Rebel talent

Data science and statistics are cornerstones of scientific progress, allowing the rigorous validation of research findings. Nonetheless, their mere presence in scientific work far from guarantees academic integrity, and institutional hurdles faced by those who question the status quo can be significant.

Published

May 1st, 2025

1 Why connect?

  • Gino, Kouchaki, and Casciaro (2023, Retracted) studied the effects of people’s mindset on their feelings about networking.
  • The investigated mindsets were:
    • Promotion focus: individuals primed to think about achieving gains in their career.
    • Prevention focus: individuals primed to think about avoiding losses in their career.

Why connect?

  1. Gino, Kouchaki, and Casciaro (2023, Retracted) split participants into three groups:
  • Promotion focus: participants asked to write about their hopes and aspirations
  • Prevention focus: participants asked to write about their duties and obligations
  • Control group: participants asked to write about their daily activities

Why connect?

  1. Then, participants were asked to imagine themselves in a networking event.
    • and rate and describe their feelings about networking.
    • e.g., “How dirty do you feel about attending this networking event?”

Why connect?

  • Gino, Kouchaki, and Casciaro (2023, Retracted) reported that
    • the prevention-primed participants felt (statistically) significantly dirtier about networking than the promotion-primed participants.

2 Rebel talent

  • In 2018, Zoe Ziani was a Ph.D. student at ESSEC Business School (Paris, France).
  • During her studies, she came across the article of Gino, Kouchaki, and Casciaro (2023, Retracted).
  • She noticed some irregularities in the data and the methodology used in the article.

Rebel talent

  • In her post Mortem blog post (Ziani 2023), Ziani describes her journey:

Rebel talent

  • In her post Mortem blog post (Ziani 2023), Ziani describes her journey:
  • Instead, Ziani included a 10-page critique of (Gino, Kouchaki, and Casciaro 2023 Retracted) in her thesis, explaining why she chose not to rely on it in her research.
  • Two members of the thesis committee clarified that they would not sign off her dissertation until all traces of the criticism of (Gino, Kouchaki, and Casciaro 2023 Retracted) are removed!

Rebel talent

  • In her post Mortem blog post (Ziani 2023), Ziani describes her journey:
  • Ziani was unwavering and instead decided to approach Data Colada.

3 Data Colada

  • They investigate the robustness of empirical findings in the social sciences.
  • Posts involve quantitative analyses and replications of published studies.

Data Colada

  • Data Colada investigated the (Gino, Kouchaki, and Casciaro 2023 Retracted).

    • They replicated the study.
    • Looked at the data sources.
    • Gathered reports from whistleblowers.
    • And even checked the calcChain in the Excel file to find evidence of manipulation in different cells in the spreadsheet.

Data Colada

  • In 2021, they approached Harvard Business School (HBS) where Francesca Gino was a tenured professor.
  • The HBS dean, Srikant Datar, initiated an internal investigation to validate the findings.
  • The investigation (11 months and a confidential 1300-page report) concluded that the data in the article was fabricated.
  • In addition, three other articles by Gino were also found to be susceptible to data fabrication.

Data Colada

Simonsohn, Nelson, and Simmons (2023)

Data Colada

Simonsohn, Nelson, and Simmons (2023)

The aftermath

  • Gino was placed on administrative leave without pay by the HBS.
  • Gino filed a lawsuit against both HBS and Data Colada for defamation.
  • The confidential report was made public after a court order.
  • Gino lost the case.

References

Gino, Francesca, Maryam Kouchaki, and Tiziana Casciaro. 2023. “Retracted Article: Why Connect? Moral Consequences of Networking with a Promotion or Prevention Focus.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 125 (3): 648–48. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000351.
Simonsohn, Uri, Leif Nelson, and Joe Simmons. 2023. “[112] Data Falsificada (Part 4): Forgetting The Words.” Data Colada. https://datacolada.org/112.
Ziani, Zoé. 2023. “A Post Mortem on the Gino Case.” The Organizational Plumber. https://www.theorgplumber.com/posts/statement/.