This article explores flexible working arrangements (FWAs)

This article explores the concept of occupational community in an attempt to discover whether it provides a useful analytical tool for understanding work experience in face-to-face service occupations.The conceptual components of occupational community are identified and discussed and then applied to data gathered from an ethnographic study of workers in the UK public house sector.We argue that there are strong grounds for accepting that an occupational community does develop in this sector and plays a crucial role in determining the work experience of employees. However, we also suggest that in contrast to other industrial sectors, customers themselves have a significant, but not wholly unproblematic role to play.This role and its contribution to the development of occupational community are discussed and the analytical and managerial implications are then evaluated.

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This article discusses the way in which emotion rules are learned by service workers through an ethnographic study of employees in a chain of public houses. It reviews the findings of recent research based on studies of large firms in the service sector in order to discuss similarities and differences in the ways in which emotion rules are learned, internalized, controlled, and monitored in large firms and small units. It concludes that in contrast to large firms, small units are characterized by little formal training and few explicit rules for emotion management and display. Implicit rules for performing emotional labour are learned through informal socialization with colleagues, managers, and customers. The importance of competing informal social control mechanisms is highlighted, showing how service workers are expected to be skilled emotion managers negotiating the expectations of different stakeholders.