Stephen Diasio

Steve is a Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Muma College of Business in the University of South Florida. Steve has been a researcher at ESADE Business School in Barcelona, Spain, Imperial Business School in London, UK in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group and has taught at other universities in Europe.

As a professor, he teaches courses in management and uses design thinking for problem-solving in the areas of innovation, strategy and entrepreneurship. Steve is the founder of the Finger Puppet Management Framework- an innovative way to teach management in the classroom, where students create TV shows to learn management and innovation. Steve was the ‘expert in residence’ in a teaching collaboration with the Patterson Foundation, Feld Entertainment (Ringling Brothers Circus and Disney on Ice). Steve view’s his work at the intersection of management and design and is an advocate for using design approaches to solve challenging business and societal problems.

Steve has launched two MBA courses: Management Design Thinking and Innovation and Dali at USF and is the only course on the topic in the state of Florida. This course is offered as a 1-week intensive course and a 6-week online course.

Prior to pursuing his Ph.D., Steve worked at Aon Corp. as a project manager designing front and back-end underwriting systems, a not-for-profit in Chicago, clerking at the Chicago Board of Trade and at a leading fashion designer in London.

Writing & research

As a researcher of innovation, Steve's contributions include extending the open innovation paradigm through his investigation with IBM Innovation Jams. Steve argues that inflows and outflows of knowledge within open innovation are relevant beyond product and service innovation and through the application of emerging technology can support managerial decision-making. Research during his Ph.D. studies at ESADE Business School culminated in framing his Open Model of Decision-Support research agenda.

He has worked as a lead researcher on several European projects including IA5 Research Project sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Industry focusing on open innovation- a precursor to Europe's Open Cities and the development of a cognitive system with the GREC research group on Project SENSUS and chocolatier Oriol Balaguer.

Steve’s research touches on the use of metaphors to understand models of innovation. He argues the dominant metaphor of a jazz band to understand innovation and creativity is outdated and limiting. Steve suggests new metaphors are needed to understand emerging models of innovation. Steve offers the metaphor of a ‘jamband’ as the new lens to view these new modes of innovation. Drawing from the legendary ‘jambands’ such as, The Grateful Dead, The Allman Brothers Band and even Dave Matthews Band, insights into the microfoundations and mechanisms to design these emerging models of innovations can be made. Click Here for news coverage on topic.

Steve is the founder of the annual Design School Social Media Rankings

RESEARCH

Balser, W, Diasio, S., and T. Kendal (2021) "Societal Reorientation via Programmable Trust: A Case for Piloting New Models of Open Governance in Education" in Grech A, Media, "Technology and Education in a Post-Truth Society: From Fake News, Datafication and Mass Surveillance to the Death of Trust," Emerald Publishing Limited.

Diasio, S. (2021) "A Techno-Social Perspective of Innovation Jams: Defining and Characterizing. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management," February DOI: 10.1080/09537325.2021.1884674

Diasio, S. (2019) "An Alternative History of Open Innovation: A Complimentary View to Xerox PARC, European Academy of Management Conference, Lisbon, Portugal.

Diasio, S. (2017) "Open Models of Decision Support: Towards a Framework," International Society for Professional Innovation Management, Melbourne, Australia.

Diasio, S. (2017) "Problem-Solvers and Solution-Seeking Firms: Connecting Learning to Innovation Contests," European Academy of Management Conference, Glasgow, Scotland.