With the increasingly diverse personal needs of employees in contemporary workplaces, organizations have realized that a one-size-fits-all approach is not sufficient for every employee. Indeed, it has become a more common practice for individual employees to try to negotiate special arrangements with their employers. Scholars have defined these individual arrangements as idiosyncratic deals (i-deals), referring to voluntary and customized terms of a nonstandard nature regarding an individual’s employment conditions (J. Greenberg et al., 2004; Rousseau et al., 2006). I-deals are considered crucial in recruiting, retaining, and motivating valued employees in many industries (Rousseau et al., 2006); thus, they have garnered considerable scholarly attention. It has been found that i-deals are closely associated with positive work-related outcomes, including job satisfaction (Rosen et al., 2013), organizational commitment (Liu et al., 2013), work engagement (Hornung et al., 2010), and job performance (Liao et al., 2016). Further, having an i-deal can boost employees’ organizational citizenship behavior (Anand et al., 2010), voice (Ng & Feldman, 2015), and helping behavior (Guerrero & Challiol-Jeanblanc, 2016).

Although a large body of research has been conducted to explore the influence of i-deals on recipients, these arrangements may have broader implications beyond the recipient (Rousseau et al., 2006). Little is known about how i-deals impact other, nonrecipient employees who observe some of their peers benefiting from these arrangements (Lai et al., 2009; Zhang et al., 2020). J. Greenberg et al. (2004) stated that the ultimate effectiveness of an i-deal may be determined by a triangle formed by the employer, the recipient employee, and witnesses. Although the role of witnesses has long been recognized, empirical research on the effects of i-deals on third parties remains in its infancy (Kong et al., 2020; Marescaux et al., 2019; Ng, 2017). Thus, the main purpose of our study was to explore the consequences of i-deals from the third-party perspective.

Applying social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954) and equity theory (Adams, 1963), we explored how witnessing others’ i-deals affects witnesses’ responses. Social comparison theory suggests that there is a natural motivation in human beings to compare themselves with others (Festinger, 1954). Because of the within-group heterogeneity nature of i-deals, witnesses may inevitably compare their work arrangements with those of the recipients of i-deals (Vidyarthi et al., 2016). The major tenet of equity theory (Adams, 1963) is that perceptions of inequity may emerge when individuals perceive that they receive less than others. Because i-deals are an important work-related resource, accordingly, we proposed that witnessing others’ i-deals may cause nonrecipient employees to engage in a comparison process, thus triggering feelings of unfairness. Furthermore, equity theory indicates that such perceptions of inequity may motivate individuals to seek to restore equity. Studies on unfairness have suggested that individuals may react defensively toward a source who puts them in an unfair situation, leading to poor or hostile interpersonal relationships, involving actions such as interpersonal harming, gossiping, or spreading rumors (Cohen-Charash & Mueller, 2007). As a social mechanism, cooperation intention is specified as an indicator representing employees’ interpersonal behaviors in the work-group setting (Kim, 2012). Therefore, we speculated that individuals’ feelings of unfairness may cause decreased cooperation intention with i-dealers. Moreover, the literature has revealed that individuals’ reactions toward others’ i-deals may be constrained by personal (Huo et al., 2014) and contextual factors (Vidyarthi et al., 2016). Thus, we included witnesses’ perceived future i-deals (personal factor) and perceived task interdependence (contextual factor) as two crucial moderators in our conceptual model. We further proposed that these two moderators may alter the salience of comparison and, thus, employees’ responses to others’ i-deals. The theoretical model is depicted in Figure 1.

Theory and Hypotheses

The Mediating Role of Witnesses’ Feelings of Unfairness

Applying social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954) and equity theory (Adams, 1963), we first argued that witnessing others’ i-deals may increase employees’ feelings of unfairness, which refers to the general experience of perceiving work events as unjust and inequitable (Robbins et al., 2012). According to social comparison theory, people choose as their comparison targets those whose abilities or opinions are close to their own (Festinger, 1954). In organizations, employees tend to compare themselves with their peers, because they have a similar work background and responsibilities. Thus, if nonrecipient employees witness their peers’ i-deals, they may tend to engage in a social comparison process (Liu et al., 2013; Vidyarthi et al., 2016).

Development i-deals mean that i-dealers receive more working resources than others, such as promotion opportunities, training opportunities, or challenging work assignments. As work-related resources are usually limited in the workplace, i-deals for one employee may signify fewer comparable opportunities for other employees. According to equity theory (Adams, 1963), individuals not only evaluate their own input–outcome ratios but also those of their comparative referents, and feelings of unfairness may occur when they perceive the inequality of input–outcome ratios (Adams, 1963; Sweeney, 1990). Thus, we speculated that witnesses may perceive their coworkers as receiving more valuable working resources than they themselves do, and may believe they are treated unfairly. Our argument is in line with those of previous i-deals studies, which suggested that such differential treatment may cause perceptions of unfairness amongst third parties (J. Greenberg et al., 2004; Rousseau et al., 2006). Therefore, we proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: Witnessing others’ development i-deals will be positively related to employees’ feelings of unfairness.

An increasing number of studies have suggested that the perception of unfairness can adversely affect physical and mental health (Robbins et al., 2012), satisfaction, and performance (J. Greenberg, 1996). According to social comparison theory, individuals’ comparisons with others can shape their subsequent behaviors toward the comparison targets (Goodman & Haisley, 2007). Thus, we proposed that employees’ feelings of unfairness may be negatively associated with their cooperation intention with the employees who have i-deals.

According to the attribution model of fairness, if people perceive that a situation is unfair, they may blame and harm the source of the perceived unfairness (L. Greenberg & Barling, 1999). In previous research, perceptions of unfairness have also been identified as an important determinant of interpersonal counterproductive work behaviors, showing that individuals can react negatively to events that are perceived as unfair (Cohen-Charash & Mueller, 2007). Hence, if employees receive fewer resources in the organization compared to the amount that they perceive they should receive, or compared to the amount that their peers have received, a feeling of unfairness could become manifest and thereby cause employees to perform negative behaviors, such as avoidance, withdrawal, or harming behaviors, to make their peers look bad, thus venting their anger at being treated unfairly (Cohen-Charash & Mueller, 2007). Therefore, we argued that witnesses may adopt a negative strategy toward i-deal recipients who have put them in a disadvantaged position. This strategy could involve reducing their cooperation and collaboration to retaliate against i-dealers in the group. Accordingly, we proposed the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 2: Employees’ feelings of unfairness will be negatively related to their cooperation intention in the group.
Hypothesis 3: Employees’ feelings of unfairness will mediate the relationship between witnessing others’ development i-deals and employees’ cooperation intention.

The Moderating Roles of Perceived Future Idiosyncratic Deals and Perceived Task Interdependence

Perceived future i-deals means individuals believe that they will have opportunities to obtain comparable i-deals in the future (Lai et al., 2009). We argued that employees’ perceived future i-deals may buffer the effect of them witnessing others’ development i-deals on their feelings of unfairness. Specifically, in the context of a perceived high likelihood of opportunities for more access to future i-deals, this reduces the distinctiveness of i-deals (Guerrero & Challiol-Jeanblanc, 2016). Because the witnesses also have the chance to obtain i-deals themselves, the comparison between their work arrangements and recipients’ i-deals may be less salient (Buunk & Gibbons, 2007). Thus, the perception of a high likelihood of future i-deals may lower witnesses’ evaluations of the special value of i-deals, and thus mitigate their feelings of unfairness. In contrast, in the context of low perceived opportunity for future i-deals, the comparison of limited organizational resources will be more salient, and the witnesses will be more sensitive to the distribution of resources (Huo et al., 2014). Under this condition, the comparison between recipients and witnesses may amplify the influence of i-deals on unfairness. Thus, we proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 4: Employees' perception of future i-deals will moderate the positive relationship between their witnessing others’ development i-deals and their feelings of unfairness, such that this relationship will be weaker for employees who perceive a higher likelihood of obtaining future i-deals.

Task interdependence means that individuals are dependent on the support of peers in their group to accomplish their work (Vidyarthi et al., 2016). Studies have suggested that task interdependence can affect performance processes and outcomes (Liden et al., 1997). When task interdependence is high, extensive interaction, greater communication, coordinated action, information sharing, and cooperation are necessary for goal achievement (Liden et al., 2006; Vidyarthi et al., 2014). Therefore, we argued that witnesses who perceived high task interdependence may have to show more cooperation intention with other members of their group even though they feel that they are being treated unfairly. Moreover, for those employees with a perception of high task interdependence, the performance of certain individuals can positively affect the performance of the team as a whole (Liden et al., 1997, 2006). Such a belief may help eliminate the negative impact of perceived unfairness on the cooperation intention of these individuals. Thus, we proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 5: Employees’ perceived task interdependence will moderate the negative relationship between their feelings of unfairness and their cooperation intention, such that this relationship will be weaker for employees who perceive high task interdependence.

Method

Participants and Procedure

Our sample consisted of Master of Business Administration students at two universities in northern China, who were employed in various professions including education, consulting, engineering, and information technology. With the support of the teaching affairs offices at the universities, we obtained lists of students who could participate in the survey and numbered each of them with a four-digit code. The research was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the ethical guidelines of the Ethical Review Board of Beijing Jiaotong University. Participants were informed that their involvement in the study was completely voluntary.

To avoid common method bias, we collected data in three waves. We first distributed 359 survey forms at Time 1, and asked participants to report on whether they had witnessed others’ development i-deals, their perception of future i-deals, their perceived task interdependence, and demographic variables. A month later, at Time 2, they reported on their feelings of unfairness. After the same interval, at Time 3, they reported on their cooperation intention. Finally, the complete set of valid responses included 284 individuals (effective rate of response = 79.11%). Among the participants, 172 (60.56%) were men and 112 (39.44%) were women, the average age was 27.52 years (SD = 1.74, range = 24–31), and the average organizational tenure was 4.41 years (SD = 1.98, range = 1.00–7.92).

Measures

All items were rated on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = completely disagree or not at all to 7 = completely agree or to a very great extent).

Witnessing Others’ Development Idiosyncratic Deals
Witnessing others’ development i-deals was measured with Ng’s four-item scale (2017). A sample item is “Some of my coworkers have successfully negotiated special opportunities for skill development that I did not receive.” Cronbach’s alpha in this study was .92.

Feelings of Unfairness
Feelings of unfairness were assessed with a six-item scale developed by Ambrose and Schminke (2009), on which participants report the extent to which they agree with the statements when they witness others’ development i-deals. A sample item is “The treatment I receive around here is fair.” Cronbach’s alpha in this study was .96.

Cooperation Intention
We used a three-item scale developed by Kim (2012) to measure cooperation intention. A sample item is “I want to work alone rather than working with i-dealers.” Cronbach’s alpha in this study was .84.

Perceived Future Idiosyncratic Deals
A four-item scale developed by Guerrero and Challiol-Jeanblanc (2016) was used to measure employees’ perceived future i-deals. A sample item is “I can have the same special individual arrangements as my peers if I ask.” Cronbach’s alpha in this study was .92.

Perceived Task Interdependence
Participants reported the extent to which they perceived the interdependence between their own role and i-dealers’ jobs with a three-item scale developed by Pearce and Gregersen (1991). A sample item is “I often must coordinate my efforts with the i-dealers in my work group or department.” Cronbach’s alpha in this study was .92.

Control Variables
Following previous research (Ng, 2017), we controlled for participants’ demographic variables, including age, gender, and organizational tenure.

Results

Common Method Bias

We performed Harman’s single-factor test to assess the presence of common method bias. Results show that the first factor explained 32.66% of the total variance, which is less than the critical standard of 40%, and that 81.45% of the total variance was explained. Thus, there was no serious common method bias in this study (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis

To calculate the discriminant validity of the measurement model, we performed a confirmatory factor analysis and compared the hypothesized five-factor model with several alternative models. The fit indices in Table 1 show that the five-factor model had a better fit to the data compared with that of the competing models.

Descriptive Analyses

Table 2 presents the means, standard deviations, correlations, and Cronbach’s alphas for study variables. Witnessing others’ development i-deals, feelings of unfairness, cooperation intention, perceived future i-deals, and perceived task interdependence all exhibited high internal consistency and reliability.

Hypothesis Testing

We used the PROCESS macro executed in SPSS to test the proposed hypotheses by conducting a bootstrapping analysis with 5,000 resamples (Preacher et al., 2007). PROCESS model 21 was used to estimate the indirect and interaction effects (see Table 3). Witnessing others’ development i-deals had a significant positive effect on the feelings of unfairness (β = .20, SE = 0.07, p < .01), and employees’ feelings of unfairness were negatively related to cooperation intention (β = -.39, SE = 0.05, p < .01). Thus, Hypotheses 1 and 2 were supported. In addition, the mediating role of feelings of unfairness in the relationship between witnessing others’ development i-deals and cooperation intention was significant (β = –.08, SE = 0.03, p < .01), supporting Hypothesis 3. Further, the interaction between witnessing others’ development i-deals and perceived future i-deals was negatively related to employees’ feelings of unfairness (β = –.23, SE = 0.03, p < .01), supporting Hypothesis 4. Finally, the interaction between employees’ feelings of unfairness and perceived task interdependence was positively related to employees’ cooperation intention with i-dealers (β = .17, SE = 0.02, p < .01), supporting Hypothesis 5.

A simple slope analysis was performed to further identify the moderating effects of perceived future i-deals and perceived task interdependence. As shown in Figure 2, the effect of witnessing others’ development i-deals on witnesses’ feelings of unfairness was significantly more positive for employees who reported that they perceived a low (M − 1 SD) versus high (M + 1 SD) level of future i-deals. The simple slopes for the two groups were 0.61 (p < .01) and –0.21 (p < .05), respectively. As shown in Figure 3, when employees’ perceived task interdependence was low (M − 1 SD), the relationship between employees’ feelings of unfairness and cooperation intention was mostly negative (β = –.66, p < .01). In contrast, when employees’ perceived task interdependence was high (M + 1 SD), the relationship between employees’ feelings of unfairness and cooperation intention was not significant (β = –.12, p > .05).

Discussion

In this study we constructed a theoretical model based on social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954) and equity theory (Adams, 1963) to explore the effects of others’ development i-deals on witnesses’ reactions. We found that witnessing others’ development i-deals triggered feelings of unfairness, which reduced witnesses’ cooperation intention with i-dealers. Further, witnesses’ feelings of unfairness played a mediating role. We also found that witnessing others’ development i-deals had a weaker relationship with feelings of unfairness when witnesses perceived that there was a high possibility of them obtaining i-deals in the future. Witnesses’ perception of task interdependence also weakened the negative effect of feelings of unfairness on cooperation intention.

Theoretical Implications

This study makes several contributions from a theoretical perspective. First, we have enriched the i-deals literature by investigating the influences of development i-deals on third parties. Previous i-deals research has tended to investigate the impacts of i-deals on recipients only (Liao et al., 2016). However, J. Greenberg et al. (2004) and Rousseau et al. (2006) indicated that the final effectiveness of i-deals may be shaped by a triangle formed by supervisors, recipients, and witnesses. We have responded to this call by investigating the consequences of i-deals from the third-party perspective (Vidyarthi et al., 2016).

Second, we have challenged the assumption that i-deals are always beneficial. Previous studies have found that i-deals are useful for increasing recipients’ work motivation and productivity (Bal et al., 2012), which can bring great benefits to organizations. Indeed, i-deals are primarily designed to satisfy leaders’ and i-dealers’ needs, and to benefit both parties. However, because of within-group heterogeneity, i-deals may also cause some negative effects. The results in our study show that i-deals can increase witnesses’ feelings of unfairness, which then decreases their cooperation intention with i-dealers. Scholars have called for investigations of how comparisons of i-deals determine work outcomes with negative repercussions for i-dealers (Kong et al., 2020). Responding to this call, we have provided a more complete picture by revealing i-deals’ potential negative influences.

Third, we built a model based on social comparison theory and equity theory. Current i-deals studies have leveraged social exchange theory to explain why supervisors authorize i-deals and why recipients reciprocate (Huo et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2013; Ng & Feldman, 2015). By also integrating equity theory, we were able to include witnesses’ feelings of unfairness to serve as a mediator of the link between i-deals and the third party’s reactions. Therefore, we have responded to the call of Liao et al. (2016) through developing a framework to explain how the comparison of others’ i-deals shapes witnesses’ feelings of unfairness and subsequent cooperation intention.

Managerial Implications

There are also implications of our findings for practice. First, the results show that witnessing others’ development i-deals can evoke witnesses’ feelings of unfairness, and thus reduce their intention to cooperate with i-dealers. This suggests that i-deals operate in a social context, rather than in a vacuum, and that witnesses inevitably compare their work arrangements with those in receipt of i-deals. Thus, to maximize the effectiveness of i-deals, managers should calculate the potential costs and benefits before they authorize an i-deal.

Second, the results show that the effect of witnessing development i-deals on feelings of unfairness is weaker when witnesses perceive that they can obtain comparable future i-deals. This suggests that increasing the procedural transparency of authorization for i-deals may be helpful to mitigate the costs of i-deals (i.e., witnesses’ perception of unfairness). In other words, a transparent process of authorizing i-deals would reduce information asymmetries and would allow nonrecipient employees to evaluate their likelihood of obtaining i-deals in the future, thus reducing feelings of unfairness. It may also be necessary for managers to provide opportunities for nonrecipients when they have been deemed to meet the necessary requirements.

Third, our results indicate that witness employees’ perceived task interdependence weakened the negative effect of feelings of unfairness on cooperation intention. This implies that increasing the collaboration requirement in daily work processes and activities may help to advance communication between group members and develop a cooperative atmosphere in the workgroup, thus improving nonrecipient employees’ cooperation intention. Moreover, i-dealers should be encouraged to engage in more helping behaviors or other extrarole behaviors toward those who have not received i-deals to eliminate nonrecipients’ feelings of unfairness.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

Our study has some potential limitations. First, although the final results did not suggest the presence of substantive common method bias, a nontrivial impact cannot be entirely ruled out because all measurements were self-reported. However, we addressed the impact of witnessing others’ development i-deals on witnesses’ psychological and behavioral reactions, so self-reporting of those variables may be reasonable. We also separated our data collection into three waves to reduce the influence of common method variance. Second, according to social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954) and equity theory (Adams, 1963), we used witnesses’ feelings of unfairness as a mediator in our model. Future researchers could examine other mediation mechanisms based on other theories that may link i-deals and third-party reactions. For example, social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) indicates that when nonrecipient employees witness others benefiting from i-deals, they may exhibit information-seeking behaviors to improve their performance, to the end of increasing their own chances of obtaining an i-deal in the future. Third, studies are needed to examine how authorizing i-deals may impact on supervisors themselves. Thus, future researchers could explore how and under which boundary conditions i-deals might affect supervisors.

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Sponsored by Beijing Jiaotong University Science and Technology Funding (2018JBWZB003).

Hui Deng, School of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Haidian District, Beijing, People’s Republic of China. Email: [email protected], or Yuanyuan Lan, School of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Haidian District, Beijing, People’s Republic of China. Email: [email protected]