Francesca Gino
Francesca Gino (born ) is an Italian-American behavioral scientist.

In June 2023, after an investigation concluded that she had falsified data in her research, she was placed on unpaid administrative leave from her position as Tandon Family Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School (HBS) and as head of HBS's Negotiation, Organizations and Markets (NOM) unit.

Education and early career
Gino grew up in Tione di Trento, Italy. She earned her Bachelor's degree at the University of Trento, Italy in 2001, and her MS and PhD at Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa in 2004. During these studies, she came to Harvard Business School as a visiting fellow, and stayed on as a postdoctoral fellow after completing her Ph.D.

Before joining Harvard University in 2010, she taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Carnegie Mellon University.

Career
Gino conducted research on rule-breaking, which she discusses in her 2018 book, Rebel Talent. She was also affiliated with Harvard Law School's Program on Negotiation, and with Harvard University's Mind, Brain, Behavior Initiative. Between December 2016 and 2019, she served as  editor-in-chief of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Gino, the co-author of many peer-reviewed articles, was described by behavioral scientist Maurice Schweitzer at the Wharton School as a "leading scholar in the field" of behavioral science.

Allegations of data fabrication
In June 2023 Gino was placed on administrative leave by Harvard. She is a co-author of a 2012 article that was retracted for being based on falsified data; she reported that a lab manager collected the data.

At least three more studies associated with Gino allegedly contain falsified data.
Two additional papers, published in 2014 and 2015, of which she was the first author, were retracted in June 2023. One paper she had worked on had already been retracted due to probable falsification by a co-author. Gino declined to confirm or deny the allegations. The fourth paper is set to be retracted in September 2023.

According to Max Bazerman, her colleague at Harvard Business School and a coauthor with her on multiple papers, Harvard informed him that the experiments he co-authored with Gino contained additional fraudulent data.

Response
Gino subsequently filed a defamation suit against Harvard, Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar, and a trio of data investigators for $25 million, alleging that they had conspired to damage her reputation with false accusations and that the penalties against her amounted to gender-based discrimination under Title IX.

The suit does not contest or refute the defendants' scientific findings. It asserts that since the researchers used inference and probability to argue that the anomalies between the original dataset and the data used in Gino's analyses could not have been due to random chance or benign error, and therefore occurred from fraudulent manipulation, the defendants cannot prove she in particular committed the scientific misconduct.

Subsequently, according to The Harvard Crimson, "Harvard University and Harvard Business School Dean Srikant M. Datar filed a motion on Tuesday …[October 10, 2023]… to partially dismiss the pending $25 million lawsuit against them by HBS professor Francesca Gino, citing the need for the University to have autonomy in its academic decision-making."

Books

References

Further reading
 Gideon Lewis-Kraus, "They Studied Dishonesty. Was Their Work a Lie?", The New Yorker, September 30, 2023 online.

External links

Harvard Business School Faculty page

Living people
Harvard Business School faculty
University of Trento alumni
Italian emigrants to the United States
Academic journal editors
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty
1978 births
Carnegie Mellon University faculty
People from Trentino