Idiosyncratic deals, Perceived Work Ability and Turnover Intention: Toward Greater Understanding of Disability Type

Numerous studies provided evidence for the potentially positive effect of idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) on employee attitudes, yet little is known about how they might affect work outcomes for employees with disabilities, a marginalized and understudied group. The present study builds on conservation of resources theory to explain how i-deals negotiation might influence perceived work ability among employees with disabilities, and in turn, their turnover intention. Further, this study is among the first to compare the experiences of employees with physical, psychological and no disabilities. We then test our hypotheses using field data from 19,770 employees working for a large German service organization. We find the negative direct effect of i-deals on turnover intention to be stronger for employees with physical disabilities than for those without disabilities. Further, the results indicate a significant mediation effect of i-deals on turnover intention through perceived work ability for all employee groups. As expected, we find a tendency for this mediation effect to increase in magnitude when going from the conditions “having a physical” or “having no disability” to the condition “having a psychological disability”. Implications for research, theory and practice are discussed.