Occupational stigmatization in the British hotel and catering industry

Abstract

This pilot study investigates the concept of 'occupational stigmatization’, its causal elements, its anatomy and composition, and societal reaction towards the contaminated. It introduces the idea of a stigma continuum in relation to the occupational ideologies of individuals. The research findings point strongly to a universal and persisiting tendency (cutting also across cultures) to attach a low societal evaluation to certain types of work and to certain categories of incumbents associated with such work. The project may be seen as a study in depth, which, in sequence, diagnoses the existence of the stigma; seeks to establish its origins from an evolving work ethic; traces the effects of its perpetuation through occupational evolution; and offers authentic empirical evidence to reveal the phenomenological reality of the target population in terms of their own understanding and frame of reference by means of a representative sample of an exposed occupational group - the kitchen porters of the British hotel and catering industry. The project then presents a sociological view of the institutional components of the hotel structure and specific levels of behaviour in hotel kitchens as social systems, together with an ideal-typical model of the hotel system at microlevel as an on-going organizational unit and its institutional elements. This view is supported in a wider context by the inclusion of a diagrammatic presentation of the entire structure of the hotel and catering industry in Britain and its diverse segmentation. A further part of the work extends the earlier theoretical treatment of occupational stigmatization to an examination of the characteristics of stigmatized industries and their occupational afflictions: (i) concentration and fragmentation, (ii) seasonal fluctuations, (iii) environmental influences and (iv) tradition and change. The stigma effect upon occupational membership through stereo-typing, labelling and the handicap of intermittent employment has also been emphasized. A whole chapter on methodological problems is included and the concluding observations offer some thoughts on the possible re-orientation of management attitudes towards a work-related socialisation process that may eventually reverse discriminating public images towards lowly evaluated occupations.