Goal and structural succession in a voluntary association: a constructed type of the American Red Cross chapter in natural disasters.

A constructed type of the American National Red Cross chapter is presented. It is based on field interview data collected from selected professional staff and volunteer members of twenty-three Red Cross chapters which were involved in natural disaster relief operations during the period 1963-1971. These interview data were collected by the Disaster Research Center of the Department of Sociology at The Ohio State University. The constructed type is defined by two dimensions of the Red Cross chapter: (1) the goals and (2) the membership of the organisation. Both dimensions are dichotomized: goals are divided into permissive or "normal" and mandatory or disaster goals and membership is divided into professional staff and volunteer members. The history of the succession of permissive goals in the American red Cross is reviewed. By combining the two dimensions of this analysis, the structure of the Red Cross is described in terms of four distinctive elements: (1) the "normal" staff structure, (2) the "normal" volunteer structure, (3) the disaster staff structure, and (4) the disaster volunteer structure. It is asserted that these structures are not only analytically distinct but that they are also temporally segregated. The patterns of structural succession by which the disaster structures of the chapter succeed the normal structures in disaster mobilization are described. Operational problems encountered by the Red Cross chapter in structural succession are discussed. A summary of the study is presented and hypotheses are suggested for further research.