“A Service Town”: An Examination of the Offshore Oil Industry, Local Entrepreneurs, and the Civic Community Thesis

Abstract

This article examines the industrial structure of the offshore oil industry utilizing the framework of the civic community thesis. This theory posits that communities with an economic structure that includes a dominance of small locally owned businesses will have higher levels of civic welfare and will subsequently experience positive community effects. This article first focuses on rural southern communities, whose economic structure is heavily entrenched in the oil and gas industry, and determines if they resemble communities dominated by small locally owned businesses or are comprised solely of global oil conglomerates. Second, the research determines the economic structure's effects on the communities. We find a positive relationship between oil-related entrepreneurship, in the form of locally owned service industries, and the civic community. This theme suggests a relationship of the area's oil-based economic structure and local entrepreneurs and positive implications for the civic community thesis.

Acknowledgments

This article was part of a larger project supported by the United States Department of Interior, Mineral Management Services, through the Marine Institute, Louisiana State University, (Cooperative Agreement 32806, Task Order 39798). A version of this article was presented at the 2009 meeting of the Southern Sociological Society in New Orleans, Louisiana.