Organising Committee
Macquarie Business School
Ralf
Wilden
Ralf Wilden is Professor of Strategy & Innovation and Associate Dean Research (Training & Performance) at the Macquarie Business School. He is a co-founder and co-leader of the Innovation, Strategy and Entrepreneurship (ISE) research group at Macquarie Business School. Currently servicing on AOM STR research committee, he previously served the division as its longest serving member of the STR’s Global Scholars between 2016 and 2020. In this role, Ralf took on the leadership for the Global Scholars’ PDW organization; coordinated the STR Global Reps; supported the EC to design strategies to increase the division’s international outreach; and co-organized a paper development workshop in Sydney to bring the local STR community together.
His contributions to the area of dynamic capabilities have focused on answering the question of how organizations can benefit from resource integration to improve performance. He incorporates dynamic capability thinking with (open) innovation and co-creation to investigate managerially relevant problems, such as business models, and the impact of market shaping and reconfiguring on innovative behavior. He is also increasingly interested in strategic decision making, with an emphasis how managers make decisions under uncertainty. He has received industry funding in excess of $1,600,000.
Ralf worked in the automotive (BMW Group), telecommunications (o2 Telefónica) and consulting industries. Ralf's work has been recognized by several international and national associations, invitations to speak at industry conferences, and he authored journal publications in FT50 outlets including Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and Journal of Business Venturing, as well as in A*/A journals such as Academy of Management Annals, Journal of Product Innovation Management, and Long Range Planning.
Nidthida Lin
Nidthida Lin is Associate Professor of Strategy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Course Director of Global MBA at Macquarie Business School. Nidthida’s scholarly interests are predominantly in the areas of managerial decision making and design cognition in the context of innovation and entrepreneurship. Her work has been published in leading international academic journals such as Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Product Innovation Management, California Management Review, Academy of Management Learning and Education, and MIT Sloan Management Review. Nidthida is the recipient of Australian Research Council funding for the five-year study funded by ARC and Port Australia as well as the competitive funding from Penrith Business Council and Western Sydney University for the study aiming at stimulating economic development and innovation in the Penrith region.
Nidthida completed her Ph.D. in Management from Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM), University of New South Wales and University of Sydney, and her Master’s degree in Computer Science from Cornell University. Upon a completion of her Ph.D., Nidthida worked on the Offshoring Research Network (ORN) project as a Senior Research Associate at Center of International Business Research and Education (CIBER), Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, USA. Prior to her Ph.D., Nidthida worked as a business consultant at Accenture specializing in Enterprise Business Intelligence and Data Mining.
Francesco
Chirico
Francesco Chirico is a Professor of Strategy and Family Business at Macquarie Business School. He is a co-founder and co-leader of the Innovation, Strategy and Entrepreneurship (ISE) research group and the Australasian Family Enterprise Research Network (AFERN) in Australia. Previously, he served the roles of Head of Discipline in Business Administration and co-Director of the Center for Family Enterprise and Ownership (CeFEO) at Jönköping International Business School (JIBS, Sweden). Before joining JIBS, he worked at Texas A&M University and Rice University in the US. Founder and owner of ‘Francesco Chirico Consulting AB’ in Sweden.
Francesco Chirico's research focus on the intersection of strategy and entrepreneurship with a special focus on family firms. His research work explores resource management processes and acquisition and divestiture strategies that affect the realization of competitive advantage, innovation and value creation in organizations. Part of the organizing Committee and session chair at multiple international conferences (e.g., AOM, IFERA, EIASM, 1st international Conference in Management and Economics in Rwanda– University of Rwanda, Africa). Francesco Chirico's research has been published in international journals including, among others, Journal of Management, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management Studies, Entrepreneurship, Theory & Practice, Journal of Business Venturing, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Organization Studies, Human Relations, Small Business Economics, Strategic Organization and Family Business Review.
External Committee
Mariano
(Pitosh) Heyden
Dr Mariano (Pitòsh) Heyden is Professor of Strategy & International Business at the Monash Business School, where he is the Director of the PhD Program in the Department of Management. He holds a PhD from the Rotterdam School of Management. Prior to Monash, he was a faculty member at the Newcastle Business School (AU), where he was recognized with a Vice Chancellor’s Award for Research & Innovation Excellence. Prof Heyden has been awarded over AU$700k in funding over his career, including the Australian Research Council’s prestigious Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA-17).
Prof Heyden’s research helps uncover the characteristics of senior business leaders that enable or constrain innovation and change. His interdisciplinary approach intersects strategic leadership, corporate governance, and strategic renewal; being published in leading international journals, including Journal of Management, Journal of Applied Psychology, Research Policy, Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies, Human Resource Management, and The Leadership Quarterly; as well as book chapters by Oxford, Palgrave Macmillan, and Springer. His research-informed engagement with topical issues features in ABC News, Business Insider, MIT Sloan Management Review, Harvard Business Review, The Conversation, Sydney Morning Herald, and the World Economic Forum's Agenda.
Sam MacAulay
Dr Sam MacAulay is an Associate Professor at the University of Queensland Business School. Sam’s research informs and transforms how we understand the strategic organisation of innovation. He does this through research addressing the foundations of strategy and innovation. Empirically, Sam’s 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, his 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). He is currently bringing this research together to study the innovation in the context of artificial intelligence used in medical imaging with colleagues at UQ's ARC Training Centre for Innovation in Biomedical Imaging Technology. His research has been published or is forthcoming in a wide variety of top journals ranging from MITSloan Management Review and the Academy of Management Review through to Transportation Research Part A and EMBO Reports.
Krithika Randhawa
Krithika Randhawa is Associate Professor of Strategy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Business School at the University of Sydney. Her research examines how corporates and start-ups can manage innovation at the interface of strategy and digital technologies. She has a particular interest in open innovation, digital platforms, ecosystems, crowdsourcing, communities, and collaborative business models. Krithika has published in leading journals such as the Journal of Management Studies, Product Innovation Management, Journal of Business Research, Technovation, Industrial Marketing Management, Industrial and Corporate Change, and California Management Review, book chapters, industry reports, media articles and podcasts (e.g., R&D Today, The Mandarin and Government News). Through her research, Krithika has delivered solutions addressing industry and policy challenges for the private and public sector. Krithika is Associate Editor of the R&D Management journal, Associate Program Chair of the World Open Innovation Conference, and member on the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Product Innovation Management.
Stephen Zhang
Stephen Zhang is a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Adelaide. He studies how entrepreneurs and top management teams behave under uncertainties. Stephen has published articles in top journals in entrepreneurship (e.g. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice), management (e.g. Academy of Management Journal) as well as COVID-19 research in health journals. His work has been featured in major media outlets (e.g., Yahoo; MSN; HuffPost; the Age; Sydney Morning Herald). Stephen has worked previously at the University of Sydney, Catholic University of Chile, and National University of Singapore. Prior to his academic career, Stephen has worked in several industries and has founded startups. Stephen received his Bachelor Degree at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and his Ph.D. from the National University of Singapore. Prior to his academic career, Stephen has founded ventures and worked in several industries including engineering, management consultancy, market research, and innovation management. Stephen is the founding director of the Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship and Innovation Society (APEIS).
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