Let's Make a Deal: Development and Validation of the Ex Post I-Deals Scale

Idiosyncratic deals (or i-deals) are mutually beneficial, personalized agreements of a nonstandard nature that are negotiated between individual employees and their employers. This article outlines the development of a 16-item measure of i-deals negotiated by job incumbents. Across four studies, the authors developed a reliable scale with a multidimensional factor structure that replicated across three separate samples. Study 1 was aimed at verifying that they had appropriately specified the domains across which i-deals are negotiated. In Study 2, the authors developed a measure of i-deals and confirmed its reliability and factor structure. Studies 3 and 4 provided further evidence for the psychometric properties of the i-deals measure and examined antecedents and outcomes of i-deals. Overall, the results indicate that employees negotiate i-deals across four content domains (i.e., schedule flexibility, location flexibility, task and work responsibilities, and financial incentives) and that i-deals have important implications for work attitudes.