Tadhg Ryan-Charleton

Tadhg studies determinants of business and organisational outcomes, including knowledge and innovation outcomes, competitive positioning and financial performance. He recently co-led the first 5-Year Evaluation of New Zealand’s Research and Development Tax Incentive (RDTI) with colleagues from Motu Research and the University of Otago. Tadhg has also led policy analyses on export promotion and competition, with a focus on evaluating programme effectiveness and market outcomes.

He is the Principal Investigator on a Marsden Fund project that is building a dataset on inter-firm alliances in New Zealand. The project focuses on alliances between Māori-led and non-Māori firms, and will generate new insights about how businesses balance multiple outcomes in alliances — like financial and environmental goals. The project builds on his prior research on inter-organisational partnerships, how they can be evaluated and improved, and how they contribute to performance in the private and public sectors. 

Tadhg primarily uses econometric methods to analyse large-scale archival, administrative and survey data, including confidentialised business microdata from Stats NZ’s Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI). He has also created several original datasets using financial data, patent applications, stock market data, and news and industry sources. 

His research has been published in top-ranked journals, including the Journal of Management, Academy of Management Annals and Strategic Management Journal. He has earned awards and/or funding from the Royal Society Te Apārangi, the Irish Research Council, Emerald, and Enterprise Ireland, among others.

Tadhg is a Fulbright Scholar and holds a Ph.D from the National University of Ireland. Before joining Motu Research, he was a Senior Lecturer in Strategic Management at Queen’s University Belfast. At Queen’s, and previously at the University of Otago, Tadhg led strategic management, innovation and entrepreneurship programmes for undergraduates, MBA students and executives. He also served on the Membership Engagement Committee for the Strategic Management Division of the Academy of Management.