6th December 2007, 12:23 PM
It should be both.
I completely understand the desire among companies to develop brand recognition, which after all is intended to bring in more projects that will help its employees as much as its bosses. Furthermore, if one's reports have been based on company standards and/or pro formas and passed through set peer and line management review stages before being issued, those reports are indeed a product of the company, not simply the author. Furthermore, document control tables in the front of corporate-style reports will include the name of the author (as well as the reviewers who may have made valuable contributions themselves). This being the case, a company might justifiably wonder what the problem is: 'What do you want, a larger font?'. Well, maybe; or authorship on the title page too.
A more serious issue occurs when documents are referenced in other reports or publications. Often, one sees a long list of references for example by 'Borsetshire Archaeology Ltd. 2007d' in bibliographies, which I think is both incomplete and unfair to the author. It also does that individual's career no good whatsoever if the credit for cited work is taken wholly by the company (though some managers may see no business advantage in furthering staff's more academic ambitions). I have always followed the wishes of my employers at the time, but I don't see why the following shouldn't be preferable:
Archer, K, 2007, 'Grey Gables: an archaeological evaluation', (Borsetshire Archaeology Ltd., unpublished client report)
One might consider referencing reports like that against the intentions of the original issuing company/organisation. How much violence to referencing systems could such 'bad practice' do?
Personally speaking, building a corpus of reports is integral to getting where I want to be later in my career. If the fruits of my labours weren't improving my professional standing I would go and find employment where they would. This issue isn't critical for many archaeological career paths, but if you have certain goals then accreditation is that important.
I completely understand the desire among companies to develop brand recognition, which after all is intended to bring in more projects that will help its employees as much as its bosses. Furthermore, if one's reports have been based on company standards and/or pro formas and passed through set peer and line management review stages before being issued, those reports are indeed a product of the company, not simply the author. Furthermore, document control tables in the front of corporate-style reports will include the name of the author (as well as the reviewers who may have made valuable contributions themselves). This being the case, a company might justifiably wonder what the problem is: 'What do you want, a larger font?'. Well, maybe; or authorship on the title page too.
A more serious issue occurs when documents are referenced in other reports or publications. Often, one sees a long list of references for example by 'Borsetshire Archaeology Ltd. 2007d' in bibliographies, which I think is both incomplete and unfair to the author. It also does that individual's career no good whatsoever if the credit for cited work is taken wholly by the company (though some managers may see no business advantage in furthering staff's more academic ambitions). I have always followed the wishes of my employers at the time, but I don't see why the following shouldn't be preferable:
Archer, K, 2007, 'Grey Gables: an archaeological evaluation', (Borsetshire Archaeology Ltd., unpublished client report)
One might consider referencing reports like that against the intentions of the original issuing company/organisation. How much violence to referencing systems could such 'bad practice' do?
Personally speaking, building a corpus of reports is integral to getting where I want to be later in my career. If the fruits of my labours weren't improving my professional standing I would go and find employment where they would. This issue isn't critical for many archaeological career paths, but if you have certain goals then accreditation is that important.