Harvard Business School Fires Tenured Professor Francesca Gino Over Fabricated Research on Dishonesty

Francesca Gino, a celebrated behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School whose work has focused on dishonesty, was fired by Harvard last week.

Harvard University has taken the rare step of stripping tenure and terminating a prominent professor, Francesca Gino, after an internal investigation concluded she manipulated data in multiple high-profile behavioral studies on dishonesty.

Gino, a widely respected behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School, was dismissed following a decision by the university’s highest governing body. The investigation found that she altered data in four separate academic studies to support her hypotheses. The studies, published between 2012 and 2020, had garnered significant attention in the field of behavioral science.

Faculty were notified of Gino’s termination in a closed-door meeting. While Harvard has not publicly detailed the specifics of her firing due to personnel privacy, the move marks a significant disciplinary action — the first revocation of tenure at Harvard in decades, with no such cases recorded since the 1940s.

Harvard administrators notified business faculty that Gino was out of a job in a closed-door meeting

Concerns about Gino's research first emerged in 2021 after fellow behavioral scientists raised red flags about one of her most cited studies, which claimed that individuals were more likely to be honest if they signed a pledge at the beginning of a form. The paper, based on three lab experiments, was later retracted in 2021 due to what was described as clear evidence of data fabrication.

Three additional studies authored or co-authored by Gino were flagged by the same group of researchers on the blog Data Colada, citing manipulated datasets. This prompted a comprehensive internal probe by Harvard from 2022 to 2023. Investigators interviewed Gino and her collaborators, analyzed raw data, reviewed manuscripts and emails, and enlisted an independent forensic firm to assess the integrity of the research.

Gino denied any wrongdoing, claiming any discrepancies may have resulted from honest errors by her or her research team—or potential tampering by someone with “malicious intentions.” Investigators dismissed those claims and delivered their findings to Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar in March 2023. Gino was placed on unpaid leave, and formal termination procedures were initiated.

The Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Three of the four studies were recommended for retraction, with one already withdrawn prior to the final report.

Despite the findings, Gino has consistently maintained her innocence. In public statements on her website, she declared: “I did not commit academic fraud. I did not manipulate data. I did not falsify data to bolster any result.”

In June 2023, Gino filed a $25 million lawsuit against Harvard, Dean Datar, and the Data Colada bloggers, alleging defamation, reputational damage, and financial losses. In March 2024, she again reiterated her stance, arguing that Harvard denied her a fair investigative process and access to expert support.

However, a federal judge in Boston dismissed her defamation claims against both Harvard and the Data Colada authors in September 2023. The judge ruled that Gino, as a public figure, was subject to scrutiny under the First Amendment.

Francesca Gino, who authored over 140 academic papers and received numerous accolades for her research into human behavior, has now become the center of one of academia’s most high-profile integrity scandals in recent history.