Industrial, Organisational and Labour Studies provides a sociological focus on the changing nature of work and the institutions of the workplace. It explores the relationship between these changes and livelihood strategies. It also examines the relationship between these changes and other social institutions and movements.

The Industrial, Organisational and Labour Studies Programme is part of the Faculty of Human Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.

As a teaching programme we offer IOLS as a major subject in the BSoc Sci or BA degree; an undergraduate programme degree leading to a BSoc Sci (IOLS) or BA (IOLS), or graduate honours, masters and PhD degrees.

As a research group staff and graduate students are involved in a number of interesting research projects clustering around the workplace in its broadest sense.

IOLS co-ordinates modules that lead to very relevant themes about the world of work, its people, and the processes and organisations involved in work. The focus is on the local, the national and, importantly, the global context of productive activity.


This inter-disciplinary programme, together with related modules, provide a solid foundation that prepares students for a range of options that demand an understanding of a central aspect of our lives, namely work and what goes along with it: human resources, organisational forms and functions, industrial relations, technological change, employment and unemployment, global links and inequalities, industrial policy, conflict and democracy etc.