Public announcements of employee recognitions from customers and customer satisfaction: Longitudinal effects in the healthcare context

This study examines the impact of periodic public announcements of customers’ employee recognitions from a non-monetary employee recognition program on subsequent changes in the number of customers’ employee recognitions and customer satisfaction. Recognized employee customer-oriented behaviors (COB) include helping and comforting patients that go “above and beyond” frontline caregivers’ expected role behaviors. Theory-based hypotheses on the antecedents and consequences of monthly variation in the number of publicly announced COB recognitions are developed by integrating theory and research on determinants of employees’ prosocial behavior, incentive-based rewards, and social dynamics found in social cognitive theory. I find that the number of publicly announced recognitions in one period is positively related to the number of recognitions in the following period. Further, I find a non-linear S-shaped relationship between the number of publicly announced recognitions and average patient satisfaction scores that varies depending on the number of publicly announced recognitions each month.