Ask and Ye Shall Receive: A Model of Ex-Ante and Ex-Post Idiosyncratic Deal-Making and Outcomes

Prior research in idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) has focused primarily on deals that are negotiated after an employee has been hired, and examined only instances where employees successfully received their requested i-deals. The present study extends these works by disentangling the relationship between the request of i-deals and the receipt of such deals, and investigating the moderating roles of employer openness to i-deals, employee gender, and the supervisor-employee relationship in the link between i-deals request and receipt. The attitudinal outcomes associated with employees' receipt of i-deals are also examined. These relationships are tested for i-deals negotiated prior to (ex-ante) and after hire (ex-post), and that pertain to four different dimensions of i- deal arrangements (developmental, flexibility, task, financial). The overall findings demonstrate that not all employee requests for i- deals are successful, and the likelihood of receiving a requested i- deal is contingent on the three moderating factors examined here. In turn, the receipt of ex-ante and ex-post i-deals has important consequences for employees' job satisfaction, affective commitment, and intention to leave. Implications for research and practice are discussed.