Lesley Hustinx

Bio: Lesley Hustinx is an academic researcher from Ghent University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Civil society & Population. The author has an hindex of 25, co-authored 92 publications receiving 2418 citations. Previous affiliations of Lesley Hustinx include The Catholic University of America & Catholic University of Leuven.

Collective and Reflexive Styles of Volunteering: A Sociological Modernization Perspective

Abstract: This paper presents a theory-guided examination of the (changing) nature of volunteering through the lens of sociological modernization theories. Existing accounts of qualitative changes in motivational bases and patterns of volunteering are interpreted against the background of broader, modernization-driven social-structural transformations. It is argued that volunteer involvement should be qualified as a biographically embedded reality, and a new analytical framework of collective and reflexive styles of volunteering is constructed along the lines of the ideal-typical biographical models that are delineated by modernization theorists. Styles of volunteering are understood as essentially multidimensional, multiform, and multilevel in nature. Both structural-behavioral and motivational-attitudinal volunteering features are explored along the lines of six different dimensions: the biographical frame of reference, the motivational structure, the course and intensity of commitment, the organizational environment, the choice of (field of) activity, and the relation to paid work.

Navigating Theories of Volunteering: A Hybrid Map for a Complex Phenomenon

Abstract: The study of volunteerism has generated multiple conceptual frameworks yet no integrated theory has emerged. This article identifies three major challenges, or layers of complexity, that a unified theory of volunteering faces. First, volunteering is a complex phenomenon that has permeable boundaries and spans a wide variety of activities, organizations, and sectors. It is a social construct with multiple definitions. Second, different disciplines attribute different meanings and functions to volunteering. Third, existing theoretical accounts are biased toward covering the "laws of volunteering" and have a strong empirical surplus. "Good theory" however is multidimensional so there is a need to include other views on theory. To overcome these challenges, we use a "hybrid theoretical strategy" that seeks to combine the "multiple goodness" of current approaches. Our hybrid framework builds on the three layers of complexity identified, and provides an innovative conceptual system of navigation to map, compare, and integrate existing theories more adequately.

A Cross-cultural Examination of Student Volunteering: is it all about Resume building?

Abstract: This research adopts the utilitarian view of volunteering as a starting point: we posit that for an undergraduate student population volunteering is motivated by career enhancing and job prospects. We hypothesize that in those countries where volunteering signals positive characteristics of students and helps advance their careers, their volunteer participation will be higher. Furthermore, regardless of the signaling value of volunteering, those students who volunteer for utilitarian reasons will be more likely to volunteer but will exhibit less time-intensive volunteering. Using survey data from 12 countries (n = 9,482), we examine our hypotheses related to motivations to volunteer, volunteer participation, and country differences. Findings suggest that students motivated to volunteer for building their resumes do not volunteer more than students with other motives. However, in countries with a positive signaling value of volunteering, volunteering rates are significantly higher. As expected, students motivated by resume building motivations have a lower intensity of volunteering.

Social and Cultural Origins of Motivations to Volunteer A Comparison of University Students in Six Countries

Abstract: Although participation in volunteering and motivations to volunteer (MTV) have received substantial attention on the national level, particularly in the US, few studies have compared and explained these issues across cultural and political contexts. This study compares how two theoretical perspectives, social origins theory and signalling theory, explain variations in MTV across different countries. The study analyses responses from a sample of 5794 students from six countries representing distinct institutional contexts. The findings provide strong support for signalling theory but less so for social origins theory. The article concludes that volunteering is a personal decision and thus is influenced more at the individual level but is also impacted to some degree by macro-level societal forces.

The Third-party Model: Enhancing Volunteering through Governments, Corporations and Educational Institutes

Abstract: Volunteering is perceived as important for creating social capital and civil society, and therefore has become a fundamental part of social policies across most Western countries. In this article, we examine the involvement of governments, corporations and educational institutes in encouraging volunteering, and pinpoint their role in developing volunteering circles. Based on essential concepts presented here (volunteerability and recruitability), we develop the third-party model, and show how third parties get involved. We identify new ways in which these parties can enhance volunteering, and discuss their impact on volunteerability and recruitability. The potential negative impacts of volunteerism and ways in which these can be ameliorated are also acknowledged. Finally, issues that arise due to such involvement are also discussed, thereby offering an important contribution to social policy research in the area of volunteerism.

Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life

Abstract: Meanwhile, the authors' antidote to the American sicknessa quest for democratic community that draws on our diverse civic and religious traditionshas contributed to a vigorous scholarly and popular debate. Attention has been focused on forms of social organization, be it civil society, democratic communitarianism, or associative democracy, that can humanize the market and the administrative state. In their new Introduction the authors relate the argument of their book both to the current realities of American society and to the growing debate about the country's future. With this new edition one of the most influential books of recent times takes on a new immediacy.\

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

Abstract: What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.