INSTITUTIONAL AND OCCUPATIONAL REPRESENTATIONS IN ELEVEN COMMUNITY INFLUENCE SYSTEMS.

The article presents crucial community variables in community influence systems. Authors of the article compared findings from recent research in six Southwestern communities in the U.S. and two Mexican communities with communities studied by sociologist Delbert C. Miller. The comparison was concerned primarily with the relative "contribution" of different institutional and occupational sectors to the group of "top decision-makers" in the community. Since the method of identifying those persons was primarily by reputation rather than by direct observation, authors refer to them as "influentials." According to the article the sector, which provides the largest number of top influentials was business. This was true not only for the seven cities in the U.S. but also for the two Mexican cities. In fact with the exception of San Diego, California, Tijuana, Mexico, had the largest proportion of businessmen among top influentials of the ten cities studied. Apparently the size of a city was not related to the proportion of businessmen found among top influentials of the community.