Quality Of Work Life As Methodological Framework In Organizational Studies: State Of The Art And Perspectives For The Future Research

The main goal of the present paper is to conduct theoretical and methodological analysis of the current state of the art in the field of QWL studies and to outline perspectives for the future research of the QWL in managerial and organizational research. 716 publications listed in the Web of Science utilizing the QWL concept were selected at the initial stage and 420 papers were included in the final set of publications for analysis. The literature examination revealed the absence of the clear and concrete definition of QWL, various (and often incomplete) approaches to QWL content and indicators, interference of QWL with other concepts like job satisfaction which all resulted in general confusion in academic discussions about the notion. We argue that it is necessary to elaborate a new model for QWL assessment which would combine subjective and objective measures in the context of the general framework of needs satisfaction approach. We hope to contribute to the current discussions by suggesting our own version of classification of employee needs in the QWL framework elaborated basing on previous research by other authors.