Stefano Grazioli

Education

• Ph.D., Management Information Systems, University of Minnesota
• M.S., Computer Sciences, University of Minnesota
• B.S., Business & Economics, Bocconi University, Milano, Italy

Professor Grazioli is the Director of the M.S. in the Management of Information Technology Program, which teaches participants to deliver greater business value through information technology. Featuring an executive format, the program has two sections: one on Grounds in Charlottesville and the other in the Valo Park complex in Tysons Corner. Program participants are seasoned professionals, with an average work experience of 13 years. The M.S. in MIT Program has been in existence for over 20 years, and Professor Grazioli has directed it for the last decade.

Professor Grazioli has conducted research, educational, and training projects for major organizations such as Bank of America, the Internal Revenue Service, Norwest Bank, KPMG, and Informix (now IBM). His teaching and research projects include the following themes:

Innovation

• “Digital Innovation,” a class based on Google Venture’s design thinking methodology, and on understanding key concepts in today’s rapidly changing technological landscape.
• Emerging technologies and concepts: network effects, Internet of things, blockchain, robotic process automation.

IT and Finance

• Hedge tournament, in which students build an algorithmic trader that hedges a portfolio of stock and options.
• “Managing Risk in Social Exchange” contrasts and compares tactics that foreign currency traders and auditors use to make sense of risk posed by interaction with others (Psychological Explorations of Competent Decision-Making, Cambridge University Press).

Fraud Detection

• “Tactics Used against Consumers as Victims of Internet Deception” summarizes the findings from the construction of the first research database of cases of Internet deception and fraud (International Journal of Electronic Commerce).
• “Detecting Deception: Adversarial Problem Solving in a Low Base Rate World” (Cognitive Science) proposes and tests a theory of deception and its detection. The theory is applicable to a wide range of organizational settings in which information is strategically manipulated.
• “Perils of Internet Fraud: An Empirical Investigation of Deception and Trust with Experienced Internet Consumers” is the first experimental study of phishing, the widespread practice of deploying sites on the Web that mimic another site’s name or look for the purpose of stealing secrets or obtaining business directed elsewhere (IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics).

Global

• “UVA in Argentina,” an IT practicum in which a team of undergraduate students solve real business problems experienced by small business in Mendoza, Argentina.
• “International IT Retrospectives,” a global residency during which students analyze a major IT project that has been recently completed by an Argentine business. Graduate students use the tools covered in the M.S. in MIT Program to identify best practices as well as develop recommendations for improvement to share with their real-world clients.

Professor Grazioli has taught management of information technology, digital innovation, enterprise architecture, databases, and business process modeling to graduate and executive education classes in the United States, Europe, and South America. In 2009, he received an All-University Teaching Award from the University of Virginia, and in 2018 the annual Faculty Recognition Award from The Order of Claw & Dagger. Areas of Expertise