ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses the idiosyncrasies that abound in organizations, though not all of them are i-deals that a worker has negotiated. It describes how opportunities for idiosyncrasy arise in employment, whether negotiated or not. The chapter depicts the role that incompleteness, a characteristic of the vast majority of employment arrangements, plays in creating idiosyncrasy. Idiosyncrasies involve virtually any resource exchanged by workers and employers, from concrete items, money, equipment, hours, and specific duties, to intangibles such as interpersonal support and external visibility in one's profession. In the evolution of their work roles, individual workers experience four processes that make their employment in some respect idiosyncratic in relation to that of coworkers ostensibly doing the same job. The four processes are employer-initiated acquiescence, worker-initiated acquiescence, employer-initiated negotiation and worker-initiated i-deals. Finally the chapter maps the forms idiosyncrasy takes and the conditions that determine whether worker and employer must negotiate it or can create it informally.
