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While concern for the quality of working life (QWL) is by no means new it is nevertheless true that there has been an enormous amount of research, experimentation and commentary in this field in recent years. A particular confluence of forces—ever‐accelerating technological change; rapidly‐shifting attitudes, life‐styles, and social institutions; and the paradox in many countries of a customary prosperity threatened by doubts as to future economic performance—is at least in part responsible for the burgeoning interest in the field. But important also is its multidisciplinary nature, which has afforded to social scientists of varied orientations the opportunity to participate in a new intellectual growth industry.

The body of literature in the field now commonly known as the “quality of working life” (QWL) has grown steadily over a period in which the industrialised nations have increasingly come to question the role and status of human beings in the modern technological environment. In recent years concern with the nature of work, its impact upon people, and their attitudes towards it, seem to have sharpened. Investigation of, and experimentation with, the qualitative aspects of working life—its ability to confer self‐fulfilment directly, for example, as opposed to being a means of acquiring goods—has gained momentum under the influence of a unique set of economic, social, political and technological factors. The outpouring of books, reports and articles from a wide variety of sources has, not surprisingly, grown apace.

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If the Quality of Working Life (QWL) is to become a distinct “school” then, it is argued, it should possess all the attributes of a school, in particular, vocabulary, concepts and methodology. The very importance of problems in contemporary society would suggest that the realisation of these attributes is an urgent task. It is argued that what appears to be needed is an integrated theoretical framework, and to this end a socio‐economic systems approach serves as the main focus of this contribution.