Carolyn Downs

Lancaster University | LU

Purpose This study aims to explore the socio-cultural barriers to enterprise in economically disadvantaged communities across five countries: UK, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. Design/methodology/approach This study’s EU-funded project took the form of community-based participatory action research. This study focusses on the data from the i...

The world is changing and business schools are struggling to keep up. Theories of reflective practice developed by the likes of Schon (1983), Gibbs (1988), Driscoll (1994, 2007) and Kolb (1984, 2015) are outdated and unfit for current purposes. Problems include the chronology of events, the orientation of the observer, the impact of external inputs...

To be competitive in the marketplace, the community handloom craft business needs to be combined with contemporary sensibility and innovation in order to create goods that meet existing consumer demands. This study explores craft-design collaboration possibilities and finds co-creation is an effective means to overcome challenges to design interven...

In the past few decades, thanks to the continuous development of machine learning and deep learning algorithms, as well as the continuous improvement of computing power and databases, facial recognition technology (FRT) has developed rapidly. Widespread use of this technology can be seen in all fields of life, such as facepay, individual identifica...

This paper proposes a novel theoretical model for the community-based enterprise, which could assist in achieving UN sustainable development goals within craft communities in developing nations. This model focuses on building enterprise skills in vulnerable communities, sustaining traditional crafts and strengthening community capacity for self-det...

p>With an increasing amount of elderly people needing home care around the clock, care workers are not able to keep up with the demand of providing maximum support to those who require it. As medical costs of home care increase the quality is care suffering as a result of staff shortages, a solution is desperately needed to make the valuable care t...

p>With an increasing amount of elderly people needing home care around the clock, care workers are not able to keep up with the demand of providing maximum support to those who require it. As medical costs of home care increase the quality is care suffering as a result of staff shortages, a solution is desperately needed to make the valuable care t...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to assess sustainability across the handloom industry in Sri Lanka and identify opportunities for sustainable innovations supporting new markets, development of small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) and growth in the Sri Lankan craft sector. Design/methodology/approach Using a multiple case studies methodology, 1...

Aim: This survey explored caregivers' perceived training needs in 5 European countries (United Kingdom, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland and Italy). Background: Training can enhance the professional capacity of caregivers, however, caregivers' training needs within Europe has not been examined recently. Methods: A survey conducted in 2015 captured dat...

This article takes a case study approach to the question of how entrepreneurs developed and used networks to support trade during the American Revolutionary War (American War of Independence). Using the business letter books of Daniel Eccleston of Lancaster, covering January 1780 to December 1781, the article shows how he used trust-building activi...

This paper will explore the findings of the EU-LLP funded Eliemental Project with regard to delivering effective enterprise education to socially disadvantaged groups using innovative modes of community-based action learning networks based around Community Access Points (CAPs). Our work on Community Access Points (CAPS) was fully qualitative and to...

This research explores historical perspectives on gambling amongst poorer social groups in order to better understand why the poorest people in society gamble even though gambling seems economically illogical. A principal finding was that pleasure gained from hope of a small win and the agency of making a choice on use of scarce resources may be im...

The game of bingo has become synonymous with women of a certain age and class and has been stigmatised as a dead-end use of leisure. However, the development of commercial bingo in the wake of the Betting and Gaming Act (1961) offered the leisure industry access to a new and lucrative market. While many major players in the leisure industry of the...

This paper discusses the key findings from the first qualitative study focused on understanding the impacts of gambling-related debt on the family and work life of problem gamblers. The paper illustrates how current research priorities marginalise the social impacts of gambling on families and communities and suggests ways in which researchers and...

Carolyn Downs explains how to incorporate online resources on religion into your lessons using an interactive whiteboard

The present paper discusses the concept of entrepreneurship in relation to emerging challenges of global markets and changing enterprise, and the ability of higher education to adjust to these challenges and deliver high quality learning outcomes for both students and SMEs. Immigrant entrepreneurship is emphasized as a tool to provide the necessary...

The Gambling and Debt pathfinder study was funded by GamCare and the Money Advice Trust, and supported by the Salvation Army. This study critically examines the nature of the relationship between gambling and debt. This has been achieved by investigating the wider social issues associated with gambling-related debt in order to understand the strate...