The article seeks to understand the construction of meaning that devalues specific social groups in the culture of small organizations that share commercial spaces. The proposed discussion was organized around a study on the construction of social representations in the context of small organizations gathered at a shopping center in Porto Alegre. Data were collected using the technique of participant observation and unstructured interviews articulated in an ethnographic analysis. It was found that organizations are influenced by the representations circulating in society to establish normative expectations with regard to the interests related to the use of their common space by social groups. These interests enable the identification of two groups: "good attenders" and "bad attenders," the latter associated with youth and homosexuality. The relationship between their members and people in organizations leads to the construction of social representations often full of negative meanings with impacts on social and organizational relationships established at that locus.
Social representation; Negative social representation; Small organizations; Homosexuality; Ethnography