A new episode in the Francesca Gino case

Andy King writes:

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝘃𝗮𝗿𝗱’𝘀 𝗹𝗮𝘄𝘆𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝗽𝗼𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀𝗰𝗮 𝗚𝗶𝗻𝗼 𝗰𝗮𝘀𝗲

My wife called to me. A constable was at the door.

He handed me a subpoena to appear for a deposition in the case of Francesca Gino v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Srikant Datar.

The subpoena puzzled us. I don’t believe I’ve ever met Francesca Gino, and I am certainly not an expert on her case. Why not call me or email me with any questions?

As directed, I arrived at the offices of Ropes & Gray, Harvard’s white-shoe law firm. I was seated in a conference room with a commanding view of Boston. Thick binders sat on the table. Video cameras were pointed at me, and a microphone clipped to my collar.

One of Harvard’s lawyers opened a binder and began the deposition. She asked about my career, publications, emails, opinions, and LinkedIn posts. Each item was examined, reviewed, noted, and filed away. Page by page. Hour by hour.

The reason for the subpoena became clear.

Harvard’s lawyers asked pointed questions about my allegations of research misconduct against HBS professor 𝗚𝗲𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗳𝗲𝗶𝗺—and they seemed interested in how those allegations compared with the ones against Francesca Gino.

A lawyer later explained the logic. In a case like this, one side may try to show that similar situations have been treated differently.

Here, both Harvard Business School professors have been accused of research misconduct. Yet only Gino lost her tenure and her position at Harvard.

Why?

At the time of my deposition, I had not given that question much thought. But nothing focuses the mind like a deposition.

So, over the next few posts I will consider:

• Do the complaints satisfy Harvard’s standards for research misconduct? • Is there evidence of a pattern? • Are the allegations similarly serious? • And any other questions that emerge.

We discussed King’s encounter with the work of George Serafeim in these two posts:

• This paper in Management Science has been cited more than 6,000 times. Wall Street executives, top government officials, and even a former U.S. Vice President have all referenced it. It’s fatally flawed, and the scholarly community refuses to do anything about it.

• False claims in a widely-cited paper. No corrections. No consequences. Welcome to the Business School.

I have no reason to think that Harvard is worse than other institutions. They just get all the publicity. When bad things happen at the University of Nevada or the University of California, you only hear about it on this blog. When it happens at Harvard or Stanford, the news goes around the world.

I also want to know: How does this subpoena thing work? Can the lawyers hold you against your will? Do they pay you for your time? The only time I’ve ever been deposed, it was for a consulting project and I was being paid. The questions were really stupid and they went on for hours, but it didn’t bother me because I could just keep my mind focused on the check.

P.S. See here for some background on the Gino case.