Rory authored over 40 scholarly papers, eight books (including two novels). In 2015, his third book - The Case for FairShares - articulated findings from a decade of action research at Sheffield Business School to support social economy development.
In 2016, he published his fourth academic text - the second edition of Understanding Social Enterprise: Theory and Practice (co-authored with Dr Mike Bull). This is recognised across Europe, Asia, North America and Oceania as a seminal text for social enterprise studies at all levels. A third edition followed in 2019.
These books helped to win an Erasmus+ grant (FairShares Labs for Social and Blue Innovation, 2017 – 2019). Rory co-authored and edited a new publication in 2017/18 on developing a methodology to establish FairShares Labs piloted by six organisations in five EU countries.
Rory has peer-reviewed papers for 19 different journals (12 ABS ranked) and chaired streams at the world's top social enterprise and co-operative research conferences. In addition, he reviewed grant applications for research councils and books for academic publishers and journals. He supervised many doctoral students to the successful conclusion of their research degrees.