Francesca Gino, a well-known professor at Harvard Business School (HBS) renowned for her research on honesty, has been accused of engaging in data fraud. Recent allegations have surfaced, claiming that she manipulated results in multiple behavioral science studies.
The discovery of her deceit unfolded when Harvard informed Max Bazerman, another HBS professor who co-authored a paper with Gino in 2012, that it suspected one of the studies overseen by Gino had fabricated its findings. The paper in question was originally published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences but was later retracted. This study focused on an experiment involving participants completing tax and insurance paperwork. Its main claim was that individuals who signed truthfulness declarations at the top of the page exhibited greater honesty than those who signed at the bottom.
According to The Guardian, Harvard presented Max Bazerman with “compelling evidence” of data falsification, including indications that someone had tampered with a database by adding and altering data.
In addition to these allegations, a blog named DataColoda, run by three academics specializing in behavioral science, published several posts outlining extensive evidence of suspected fraud in four academic papers co-authored by Gino. The blog authors had expressed their concerns to Harvard Business School in 2021 and believed that many more of Gino’s papers may contain fabricated data.
The authors of the blog stated that they had discovered evidence of fraud spanning over a decade, even in papers published as recently as 2020. In fall 2021, they shared a report with Harvard Business School, highlighting four studies where they had gathered the strongest evidence of fraud. They expressed the belief that numerous other papers authored by Gino could also contain fraudulent data, possibly numbering in the dozens. As a result of these allegations, Francesca Gino’s profile on the HBS website indicates that she is presently on administrative leave.
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