Harold - I still think that jobs and work are part of the master-servant relationship that "modern" employment law defines and HR is scared to challenge that. I wrote a post on Fireside HR about it: https://hrblogatresearchvoice.wordpress.com/2010/09/07/employment-is-a-master-servant-relationship/

Organizational/work design and HR are sometimes not even in the same department, which is one reason why the system is broken. Defining how orgs can design work and grow through their various life cycles would be a very cool thing, but if they are too divorced from other HR functions it becomes disjointed. I would love to see a compendium of ways that work can be designed to capitalize on the networked econ and worker, but still be palatable to organizations who need people to do work. Any recommendations?