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Denise M. Rousseau. I-Deals: Idiosyncratic Deals Employees Bargain for Themselves. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 259 pages, $29.95 softcover.
It might seem that an analysis of idiosyncrasy would be as orderly as a taxonomic study of anarchy. Yet Rousseau's new book, I-Deals: Idiosyncratic Deals Employees Bargain for Themselves, is crisply organized, scholarly, and coherently argued. Whatever one's initial interest in psychological contracts or idiosyncratic work arrangements (a.k.a. I-deals), Rousseau does a masterful job weaving together her thesis. Hundreds of footnotes throughout the book touch on most aspects of OB/organizational theory through about the year 2003, and naturally her references on I-deals/contracts are even more current. Although its purview is purposefully well defined, and at times monotonously so, this book would be a good choice for a first-year graduate seminar in organizational behavior.
After initially and repeatedly gushing over the polymath virtues of her new husband, Rousseau gets down to business and stays on message. Formally defined, according to Rousseau, "Idiosyncratic deals are voluntary, personalized arrangements of a nonstandardized nature that individual employees negotiate with their employers regarding terms that benefit them both." That is maybe not the entire ball of wax, but the rest, one might say, is commentary.
There are only so many ways one can give the same definition of an I-deal, thus the...