Phenomenographic Analysis of School Principals’ Understandings of Teachers’ Idiosyncratic Deals

Purpose: Idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) is a concept that describes agreements between an employer or its representative and individual employees on personalized arrangements that benefit both the employee and the organization. The aim of this study is to determine how many different ways school principals understand the i-deals they make with teachers. Method: Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with sixteen school principals who were diversified in terms of the sector (public/private), school level, and gender. This study was conceived in the tradition of phenomenography within the framework of qualitative methodology. Phenomenography is a research method that aims to reveal how many different ways a group of participants experience and understand a particular phenomenon. Findings: Results indicate that participants understood these agreements in five different ways: (A1) An acceptable practice to motivate teachers if it does not lead to certain problems. (A2) A practice I would not prefer to the systems I use for problematic issues in my school. (A3) In some cases, it is a practice that teachers deserve. (A4) Although it carries some risks, it is still a necessary practice to increase motivation and remove obstacles to performance, and (A5) A necessary practice to benefit from teachers with key skills. Consistent with the logic of phenomenographic design, these understandings were ordered hierarchically based on the extent to which one understanding encompasses the other. Implications for Research and Practice: Informing all stakeholders of i-deals —particularly the founders who set employment policies in their private schools and all teachers who are sometimes opponents of i-deals granted to their colleagues— about the importance and function of i-deals and the benefits they can provide to school effectiveness will help school principals in their efforts to implement these personalized arrangements.