Corporate Structure and Community Size: Factors Affecting Occupational Community Within the Pulp and Paper Industry

Abstract

An occupational community is a bounded work culture characterized by common norms, values, work practices, and conceptions of identity closely related to work. Most occupational community studies are developed as case studies of workers in a particular setting. In this article we adopt a comparative case study approach to understand commonalities and differences within two pulp and paper mills. The mills differ in demographic setting (metropolitan and non-metropolitan) and corporate structure, factors that we argue qualitatively affect the nature of occupational community as experienced by the workers themselves. The article contributes to the literature on the culture of work and workplace in manufacturing ubiquitous products (paper) from an important natural resource, timber.

Keywords:

• Alabama
• comparative case study
• occupational community
• occupational identity
• pulp and paper industry
• resource dependency

Acknowledgments

The research reported upon here was funded by a grant from the USDA-CSREES National Research Initiative Competitive Grant Program, grant 2000-01938.