Why supervisors make idiosyncratic deals: antecedents and outcomes of i-deals from a managerial perspective

Purpose – 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. Design/methodology/approach – Structural modeling was used to analyze survey data from n 1⁄4 263 supervisors managing telecommuting employees in the German public administration. Findings – 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. Research limitations/implications – 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. Practical implications – 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. Originality/value – 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.