Harvard’s Star Honesty Researcher Busted in Probe, Investigators Recommend Termination
A Harvard Business School professor whose research into why people cheat and act dishonestly was found by an internal probe to have cheated and acted dishonestly, according to The Harvard Crimson , the student newspaper…

A Harvard Business School professor whose research into why people cheat and act dishonestly was found by an internal probe to have cheated and acted dishonestly, according to The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper of Harvard University.
The nearly 1,300-page internal report into professor Francesca Gino found that she had adjusted data in at least four published studies so as to make the data fit the theories she was trying to prove, according to the New York Post.
“The committee concludes that Professor Gino has engaged in multiple instances of research misconduct, across all four studies at issue in these allegations,” the report read, according to the Post.
As a result, the investigating committee of three Harvard Business School faculty members recommended that Gino be terminated and all of the studies be retracted.
“Harvard’s Office of the President notified Gino in late July that her tenure was under review for revocation,” The Harvard Crimson reported. “If she is stripped of her tenure, it would be an unprecedented move by Harvard, as there are no known cases of the University revoking a professor’s tenure.”
Gino had offered two explanations for the allegations of dishonesty in her studies: “honest error, likely by her research assistants” or that “someone other than herself tampered with the data,” according to The Harvard Crimson.


