Dr Isaac Lyne

Isaac Lyne is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS). He graduated with a PhD from the Institute in 2017, for a thesis on the role of social enterprise in community development in two peri-urban villages in eastern Cambodia. His data collection entailed action research harnessing Asset Based Community Development (ABCD), setting out to explore the role and viability of social enterprise in strengthening wellbeing and natural resource management, in contexts of precarity and enduring trauma. Isaac is currently working on “Building the evidence base on the impacts of mobile financial services for women and men in farming households in Laos and Cambodia”, a 5-year project commissioned by Australia Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). As a previous post-doctoral fellow at ICS funded by the SeedBox International Environmental Humanities Collaboratory hosted at Linköping University in Sweden, Isaac engaged with water distribution in eastern Cambodia using a “business at the bottom of the economic pyramid approach”, through environmental humanities and his prior interests in community economies research. Between 2009 and 2012 Isaac coordinated “Social Enterprise in Cambodia: Capacity building for inclusive business”, commissioned by the British Council’s Development Partnerships in Higher Education (DelPHE) programme and delivered in partnership between the Royal University of Phnom Penh in Cambodia, University of Bradford Centre for International Development in the United Kingdom, and an award-winning social enterprise called “Friends International.” To date Isaac has authored/co-authored peer reviewed journal articles for Water Alternatives; Development Policy Review; Journal of Enterprising Communities; Asia Pacific Viewpoint; Education, Knowledge and Economy and Social Economy Revue (RECMA).

Qualifications

PhD, 2017, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University
Postgraduate Diploma, 2011, Research Methods for Social Science, University of Bradford
Master of Arts: International Development Management, University of Bradford
BA Honours, 1993, Social Policy and Administration, Leeds Metropolitan University

Research Focus

Social enterprise and social entrepreneurship
Rural community development
Rural livelihoods and resilience
Digital finance on farming

Awards and Recognitions

2012, International Postgraduate Research Scholarship, Western Sydney University
2006, Best Master Degree Dissertation, Bradford Centre for International Development, University of Bradford

Selected Publications

Succarie, A, Lyne, I & Kishor, N (2025), Partnership pedagogy in social entrepreneurship teaching and practice: towards western Sydney's regional identity, Transform, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 82-91.

Taylor, E.B., Lyne, I. and Akzar, R. (2024). Gender and the social impacts of rural mobile finance. In Pei, X., P. Malhotra and R. Ling, (Eds), Mobile Communication and Women’s Agency: Under the Radar, pp.71-83. London: Routledge.

Lyne, I. (2023) Does thinking and working politically improve international development support for social business? An inquiry into the intersection of adaptive development approaches in Cambodia. Development Policy Review 46(6): 1-17.

Lyne, I. (2023) Social Enterprise in M. Clarke and A. Zhao (Eds), Elgar Encyclopedia of Development., 548-553. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.

Lyne, I. & Rado, I. (2023). Dynamics of power & hierarchies: lessons from Cambodia and Thailand. In Y. Akama & J. Yee (Eds), Entanglements of designing social innovation in the Asia-Pacific, pp.115-127. London: Routledge.

Lyne, I. (2020). Bottling water differently, and sustaining the water commons? Social innovation through water service franchising in Cambodia. Water Alternatives, 13(3): 731-751

Lyne, I. & Madden, A (2020). Enterprising New Worlds: Social Enterprise and the Value of Repair. In Gibson-Graham, J.K. and Dombroski, K. (Eds) Handbook of Diverse Economies, pp. 74-81. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Lyne, I., Ryu, J., Teh, Y-Y. & Morita, T. (2019). Religious Influences on Social Enterprise in Asia: Observations in Cambodia, Malaysia and South Korea. In Bidet, E. & Defourny, J. (Eds) Social Enterprise in Asia Theory, Models and Practice, pp. 293-313. London: Routledge.

Lyne, I., Ngin, C. and Santoyo-Rio, E. (2018). Social Enterprise, Social Economy and Local Social Entrepreneurship in Rural Cambodia, Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy, 12(3): 278-298

Lyne, I. (2017). Social enterprise and the everydayness of precarious indigenous Cambodian villagers: Challenging ethnocentric epistemologies. In Essers, C., Dey, P,. Tedmanson, D. & Verduyn, K. (eds), Critical Perspectives on Entrepreneurship; Challenging Dominant Discourses, pp. 36-50. London: Routledge.

Lyne, I., Khieng, K. and Ngin, C. (2015). Social Enterprise in Cambodia: An Overview, ICSEM Working Papers No. 05, International Cooperative Social Enterprise Models, Liege, Belgium

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