future posts.......

Hey man.. that's just the old school in me. I have been doing the forum thing since the 80's... back before computers were cool. And back in those days short posts were frowned upon. But I will share my stories of the dark ages for another time.

[ivo316]

He gets caught, he blames it on you, you are up shit creek.

Run like hell outta there or seal an envelope in a notary saying what is going on and then a week later blow the whistle on him, do not talk to his superiros unless you have some sort of way to protect yourself, they might be on it too.

Good luck.

I say run for it.... ;)

[PiercedE30]

or the "professor" could be a secret double agent ninja