Rory McDonald

3.2k total citations · 3 hit papers
36 papers, 2.0k citations indexed

About

Rory McDonald is a scholar working on Strategy and Management, Accounting and Management of Technology and Innovation. According to data from OpenAlex, Rory McDonald has authored 36 papers receiving a total of 2.0k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 9 papers in Strategy and Management, 8 papers in Accounting and 7 papers in Management of Technology and Innovation. Recurrent topics in Rory McDonald's work include Private Equity and Venture Capital (8 papers), Entrepreneurship Studies and Influences (7 papers) and Corporate Finance and Governance (7 papers). Rory McDonald is often cited by papers focused on Private Equity and Venture Capital (8 papers), Entrepreneurship Studies and Influences (7 papers) and Corporate Finance and Governance (7 papers). Rory McDonald collaborates with scholars based in United States. Rory McDonald's co-authors include Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor, Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, Elizabeth J. Altman, Cheng Gao, Y. Sekou Bermiss, Emily Cox Pahnke, Benjamin L. Hallen, Dan Wang and Dan Wang and has published in prestigious journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal and Administrative Science Quarterly.

In The Last Decade

Rory McDonald

33 papers receiving 1.8k citations

Hit Papers

What Is Disruptive Innovation 2015 2026 2018 2022 2015 2018 2019 100 200 300 400 500
What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

  1. What Is Disruptive Innovation
    2015 592 citations Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor et al. Harvard business review profile →
  2. Disruptive Innovation: An Intellectual History and Directions for Future Research
    2018 416 citations Clayton M. Christensen, Rory McDonald et al. Journal of Management Studies profile →
  3. Parallel Play: Startups, Nascent Markets, and Effective Business-model Design
    2019 256 citations Rory McDonald, Kathleen M. Eisenhardt Administrative Science Quarterly profile →

Peers

Rory McDonald
Heng Liu China
Dilek Çetindamar Australia
Marina Apaydın Lebanon
Vincenzo Corvello Italy
José Ruíz‐Navarro Spain
Luca Dezi Italy
Anna Nosella Italy
Mattia Bianchi Italy
Antonio Rafael Ramos-Rodríguez Spain
Felipe Mendes Borini Brazil
Heng Liu China
Rory McDonald
Citations per year, relative to Rory McDonald Rory McDonald (= 1×) peers Heng Liu

Countries citing papers authored by Rory McDonald

Since Specialization
Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Rory McDonald's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by Rory McDonald with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Rory McDonald more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Rory McDonald

Since Specialization
Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Rory McDonald. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by Rory McDonald. The network helps show where Rory McDonald may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Rory McDonald

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Rory McDonald. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Rory McDonald based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with Rory McDonald. Rory McDonald is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

20 of 20 papers shown
1.
McDonald, Rory, et al.. (2026). How Well Can AI Do Strategy? Empirical Benchmarking Using Strategy Simulations. Strategy Science.
2.
Allen, Ryan & Rory McDonald. (2025). Methodological Pluralism and Innovation in Data-Driven Organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly. 70(2). 403–443. 1 indexed citations
3.
Gao, Cheng & Rory McDonald. (2022). Shaping Nascent Industries: Innovation Strategy and Regulatory Uncertainty in Personal Genomics. Administrative Science Quarterly. 67(4). 915–967. 54 indexed citations
4.
Wang, Dan, Emily Cox Pahnke, & Rory McDonald. (2021). The Past Is Prologue? Venture-Capital Syndicates’ Collaborative Experience and Start-Up Exits. Academy of Management Journal. 65(2). 371–402. 38 indexed citations
5.
McDonald, Rory & Ryan Allen. (2021). A Spanner in the Works: Category-Spanning Entrants and Audience Valuation of Incumbents. Strategy Science. 7(3). 190–209. 11 indexed citations
6.
McDonald, Rory, et al.. (2020). When It's Time to Pivot, What's Your Story?: How to Sell Stakeholders on a New Strategy. 1 indexed citations
7.
McDonald, Rory, et al.. (2020). Parrot: Navigating the Nascent Drone Industry. 1 indexed citations
8.
McDonald, Rory & Kathleen M. Eisenhardt. (2020). The New-Market Conundrum. 1 indexed citations
9.
McDonald, Rory & Kathleen M. Eisenhardt. (2019). Parallel Play: Startups, Nascent Markets, and Effective Business-model Design. Administrative Science Quarterly. 65(2). 483–523. 256 indexed citations breakdown →
10.
McDonald, Rory & Cheng Gao. (2019). Pivoting Isn’t Enough? Managing Strategic Reorientation in New Ventures. Organization Science. 30(6). 1289–1318. 142 indexed citations
11.
Christensen, Clayton M., et al.. (2018). Disruptive Innovation: An Intellectual History and Directions for Future Research. Journal of Management Studies. 55(7). 1043–1078. 416 indexed citations breakdown →
12.
Christensen, Clayton M., et al.. (2017). Disruptive Innovation: Intellectual History and Future Paths. Academy of Management Proceedings. 2017(1). 14218–14218. 54 indexed citations
13.
Christensen, Clayton M., Michael E. Raynor, & Rory McDonald. (2016). The disruption debate: : Interaction. Harvard business review. 94(3). 2. 7 indexed citations
14.
Bermiss, Y. Sekou, Benjamin L. Hallen, Rory McDonald, & Emily Cox Pahnke. (2016). Entrepreneurial beacons: The Y ale endowment, run‐ups, and the growth of venture capital. Strategic Management Journal. 38(3). 545–565. 36 indexed citations
15.
Christensen, Clayton M., Michael E. Raynor, & Rory McDonald. (2015). What Is Disruptive Innovation. Harvard business review. 592 indexed citations breakdown →
16.
Pahnke, Emily Cox, Rory McDonald, Dan Wang, & Benjamin L. Hallen. (2015). Exposed: Venture Capital, Competitor Ties, and Entrepreneurial Innovation. SSRN Electronic Journal.
17.
McDonald, Rory & Suresh Kotha. (2015). Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream. 4 indexed citations
18.
McDonald, Rory, Feng Zhu, & Cheng Gao. (2014). HomeAway: Organizing the Vacation Rental Industry. Biopharmaceutics & Drug Disposition. 2(3). 291–7. 1 indexed citations
19.
McDonald, Rory, et al.. (2014). AmazonFresh: Rekindling the Online Grocery Market. 4 indexed citations
20.
Pahnke, Emily Cox, Rory McDonald, Dan Wang, & Benjamin L. Hallen. (2014). Exposed: Venture Capital, Competitor Ties, and Entrepreneurial Innovation. Academy of Management Journal. 58(5). 1334–1360. 152 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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