Daniela Defazio

Daniela Defazio is an Assistant Professor in the Management Strategy & Organisation department at the School of Management, University of Bath. She is affiliated with the Centre for Research in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Bath Innovation Bridge and currently accepts doctoral students. Her office is located at 10 EAST 2.33, and she can be contacted at D.Defazio@bath.ac.uk.

Dr. Defazio earned her Doctor of Business Administration in Management of Innovation from Università di Bergamo. Her academic background has positioned her at the intersection of entrepreneurship, innovation, and organizational studies, with research contributing to UN Sustainable Development Goals related to economic growth and innovation.

Her research focuses on entrepreneurship and technological innovation at the intersection of economics, management, organization and policy. She examines how individuals, teams and networks generate, transfer and diffuse new ideas and inventions. Her work spans crowdfunding mechanisms, innovation ecosystems, and the dynamics of knowledge sharing in academic settings. Recent publications explore how negative feedback shapes language during crowdfunding campaigns, success factors in open source hardware development, and how professional and family roles impact academic knowledge sharing behavior.

Dr. Defazio's research shows consistent focus on entrepreneurial finance mechanisms, with particular attention to how social dynamics influence funding success. Her work bridges theoretical frameworks from organizational behavior, social psychology, and economics to address practical challenges faced by entrepreneurs seeking resources. The research demonstrates evolving sophistication from early work on technology transfer to more recent investigations of digital crowdfunding platforms.

She has secured research funding for multiple projects including the ongoing “Innovation Bridge Beacon” project (as Co-PI), and previously led “SANDPIT - The impact of digital transformation on higher education” and “How entrepreneurs manage social media to gather financial support from the crowd.”

Dr. Defazio is an active academic participant, regularly presenting at major conferences including the Strategic Management Conference, Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference, and various school engagement events focused on entrepreneurship. Her work has received attention from multiple news outlets, blogs, and social media platforms, indicating broader impact beyond academic circles.