Article ID: 2011
There are two types of disaster relief volunteer center: those established by public agencies and those established by the private sector. During disasters, organizations can be divided into those run according to a command and control (C&C) model and those run according to an improvisational and autonomous model. After the Great Hanshin Earthquake, public disaster relief volunteer centers were unified under a C&C model, which generated conflict with private organizations. The diversity of volunteers reduced due to the “drive for orderliness” created by the C&C model. In this study, we performed a detailed case study of the disaster relief volunteer centers established after the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. As a result, it became clear that management and control systems were developed to deal with two factors: the positive effects of volunteers helping each other, and the negative effects of volunteers being strangers. Moreover, we found that the ambivalence of volunteers was responsible for the differentiation and conflict between public and private organizations. Finally, we show that it is possible to overcome this differentiation and conflict by having a combination of public and private disaster volunteer centers involving a variety of actors.
