Here's how Harvard concluded that a dishonesty expert committed misconduct
Francesca Gino said that another professor could have meddled with her data — but Harvard said she didn’t offer any proof.
Breaking news from me today: I have a summary of Harvard Business School’s newly unsealed, partially redacted investigative report into Francesca Gino, the behavioral scientist (and dishonesty expert) whom it concluded committed research misconduct. The 1,300-page report is embedded at the bottom of the story (which, friendly reminder, is free to read if you make an account with your email).
According to the report, dated March 7, 2023, one of Gino’s main defenses to the committee was that the perpetrator could have been someone else — someone who had access to her computer, online data-storage account, and/or data files.
Harvard Business School’s investigative report into the behavioral scientist Francesca Gino was made public this week, revealing extensive details about how the institution came to conclude that the professor committed research misconduct in a series of papers.
The nearly 1,300-page document was unsealed after a Tuesday ruling from a Massachusetts judge, the latest development in a $25 million lawsuit that Gino filed last year against Harvard University, the dean of the Harvard Business School, and three business-school professors who first notified Harvard of red flags in four of her papers. All four have been retracted. …
According to the report, dated March 7, 2023, one of Gino’s main defenses to the committee was that the perpetrator could have been someone else — someone who had access to her computer, online data-storage account, and/or data files.
Gino named a professor as the most likely suspect. …. But the investigation committee did not see a “plausible motive” for the other professor to have committed misconduct by falsifying Gino’s data. “Gino presented no evidence of any data falsification actions by actors with malicious intentions,” the committee wrote. “She offered only speculation that one or more such actors were responsible for the data anomalies and discrepancies at issue in the allegations.”
Gino’s other main defense, according to the report: Honest errors may have occurred when her research assistants were coding, checking, or cleaning the data. Gino told the investigators that if such errors had occurred, she would take full responsibility as the principal investigator.
Again, however, the committee wrote that “she does not provide any evidence of [research assistant] error that we find persuasive in explaining the major anomalies and discrepancies.”