I discussed the data alteration with internal management

Of the 401 respondents who answered, 292 (72.82%) answered True and 109 (27.18%) answered False. At engagement level, the answer was associated with cancellation, the engagement indicator mean and intent to leave. Engagements whose respondents most often said they had discussed the data alteration with internal management were canceled less often (39.77% of 88 engagements against 64.00% of 25), recorded a higher engagement indicator mean and had lower intent to leave among their respondents. The association with customer satisfaction was not tested, because fewer than two answers were assigned to at least ten engagements.

The share answering True did not differ by any segment family after Holm correction.

Of the 210 written responses, 172 were positive and 37 negative. The positive responses, nearly all under C204, said the respondent had told the team lead or manager, and some added that the financial institution was not told. Most negative responses came from respondents who had told no one, or no one above them.

Of the 401 respondents who answered, 292 (72.82%) answered True and 109 (27.18%) answered False. The non-answers were I prefer to not answer (8). Each engagement was assigned the answer given by the largest number of its respondents. True was the assigned answer on 88 engagements and False on 25, “I prefer to not answer” on 1, and 36 engagements were tied or unanswered and carry no assigned answer.

The primary responses numbered 210, written in answer to C204, C202, C210 and C208, the written-answer questions of the indicator's survey section. No response from any other question addressed the indicator, so every response was primary.

The 196 responses to C204 described how the alteration was handled within the vendor. In 150, the respondent said they told the team lead, manager or team, or that the lead or manager already knew. Respondents placed the alteration at a frequency, such as every cycle, most weeks or seven out of ten, in 143 responses, and said that telling the lead changed nothing at the financial institution in 27.

Across all questions, respondents said the financial institution was not told in 41 responses. Two responses said the financial institution had been told directly or in writing. In 34 of the 37 negative responses, the respondent said they had told no one, or no one above them, of the alteration, several because raising it had changed nothing before, and one because the respondent was new to the team.

Of the 210 responses, 37 (17.62%, 95% CI 12.38% to 23.30%) were negative and 32 (15.24%) carried the strongest negative score of −10. Positive responses numbered 172 (81.90%), and 1 was neutral. The mean written score was 3.1 (95% CI 2.2 to 3.9, n = 210 responses), and the median was 5.0.

Each share is computed on the respondents who answered in that row. Rows with fewer than 10 respondents report counts only.

Segment families recorded at engagement level were tested on engagements, and respondent role and vendor type on respondents. The share answering True did not differ by any segment family after Holm correction.

Written sentiment did not differ by engagement status and lifecycle stage across the 101 engagements with a written response (Kruskal-Wallis H 6.83, df 3, p = 0.078). Of the groups with 10 or more responses, responses from canceled engagements were the most negative (mean 2.1, 108 responses) and responses from active engagements in Build-Out the least negative (mean 4.4, 40 responses).

No test across respondent roles was run, because fewer than two roles had 30 or more written responses. Individual contributors wrote 205 responses, engagement managers 5.

Cancellation rate is the share of engagements canceled by the study date, measured at engagement level (150 engagements, 56 canceled). Canceled engagements were rated after cancellation. The association is therefore a descriptive contrast and not a forecast of cancellation. Each test compares the engagements by their assigned answer, within the study set and within each segment.

Of the engagements whose respondents most often answered True, 35 of 88 (39.77%) were canceled, against 16 of 25 (64.00%) of those whose respondents most often answered False (chi-square 4.61, p = 0.032, Cramer's V 0.20, n = 113 engagements). The difference reached significance and held after Holm correction in 0 of the 2 segment levels tested.

Customer satisfaction is the percentage recorded against each engagement. The primary estimate uses the 94 active engagements.

Among active engagements, customer satisfaction was 62.9% (n = 53 engagements) where respondents most often answered True and 57.0% (n = 9 engagements) where respondents most often answered False. No test was computed, because fewer than two answers were assigned to at least ten engagements.

The engagement indicator mean is the mean of an engagement's ratings across the rated indicators, measured at engagement level. The indicator is not a rated indicator and does not enter the mean.

The engagement indicator mean was 3.8 (n = 88 engagements) on engagements whose respondents most often answered True and 3.2 (n = 25 engagements) on those whose respondents most often answered False (Welch F 6.49, p = 0.014, omega squared 0.029, n = 113 engagements). The difference reached significance and held after Holm correction in 1 of the 3 segment levels tested.

Intent to leave is the answer to C019, “How likely are you to leave your current job in the next 12 months?”, rated 1 to 10 by up to 798 respondents. For the indicator, the comparison uses the mean intent to leave of each engagement.

The engagement mean of intent to leave was 6.9 (n = 88 engagements) on engagements whose respondents most often answered True and 8.2 (n = 25 engagements) on those whose respondents most often answered False (Welch F 9.59, p = 0.003, omega squared 0.048, n = 113 engagements). The difference reached significance and held after Holm correction in 2 of the 3 segment levels tested.

Two comparisons set the engagements with at least one negative response against all other engagements. Of the 118 other engagements, 49 had no written response addressing the indicator. These two comparisons therefore do not isolate written sentiment. Of the 32 engagements with a negative response, 21 (65.63%) were canceled, against 35 of the 118 other engagements (29.66%). The difference reached significance (Fisher exact p < 0.001). Customer satisfaction among active engagements differed between the two groups (mean 53.09% on 11 engagements against 65.55% on 83, Welch t −5.69, p < 0.001).

Two correlations test written sentiment directly. Across the 101 engagements with a written response, the engagement mean written score was not associated with cancellation (point-biserial r −0.19, p = 0.060). Across 182 respondents, the respondent mean written score was not associated with intent to leave (Spearman rho −0.14, p = 0.057). Of the four comparisons, two reached significance at 0.05.

Steiger's z compares two correlations. A categorical indicator yields an effect size across its levels and not a correlation, so the pairs of measures were not compared by test. On omega squared, the association was strongest with intent to leave (0.048) and weakest with the engagement indicator mean (0.029). The association with customer satisfaction was not tested and has no effect size.

Answers clustered within engagements (ICC 0.40). Clustering reduced the 409 respondent answers to the equivalent of about 218 independent answers. Respondent-level intervals therefore used the cluster bootstrap. Respondent-level tests used standard errors that allow for clustering by engagement.

No association tested was equivalent to zero. The equivalence bound is an omega squared of 0.090, the study's threshold for a negligible association expressed as variance explained.

Four of the five checks computed held. Four checks were not computed, because the primary test or the check had too few engagements in a level: the Kruskal-Wallis check for customer satisfaction, the check on active engagements alone for the engagement indicator mean, the check on active engagements alone for intent to leave and the respondent-level clustered check for customer satisfaction. A check holds when its test falls on the same side of 0.05 as the primary test. The checks replace Welch's F with a Kruskal-Wallis test, repeat the tests on active engagements alone, and repeat them at respondent level with a Wald F clustered by engagement.

One check failed. The Kruskal-Wallis check for the engagement indicator mean gave p = 0.058, against p = 0.014 for the primary test.

Each of the four measures was computed from data the indicator does not contain. Each result is therefore a finding and not an arithmetic consequence.

A categorical indicator has no signed correlation with the study measures and therefore no profile against the study norm. The comparison by answer appears in the four association sections.

Among the 13 Part 5 indicators with 30 or more written responses, the indicator's share of negative responses, 17.62%, ranked 12th from the highest, against a median of 98.03%. Its mean written score, 3.1, ranked 12th from the most negative, against a median of −6.3.

The indicator most often present in the same responses was C199, “I have altered client-provided data”, in 128 of the 210 responses (60.95%). C201, “I or my management discussed data alteration with the client” (84 responses), C094, “Rate the quality of the customer's data across the systems this engagement depends on.” (71 responses), C203, “My greater team regularly alters client provided data.” (26 responses) and C108, “Rate the customer's ability to provision the system access and identities that AI agents require.” (19 responses) followed.

The most frequent theme was “Told vendor-side management”, in 177 responses (84.29%). The second was “Occurs every cycle or most days”, in 101 responses.

Of the respondents who answered, 72.82% said they had discussed the data alteration with internal management. Engagements whose respondents most often said so were canceled less often, recorded a higher engagement indicator mean and reported lower intent to leave than those whose respondents most often said they had not. The association with customer satisfaction was not tested. The association with the engagement indicator mean did not hold under the Kruskal-Wallis check.

The written evidence describes disclosure that stopped inside the vendor. Respondents who discussed the alteration told the team lead or manager, and few responses said the financial institution had been told. Respondents who told no one described the same alterations made in silence. The associations do not establish that internal disclosure produced the outcomes.

The evidence is the reported experience of the vendor's delivery teams, collected in a single cross-section. The associations reported here are not causal. The answer is the respondent's own report of an alteration and not a record of it.

Each engagement carries the answer given by the largest number of its respondents, and tied engagements are excluded from the engagement-level tests.

Shares of written sentiment are shares of responses and not of the study set of respondents. The written score takes five fixed values, so its mean and median are coarse. Responses clustered within engagements (210 responses on 101 engagements). Intervals for written sentiment therefore used a bootstrap by engagement.

The written responses are counted by sets of words stated in each rule. A response that described a practice in other words is not counted, so each count is a floor.

Only 25 engagements were assigned the answer False, so the comparisons rest on a small group.