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. 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.

This research takes the utilitarian view of volunteering as a starting point; for a student population we posit that volunteering is motivated for career enhancing and job prospects. In those countries where volunteering signals positive characteristics of students and helps advance their careers, we hypothesize that 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 timeintensive 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

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.

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