Quality of Working Life and Community Development: Some Reflections on the Jamestown Experience

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Abstract
Widespread diffusion of quality of working life (Q WL) innovations among organizations has long been aproblem. This article discusses the author's hypothesis that such diffusion is accelerated when Q WL is linked to a wider process of community change, and how this hypothesis was tested through his work with the area-wide labor-management committee of Jamestown, New York, which acted as a mechanism for such a linkage. The degree of diffusion of QWL innovations varied with the type of project undertaken, but-although individual projects tended to be short-lived the committee's existence helped establish a continuous Q WL trend. The author assesses the emergence of a new community work culture based on labor-management cooperation as a main factor in the growth of Jamestown 's Q WLprojects, and notes the promise ofsuch a new culture, despite limitations, for thefuture of Western industrial societies.