Safety Rule Breaking in Disasters: A Qualitative Analysis on Disaster Volunteers

Volunteers are considerable human source in disasters. The stress, pressure and difficult conditions of disasters can lead to breaking of safety rules by employees, especially young people. Safety breakings may lead to stoppage or failure of the activities. This research focus on the young volunteers’ safety rule breaking behavior in disasters. Based on job demands-resources (JD-R) theory, data were gathered through semi-structured interviews from individuals working in the regions affected by the 6 February 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquake. The research sample consisted of 17 young disaster volunteers between the ages of 18-26 who were eligible for criterion sampling. The data were analysed thematically, theory-oriented and deductively. As a result of the thematic analysis, 3 themes, namely job demands, job resources and breaking of safety rules, and 16 categories under these themes were discovered. Results implied that young volunteers use work resources against intense work demands. Although studies in the field of organisational safety suggest that job resources increase safe behaviour, this study indicates that the job resources of volunteers in disasters may increase breaking of safety rules.