Sam MacAulay

My research informs and transforms how we understand the strategic organisation of innovation. I do this through research addressing the foundations of strategy and innovation. Empirically, my research focuses on complex, project-based forms of organising commonly found in infrastructure, engineering, and resources, to develop better explanations for how organisations innovate and adapt. Scholars of strategy and innovation have traditionally paid less attention to these organisational forms. And yet they are a central feature of many economies, including Australia. Theoretically, my research makes contributions to The Behavioral Theory of the Firm (e.g. developing new, more socialised models of organisational search and innovation), the Resource-based View of the Firm (e.g. how engineering and design can be used to protect innovation knowledge from imitation), and Project Organising (e.g. developing new frameworks for managing innovation in projects). My research has been published or is forthcoming in a wide variety of top journals ranging from MIT Sloan Management Review and the Academy of Management Review through to the Journal of Technology Transfer and EMBO Reports. I love mentoring Honours, Masters, and PhD students passionate about doing research on innovation. I regularly get requests to supervise students and can only take on a small number. What I look for in a candidate is a clear understanding of the literature motivating their research interest, some knowledge of my research, and insight into how they see our interests connecting. The Organization of Innovation: I study how innovation is shaped by organizational design, how new products and services are created, and the role of competition in knowledge production. Carnegie School organizational theory: My research here is twofold. I study how better socialized theories of organizational search can improve explanations of organizational adaptation and learning. And I am also branching out to study how organizational slack influences this process. Construction, Infrastructure, and Mining: Construction, infrastructure, and mining, have all traditionally received little attention in mainstream research on innovation, management, and strategy. I am doing research that tries to change this. Project-based organizations: My research investigates the strategic organization of project-based organisational forms, ranging from the delivery models of complex infrastructure projects through to service providers in mining.

[2026] Thinking and doing differently: the immediate impact of entrepreneurship education on STEM PhD students. Jenkins, Anna, Oyola-Lozada, Giuliana, MacAulay, Sam and Pregelj, Lisette (2026). Thinking and doing differently: the immediate impact of entrepreneurship education on STEM PhD students. Journal of Technology Transfer. doi: 10.1007/s10961-026-10339-6 [2025] Let’s Go Beyond Lean Startup: Startups Designing Business Models When Technical Uncertainty is High. Rincon, Carlos, Jenkins, Anna Saies, Pregelj, Lisette and MacAulay, Sam C. (2025). Let’s Go Beyond Lean Startup: Startups Designing Business Models When Technical Uncertainty is High. Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2025, Copenhagen, Denmark, 25-29 July 2025. Briarcliff Manor, NY United States: Academy of Management. doi: