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As personalized work arrangements, idiosyncratic deals can activate employees’ energy and thus affect their innovative performance. The purpose of this study was to examine whether employee vitality mediates the relationships between two different types of idiosyncratic deals and the innovative performance of employees and whether the mediating effects are moderated by employees’ age.

Matched data were collected from 620 employees and their direct supervisors who work in two large Chinese technology R&D organizations.

Results indicate that two different types of i-deals (task and work responsibilities i-deals and flexibility i-deals) are positively related to the innovative performance of employees and that vitality mediates those relationships. Further, chronological age enhances the positive relationship between task and work responsibilities i-deals and vitality, and it enhances the indirect effect that task and work responsibilities i-deals relate to the innovative performance of employees through vitality. However, the results of this study indicate that the moderating effect of chronological age on flexibility i-deals and vitality, as well as the moderated mediation effects of vitality on the relationship between flexibility i-deals and the innovative performance of employees, did not meet the standard for significance.

Based on the cognitive evaluation theory, this study explores more deeply the mechanism by which task and work responsibilities i-deals and flexibility i-deals activate employees’ energy and thus influence their innovative performance. In addition, this study comprehensively considers the moderating effect of chronological age, an important demographic variable, on the mechanism of idiosyncratic deals.

This study aims to examine the direct and indirect effects of self-efficacy, networking abilities and perceived employability on the negotiation of idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) between individual workers and their employers.

In total, 213 managerial professionals – a non-random sample – working for different small and medium-sized enterprises from several industries in Argentina were surveyed online. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

The results revealed that self-efficacy and networking abilities exert an indirect effect on i-deal negotiation through perceived employability. Those individuals with higher levels of self-efficacy or greater networking abilities tend to develop more positive perceptions of their employability and, therefore, are more prompted to negotiate i-deals with their employers.

This research sheds light on the dynamics underlying the relationship of employees' characteristics and skills with i-deal negotiation. Besides, it provides further evidence that individual bargaining has become widespread in professional employment contexts, above and beyond the collective labor agreements that prevail in most Latin American countries.

Self-efficacy and networking abilities can be relevant individual factors in understanding i-deal negotiation, given that both shape employees' perceptions of employability.

Although the impact of employee characteristics and skills on the idiosyncratic negotiation of employment terms has been broadly recognized, scholars have called for further exploration of the mechanisms underlying this relationship. By simultaneously investigating the impact of self-efficacy, networking abilities and perceived employability on i-deals, this study provides a more comprehensive understanding of how an individual's personal characteristics and skills facilitate the idiosyncratic negotiation of employment terms.

Este estudio examina los efectos directos e indirectos de la autoeficacia, las habilidades de networking y la empleabilidad percibida en la negociación de acuerdos idiosincráticos (i-deals) entre los empleados, en forma individual, y sus empleadores.

213 gerentes profesionales – muestra no aleatoria – que trabajaban en PyMEs pertenecientes a diversas industrias en Argentina completaron encuestas de modo online. Las hipótesis fueron testeadas utilizando modelos de ecuaciones estructurales.

Los resultados revelaron que la autoeficacia y las habilidades de networking ejercen un efecto indirecto en la negociación de i-deals a través de la empleabilidad percibida. Aquellos individuos con niveles más altos de autoeficacia o mayores habilidades de networking tienden a desarrollar percepciones más positivas de su empleabilidad y, por lo tanto, están más dispuestos a negociar i-deals con sus empleadores.

Esta investigación contribuye a dilucidar la dinámica que subyace la relación entre las características y habilidades de los empleados y la negociación de i-deals. Asimismo, provee una evidencia adicional de que la negociación individual se ha extendido en contextos de empleo de tipo profesional, más allá de las negociaciones colectivas de trabajo que prevalecen en la mayoría de los países de América Latina.

La autoeficacia y las habilidades de networking pueden ser factores individuales relevantes para comprender la negociación de i-deals, siendo que ambos moldean la propia percepción de empleabilidad del individuo.

Aunque el impacto de las características y habilidades de los empleados en la negociación idiosincrática de los términos de empleo ha sido ampliamente reconocido en estudios anteriores, se ha planteado la necesidad de continuar examinando los mecanismos subyacentes a dicha relación. Al investigar simultáneamente el impacto de la autoeficacia, las habilidades de networking y la empleabilidad percibida en la negociación de i-deals, este estudio provee una comprensión más completa de cómo las características y habilidades personales del individuo facilitan la negociación idiosincrática de los términos de empleo.

Idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) have been shown to influence several employee outcomes positively. To extend the research, the authors examine the effect of i-deals on employees’ perceptions of organizational justice, in particular, how the relationship between employees’ own i-deals and organizational justice is affected by employees' job performance as well as their perceptions of coworkers’ i-deals.

The authors tested the theoretical model using survey data from 182 hotel employees.

Results show that i-deals are positively related to employees’ perceptions of organizational justice and that such effects are stronger among high performing employees. The effect of i-deals on organizational justice was also more pronounced among employees who viewed coworkers as having successfully negotiated i-deals.

The authors' findings suggest that organizations can benefit from providing i-deals through employees’ enhanced perceptions of organizational justice. The paper thus recommends that organizations understand the impact of providing more flexible human resources (HR) practices and customized work arrangements that are aligned with individual goals and needs. This may be particularly relevant to high performers. Furthermore, the findings suggest that organizations may want to make i-deals available to employees more widely than to just a few selected individuals.

This study is one of a few attempts that empirically investigate the relationship between i-deals and organizational justice. The findings of this study shed light on the possibility that employees develop positive justice perceptions toward employeesʼ organization based on the appreciation of the customized work arrangements granted to both themselves and others.

Idiosyncratic deals are personalized employment conditions individual workers have negotiated. This study aims to investigate influences on supervisors' authorization of i‐deals and their evaluation of these arrangements.

Structural modeling was used to analyze survey data from n=263 supervisors managing telecommuting employees in the German public administration.

Supervisors differentiated among i‐deals regarding development, flexibility, and workload reduction. Their authorization of developmental i‐deals was influenced by employee initiative. Supervisors viewed these i‐deals to have positive implications for employee motivation and performance. Flexibility i‐deals were influenced by structural conditions such as the type of work the employee performed. Supervisors viewed these i‐deals to enhance work‐life benefits. Supervisors tended to grant workload reduction i‐deals in the context of unfulfilled organizational obligations towards employees.

Relying on single‐source cross‐sectional data, our results provide a managerial perspective on i‐deals. Conclusions regarding implications for employees are tentative. Recommendations for future study designs are discussed.

Managers need to better recognize that i‐deals take different forms, and these forms are associated with different outcomes. I‐deals provide a way to experiment with innovative human resource practices.

This is the first study to examine i‐deals from a supervisor perspective. It is the first to identify differential circumstances and consequences managers associate with authorizing three distinct forms of i‐deals.

This paper aims to investigate how different types of idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) in the hospitality industry enhance occupational well-being (OWB) through organization-based self-esteem (OBSE).

In 2019, 679 questionnaires were distributed to middle- and high-level managerial staff who had worked in high-end hotels in China for at least 1 year, and 642 valid responses were collected. The survey data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Follow-up interviews were conducted with 20 hotel managers to verify and lend additional support to the survey findings.

Both task i-deals and career and incentives i-deals positively affected OBSE and OWB, whereas flexibility i-deals negatively affected OBSE. OBSE positively affected OWB, thereby mediating the relationships between the three types of i-deals and OWB.

This study is groundbreaking in its exploration of how various i-deals contribute to OWB through OBSE among middle- and high-level managerial staff. The findings provide initial evidence of the links between i deals, OBSE and OWB and demonstrate how i-deals can address the practical problem of the shortage and loss of competent operational and administrative talent in the hospitality industry.

This paper examines the relationship between timing of negotiations and idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) through the moderating effects of core self-evaluations (CSE), and between i-deals and employee reactions through the moderating effects of transformational leadership behaviour (TLB) in the Indian hospitality industry.

A total of 275 employees working in 39 companies responded to a self-administered questionnaire. To test the research hypotheses, the methodology of structural equation models was used.

The results show that the relationship between before hiring negotiations and i-deals is stronger for those individuals who had low self-worth, due to countervailing forces created by their belief that they may not be eligible for i-deals. In contrast, the relationship between after hiring negotiations and i-deals is stronger for those who had high self-worth, due to their belief that they were entitled to i-deals. Additionally, the research highlights that the relationship between i-deals and employee reactions is stronger for those organisations, which are high on TLB.

The data does not allow for investigating dynamic causal inferences, because they were collected using a questionnaire at a single point in time, and they were reported in retrospect, raising measurement concerns about recall bias.

From a managerial point of view, the findings of this study inform that in negotiating both employment conditions and work arrangements, organisations should try to achieve i-deals that are primarily flexibility focused, and that in increasing efficiency organisations should make the employees feel well supported in order to develop more confidence in deploying skills and abilities to address a more open view of their i-deals.

The study contributes to our understanding about the Indian hospitality industry by utilising the self-enhancement theory in examining whether individual differences moderate the relationship between the timing of negotiations and i-deals, and also by utilizing the social exchange theory to examine whether TLB moderates the relationship between i-deals and employee reactions.

Idiosyncratic jobs occur when formal job duties match the abilities or interests of a specific person. New duties can accrue or be negotiated to match an existing employee or a potential hire. Idiosyncratic jobs can help organizations deal with changing contexts, and influence organizational goals and structure. They can affect job holders’ careers and organizational job structures. The evolutionary accumulation of idiosyncratic jobs can potentially generate unplanned organizational learning. Promising research frontiers include links to work on job crafting, I-Deals, negotiated joining, and ecologies of jobs. Deeper exploration of these domains can advance core theories of job design and organizational transformation and inform normative theory on organizational use of idiosyncratic jobs without falling into cronyism, inefficiency, or injustice.

In response to demands and opportunities of the labor market, contemporary employers and employees voluntarily are entering into highly customized agreements regarding nonstandard employment terms. We refer to such idiosyncratic deals as “i-deals,” acknowledging that these arrangements are intended to benefit all parties. Examples of i-deals include an employee with highly coveted skills who is compensated more generously than other employees doing comparable work, and an employee who is granted atypically flexible working hours to accommodate certain personal life demands. The nonstandard nature of i-deals is likely to prompt questions about the fairness of the arrangement among three principal stakeholders – employees who receive the i-deal, managers with whom the i-deal is negotiated, and the co-workers of these employees and managers. We analyze issues of fairness that arise in the relationships among all three pairings of these stakeholders through the lenses of four established forms of organizational justice – distributive justice, procedural justice, interpersonal justice, and informational justice. Our discussion sheds light on previously unexplored nuances of i-deals and identifies several neglected theoretical issues of organizational justice. In addition to highlighting these conceptual advances, we also discuss methods by which the fairness of i-deals can be promoted.

Transformational leadership (TFL) has been suggested to create positive changes in employees with the goal of developing them into leaders. The authors integrate this well-established leadership style with recent research on idiosyncratic deals (i-deals). The authors suggest TFL as a predictor of task and development-based i-deals, and propose i-deals as a mediating mechanism linking TFL to employee outcomes (job satisfaction, job stress and manager-rated performance).

The authors used a time-lagged research design, and collected four waves of data from 140 employees and 78 leaders.

TFL was found to be an important predictor of i-deals. I-deals predicted job satisfaction and job stress; and it mediated the relationship between TFL and these two employee outcomes. Yet, i-deals were not associated with employee performance and did not mediate the relationship.

First, it shows that transformational leaders who consider employees' unique skills and support their professional growth are more likely to grant personalized arrangements. Second, drawing from social exchange theory, it illustrates that i-deals may act as a linkage between TFL and employee outcomes. The paper bridges leadership and i-deals literature to identify key leverage points through which leaders can enhance employee satisfaction, well-being and performance.

The purpose of this paper is to rely on the sponsored-mobility perspective of career success (Turner, 1960) to explore the antecedents and consequences of development idiosyncratic deals (i-deals). The authors position career planning as an antecedent of development i-deals, and subjective and objective measures of career success as an outcome.

The authors led a two-wave study among a sample of 325 engineers to test the research hypotheses.

Results support the hypotheses. Development i-deals are positively related to three objective measures of career success (e.g. promotions, hierarchical level, and salary) and one subjective measure of career success (e.g. career satisfaction).

The results offer new perspectives to practitioners who want to better manage the careers of their talented employees by highlighting the positive effects of development i-deals on career success.

This paper relates i-deals to the field of careers.