Purpose This paper aims to present a model of how cognitive and behavioral crafting practices relate, reconciling the two dominant and conflicting job crafting theoretical perspectives. Design/methodology/approach Starting by examining the role of cognition and cognitive practices in job crafting, this paper reconstitutes the theorizing path that led to the exclusion of cognitive crafting from job crafting theory, explores existing theorizing efforts to (re)integrate cognitive crafting back into job crafting and proposes a new job crafting model (re)integrating behavioral and cognitive practices. Findings By conceiving cognitive crafting practices as a sensemaking layer that spans across and reciprocates with all behavioral crafting practices, the proposed model specifies the role of behavior and cognition (and the mutual relations between them) in job crafting, while resuming its meaning-making orientation. Originality/value This paper offers novel insights on underspecified aspects of the job crafting theory, improving its heuristic value. It clarifies how meaning is assembled and enacted by people in work environments, allowing for more integrated and comprehensive explanations about how people relate to work.

Objective: in this paper, we problematize how online methods were reduced to mere adaptations from previous data collection techniques, and then discuss how some of the idiosyncratic properties of the online scope may drive the development of future, paradigmatic, online qualitative methods. Proposition: we identified five clues for the paradigmatic development of online qualitative methods: (1) the new socialities allowed by online interactions; (2) the processes involved in asserting identities and selves online; (3) the increasing difficulty in distinguishing what is private and what is public online, and what does privacy mean in this context; (4) the increase of participants’ agency in online qualitative research; and (5) the declining distinction between offline and online social phenomena. Conclusion: by using ontological and epistemological assumptions that do not consider the specificities of online experiences, and by focusing excessively on adapting known methods to the new settings, we researchers are bound to conceive the online experience and operate in it using offline categories. This way, we might be missing the opportunity to develop native, paradigmatic, online qualitative methods that, ultimately, would allow for a better understanding of the phenomena we investigate.

Purpose: Our main purpose was to explore how collective job crafting relates to the meaning of work and the meaning-making processes. Originality/value: We explored the job crafting model to study the meaning of work at the collective level. But, while most job crafting studies focus on the relation between workers and tasks, we focused on the collective meaning-making that emerges from workers actively adapting tasks, significance, and relationships in their jobs. As for the practitioners, we alert for a possible trapdoor through which job crafting can fall back into plain hierarchical job design if it is not actively and autonomously engaged by workers. Design/methodology/approach: We used basic qualitative research to combine interpretative analysis (aligned with our topic and theoretical model) and the possibility to look into an interaction scenario (aligned with our objectives). Data was collected though informants’ responses to a semi-structured interview and analyzed using content analysis. Findings: We found out that workers shared an understanding of the problems of work meanings and engage in a quest to make sense of their work lives both 1. At the organizational level - arranging work in unorthodox ways -; and 2. At the interpersonal level - adhering to specific roles to attach meaning to work. Our findings shed light on new aspects of the job crafting model, particularly, on the meaning of work centrality to the model in collective job crafting experiences.

Neste ensaio argumentamos contra a tendência reificante de considerar a organização como uma coisa em si, nublando definitivamente as pessoas reais e as relações sociais que nela se estabelecem. Ao mesmo tempo, dada a necessidade do organizar e o crescente papel de mediação exercido pelas organizações na sociedade, reconhecemos que a compreensão dos fenômenos organizacionais é parte importante do esforço para compreender a própria sociedade. Nesse contexto de conhecimento e interesse, defendemos que a disciplina de Comportamento Organizacional está bem posicionada para essa tarefa e possui recursos para contrariar a tendência à reificação da organização. Mas isso não significa que essa disciplina esteja livre de armadilhas. Por isso, questionamos a centralidade da organização nesses mesmos estudos tanto em termos valorativos quanto em termos conceituais. No aspecto valorativo, discutimos a posição de vantagem que a organização goza frente aos indivíduos, particularmente frente aos trabalhadores. No aspecto conceitual, problematizamos a questão do ser da organização, ou pelo menos a ideia que dela se faz. Propomos, ao fim, a recuperação do trabalho como categoria central de análise dos fenômenos organizacionais como forma de superar a ameaça de uma teorização reificante.Palavras-chave: Comportamento organizacional, Processos organizativos, Organização, Reificação. Organizational behavior and the reified organization pitfallIn this essay, we argue against the reifying tendency of considering the organization as a thing-in-itself, shadowing the real people and the social relations that lays on it. At the same time, given the necessity of organizing and the increasing mediation role accomplished by organizations in society, we recognize that understanding the organizational phenomena is an important part of the effort to understand society itself. In this knowledge and interest context, we claim that the Organizational Behavior discipline is well positioned to this task and has the resources to counter the tendency to reify the organization. But this does not mean that the discipline is not prone to encounter some pitfalls. For this reason, we question the centrality of the organization in these same studies both in terms of value and concept. In the evaluative aspect, we discuss the privileged position that the organization enjoys vis-à-vis individuals, particularly workers. In the conceptual aspect, we problematize the question of the being of organization, or at least the idea of it. Finally, we propose the use of work as the central analytical category of organizational phenomena to overcome the threat of a reifying theoretical conception.

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