Co-Workers’ Fairness Perceptions of Other’s Idiosyncratic Deals: A Conceputal Process Model

When some employees are granted idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) to satisfy their individual work needs, their co-workers might perceive unfair treatment and exhibit organizational behaviors that decrease the inteded benefit of these arrangements. The acceptance of i-deals, therefore, and their ultimate benefits largely depend on co-workers’ fairness perceptions about i-deals. Yet our understanding of factors shaping co-workers’ fairness perceptions of i-deals, is limited. This paper proposes a conceptual process model of co-workers' fairness perceptions of i-deals that they observe for others and captures the factors impacting those perceptions. Our central argument in developing this model is that co-workers' fairness perceptions are shaped throughout the i-deal implementation process that entails four phases: negotiation process, allocation of i-deals, communication of arrangements, and consequences of i-deals. The study has important implications for i-deals literature, as it shifts attention from predominant social comparison and equity dynamics and introduces a more comprehensive model of co-workers’ fairness perceptions shaped throughout the i-deal implementation process.