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A reflection on the research quality assessment process in the Italian academia is provided. It is argued that both the general logic and several specific technical details of the current assessment process is inconsistent with the evidence that decades of organizational research have shown on the most common organizational solutions adopted by companies and research centers that are able to systematically generate significant levels of knowledge production and innovation. It is also argued that a system like the current one will create, in the medium-long term, serious negative consequences on the Italian research system, both in cultural and behavioral terms. A few suggestions about how to change the assessment system are provided.

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between job enlargement and some specific job crafting behaviors and to analyze the moderating role of self-competence.


Design/methodology/approach
– Data were gathered from 158 workers in a large retail company and analyzed through a regression methodology.


Findings
– Job enlargement is positively related to specific job crafting behaviors, such as increasing structural and social resources. Self-competence does not moderate the relationship between job enlargement and increasing structural resources; however, it does negatively moderate the relationship between job enlargement and increasing social resources.


Research limitations/implications
– This is a cross-sectional, single source study.


Practical/implications
– Organizations may implement job design policies aimed at facilitating the way workers proactively craft their jobs (increasing social and structural resources) by promoting a collaborative organizational culture and decreasing the social costs of job crafting initiatives.


Originality/value
– This study clarifies the role of contextual and personal antecedents to job crafting. More specifically, it shows that enlarged jobs and employees' level of self-competence may significantly influence employees' job crafting in the workplace.

Work-life balance is one of the current issues within the academic, political, and managerial debate. An article discussed in a TAO Research Programs seminar held in June 2015 at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, suggests a critical interpretation of the mainstream literature and its related controversial results in terms of work-life reconciliation practices. The article also provides an alternative analytical framework based on Bruno Maggi's organization theory, Norbert Elias' theory of time, and Amartya Sen's theory of justice. Scholars from different universities and disciplines contribute with comments on the notions of time, justice, organization and the proposed interpretative framework as well.

This book collects contributions on questions of justice. It proposes a reflection on justice observed from different disciplinary perspectives (organization, philosophy, labor law, economics, work psychology) concerning the basic assumptions underlying the research approaches on this topic. Then, the book considers justice in relation to different issues that are widely debated in the social arena (corporate governance, organizational design, well-being, digitalization of work processes, smart working). A critical point of view on the different positions is adopted. We believe that recognizing the specificities of single disciplines and their defining and applicative problems is a fundamental premise in order to face the new challenges that a subject as ancient as justice seems to bring to the forefront of today's society.

At the 50th anniversary of James D. Thompson's fundamental book, Organizations in Action, TAO Digital Library proposes a reflection on this great master's legacy and the evolution of organizational studies. Twelve researchers, from different disciplinary fields, analyze both the texts utilized for teaching and the contribution of several important journals, particularly in recent decades. The outcome is an overall picture that may stimulate different, divergent evaluations and, even more importantly, desirable, deeper reflections.