Former Students include: Karl Aquino, Eric Barends, Guillermo Dabos, Violet Ho, Lai Lei, Laurie Levesque, Gerard Beenen, Ranga Ranganujam, and Sandra Robinson.
The psychological contract is a system of beliefs an individual holds regarding an exchange arrangement with another (e.g., employment, customer/supplier relationship, family tie or marriage).
Psychological contracts when first formed tend to be incomplete since fully understanding or anticipating the demands in an ongoing employment arrangement may be unrealistic.
Rousseau's research identified the often hidden but widespread phenomenon of idiosyncratic deals, whereby individual employees bargain for employment arrangements different from their peers.
After considering alternative explanations, this observation lead to recognition that individual workers influence the terms of their own employment arrangements.
Heterogeneous: At least some of the specific terms included in an i-deal are specially provided to that individual, differing from conditions created for other employees in similar positions or in the same work group.
For example, one worker with an i-deal might have distinctly more flexible hours than peers but otherwise share with them the same pay, job duties, and other conditions of employment.
In contrast, another worker might have a more novel, customized arrangement in which almost all employment terms are specially negotiated, from pay and hours, to duties and title.
A comprehensive treatment of EBM is available through Barends and Rousseau (2018), the Center for Evidence-Based Management website, and free on-line courses developed at Carnegie Mellon.