ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. The book explains how employees negotiate individualized conditions of employment. Negotiability is part and parcel of the free-agent employment pursued by independent contractors and freelancers. Workplace relationships with peers and colleagues make negotiating individual employment conditions far more complicated for employees than for free agents. The book focuses the deals these employees make with their managers and sometimes their coworkers. Idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) typically manifest themselves in the quiet, informal ways in which workers and employers figure out how to make work arrangements flexible enough to meet each other's needs. The book details the roles employers and coworkers play in creating and maintaining i-deals. It also details big-picture issues, addressing cross-national influences and the future promise i-deals offer as a source of innovation and flexibility for both organizations and workers.
