Abstract

This study investigated why employees negotiate idiosyncratic deals with their organizations, and interviews with 31 employees who successfully negotiated i-deals showed that three main themes could be identified in the i-deal negotiation process: motives for negotiating (i.e., earned and problem solving), enablers (i.e., relationships and flexibility), and inhibitors (i.e., secrecy, and culture and structure). The study shows that people may have different motives for negotiating i-deals, and subsequently also experience different enabling and inhibiting factors in the process of obtaining i-deals.